Very inexpensive MB for E2160 Core2 build

[mazeroth]

I'm piecing together a very inexpensive HTPC for my basement theater which is hooked up to a Mitsubishi HD1000U 720p DLP projector. I was going to go with a cheap AM2 X2 3600 processor but after reading about the new E2140 and E2160 Intel Core2s I think I'm going to go that route instead. What I need is a very cheap motherboard that overclocks relatively well with no other bells and whistles like on-board audio (I think they all have this) or video (will be using a PCI-E card). The only PCI cards I'll be installing are a wireless-G card and an HDTV tuner card so I can probably get away with a micro ATX.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

 

[lopri]

See here.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2045431&enterthread=y

Gary seems to put AMD's offerings slightly ahead of Intel camp, and I do agree as far as mATX. If you're not using on-board video/audio, you can look up his take on Intel's offerings. (But if you're using a stand-alone sound card and a video card, why not get a full ATX?)

 

[mazeroth]

Thanks for the link. I'll keep that into consideration.

Anyone else?

 

[zagood]

Maximum PC also picks the low-power AMD chips for HTPC use, it's a good call.

If you don't have a case yet, yeah, just find the motherboard that has exactly what you need then pick case based on the form factor. Since I'm recommending an AMD chip, and I have no guesses on AMD boards, I guess I'm not much help...and just wasted everyone's time. heh...

-z

 

[mazeroth]

I already have a case ready for this that supports a full ATX motherboard. I will also be doing some gaming on this machine and my projector is native 1280x720 so I figure the extra $30-$40 might be worth it to go Core2 over the X2. However, at that res I'm not so sure. I'll probably be sticking my X1800XL into it and getting a new DX10 card for my main rig.

 

[o1die]

If you live near a Fry's, they are still selling the e4300 bare cpu with ecs board for $119. The board has built in agp or a separate agp slot, with 2 ddr and 2 ddr2 slots.

 

[magreen]

The GA-945P-S3 is still the cheapest C2D board I've found that has some overclocking. It's full ATX and can easily do 300FSB, lots of people report 350FSB. It's about $75.