Which motherboard/chipset should I buy?

[nulio]

Hi all,

With the intel price cut, ddr2 prices going down and with new graphics cards coming out, I think it's a good time to make my long waited upgrade.

Still haven't decide which cpu... e4300, 4400, 6420 or 6600, but that will be easy, it's just how much I want to spend in the cpu.

My major doubt is which chipset and then motherboard to choose.

I heard that intel chispset is better for raid (P965 / ICH8R) and that nvidia's is better for 3D. Dunno if it's true or not. This gives me great doubts...

Since I'm on a tight budget but I need something good for Image Editing, 2D drawing, 3D modeling and rendering...
...I'll have raid0 for the OS, some X1950XT softmoded to became a FireGL or a 8800 series. E4300/4400 and 2x1Gb Team Elite 667 or E6420/6600 and 2x1Gb G.Skill DDR2 PC2-6400 (4-4-3-5) HK. And just a little OC, 400FSB maximum.

About motherboards, I'm looking for some with good price/performance,
Asus P5N-E Sli or DFI INFINITY P965-S...

Are those things about the chipsets true?
Which motherboard should I chose?

Any help would be a great help for me
And sorry for my bad english.

Regards,
Júlio

 

[Butterbean]

I would say get the E6600 at least. It went down in price recently. The larger cache will be good for photos and video. An Article here in Video section said the new high definition Dvd standard chokes any CPU under the E6600. The Intel 975 chip is reported to work better with the E6000.The Asus P5W DH or Intel Bad Axe is nice way to go. They have been out awhile now and are more stable than they were last Autumn. They are also cheaper. Intel is coming out with the Bearlake mobo with ICH 9/1333 fsb any day day now. Get that if you like or maybe the other mobo's will get even cheaper now.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Butterbean
I would say get the E6600 at least. It went down in price recently. The larger cache will be good for photos and video. An Article here in Video section said the new high definition Dvd standard chokes any CPU under the E6600. The Intel 975 chip is reported to work better with the E6000.The Asus P5W DH or Intel Bad Axe is nice way to go. They have been out awhile now and are more stable than they were last Autumn. They are also cheaper. Intel is coming out with the Bearlake mobo with ICH 9/1333 fsb any day day now. Get that if you like or maybe the other mobo's will get even cheaper now.

I'm still looking for the supposed videos that "choke" a CPU. I haven't found em...and hopefully most of that decoding will be offloaded to the video card before it becomes a concern.

 

[Butterbean]

Double cache HAS to count for something.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=5


"We've been hearing for quite some time now that Blu-ray and HDDVD movies could prove to be too much for today's desktop microprocessors; today we finally have the proof. X-Men: The Last Stand encoded using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile at 1080p requires more processing power to decode than affordable dual core CPUs can handle. We are at a point where GPU decode acceleration is essentially required with all but the highest end processors in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality while watching HD content on the PC...

As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC"

Keep in mind the E6600 is only around $225 USD now. Buying something cheaper saves very little.

 

[fralexandr]

Originally posted by: Butterbean
Double cache HAS to count for something.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2886&p=5


"We've been hearing for quite some time now that Blu-ray and HDDVD movies could prove to be too much for today's desktop microprocessors; today we finally have the proof. X-Men: The Last Stand encoded using the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC High Profile at 1080p requires more processing power to decode than affordable dual core CPUs can handle. We are at a point where GPU decode acceleration is essentially required with all but the highest end processors in order to achieve an acceptable level of quality while watching HD content on the PC...

As for recommendations, based on our testing, we would not suggest anything less than an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 for use in a system designed to play HD content. The E6400 may work well enough, but not even the 8800 GTX can guarantee zero dropped frames on the E6300. ATI owners will want to lean more towards an E6700 processor, but can get away with the E6600 in a pinch. But keep in mind that X-Men: The Last Stand is only one of the first H.264 movies to come out. We may see content that is more difficult to decode in the future, and faster processors are definitely a good place to pad your performance to ensure a quality HD experience on the PC"

Keep in mind the E6600 is only around $225 USD now. Buying something cheaper saves very little.

well actually the 8600 supposedly takes alot of strain off the CPU during Blue-ray playback. From Anandtechs reviews it seems better than even the 8800gtx at it, although its probably not great for modeling and rendering compared to FireGL and Quadro cards.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2977&p=4