Upgrade advice?

[Mellman]

Well my parents need a new computer, and I typically use these opportunities to upgrade my own rig, and pass mine off to them.

I've currently got a P5B Deluxe with an E6400 running at 2.9Ghz on air.

Being out of the loop for a few months I've missed the latest gen Motherboards.

My only issue with my current setup is that I have 4GB of DDR2, and only 3GB is showing up. I know that the Bios is reserving 1GB for hardware, but I remember reading that next gen boards won't be doing this so the full 4GB will be shown to the OS(if the OS Supports it) Just sorta curious about that

Any suggestions? probably $200 area for a mobo, and an E6420 or faster CPU. need two PCI-E slots one for my areca raid card and one for my gpu.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If you use a 64-bit OS you will see all 4GB available.

If you want a new Mobo look at the Abit IP35 Pro.

 

[Ozoneman]

There are several good P35 boards. From what I've seen, I think Gigabyte has some good models.

 

[Mellman]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
If you use a 64-bit OS you will see all 4GB available.

If you want a new Mobo look at the Abit IP35 Pro.

no...this is not the case. On my mobo, it see's 4GB in bios, and 4GB on post, but 64bit Vista see's only 3GB.

I'll take a look at the P35 boards thanks