Need help choosing mb for core 2!!

[Swany420]

in the near future i am going to be building a new pc.... amd has been my cpu company for ever now but i am starting to lean towards the intel..... i am completely cluesless and i need help choosing a mother board

i am looking at overclocking and mad gaming for the most part... i am going to get a core 2 6400 or 6600 ... dont know yet.,, but i think that i need a good mb to do whaty i want it to do...

budget isnt a problem.... looking at 1000-1500 so dont worry about it

also i dont know if i want to get sli but if anyone thinks i should please tell.... beacause a simple 512mb card will do fine fo games i think... but if sli is worht buying right now then i would like to know

 

[ikjadoon]

I hear the Abit Pro is good, the Gigabyte DS6 is nice as well...

~Ibrahim~

 

[Swany420]

but are those the best ones i can get because there aree way more that are way more expensive then taht one and .....

another thinig is i heard a couple people that are having trouble installin their core 2s because the mobo doesnt have the latest bios.,,,,, is this true. and if so how can i fix it if i experience it.

 

[Eurasianman]

I read that for overclocking, Abit has taken the crown with it's newest Core 2 Duo motherboard. ASUS has the second best overclocker. Both of these are with the Intel 975X chipset.

I have the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe and it does hit 400MHz, but can't keep it stable yet. Still working on it. It does go past 375MHz easily though.

 

[rwpritchett]

You can either go with a P965 or 975X board.

For P965, the top candidates are:

Abit AB9<b>PRO</b>
Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6
Asus P5B-Deluxe

I'm not very knowledgeable about the 975X's, unfortunately, so I won't pretend I know which ones are the best. I personally have the P5B-Deluxe and have been up to 400 FSB.

 

[Swany420]

can someone leave links to the cheapest places to get them.... because i am havin trouble find them anyway

also if some mobos have 2 pci express slots but dont have sli then what are they both used for?

 

[rwpritchett]

For the P965 Boards

P5B-Deluxe

AB9-Pro

Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6

You'll have to get someone elses advice on 975X boards.

Buy from reputable e-tailers though, not just the cheapest ones.

 

[Swany420]

and i was lookin at this mother board....it supports sli 590 but i dont know if its good at over clocking http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=247111

 

[rwpritchett]

The rumor mill on these forums say that the nvidia based Core 2 Duo boards are less than steller for overclocking. I would look into it if I were you or stick with P965/975X chipsets.

 

[Eurasianman]

stay away from nVidia chipsets if you plan on overclocking the Core 2 Duo processors until the nVidia 6xx series come out. For 975X, check out ASUS and Abit websites

 

[Anoobis]

There's a lot of information here that can help answer your questions.

 

[sillywabbit]

Try newegg.com Good prices and great customer service.

Someone correct me if i'm wrong but if your board has 2 pci-e slots and you don't intend to use 2 videocards, gpu manufacturers have talked about making their own physics processors that may take advantage of a 2nd pci-e slot.

 

[Eurasianman]

They're saying that if you run Crossfire or SLI, that there will be a driver update that allows you to assign the second GPU to either do physic calculation or video processing. ATI was talking about having 3 graphics cards on PCI-X with two doing video rendering and the third doing physic calculations. But not sure about nVidia. I'm thinking Intel's 975X BadAxe will be able to do this in the future with future drivers or hacked drivers just like how people are running SLI on ATI Crossfire motherboards.

 

[sillywabbit]

Right, thanks. Swany(OP) had asked "also if some mobos have 2 pci express slots but dont have sli then what are they both used for?"

So let me steal this thread for a second if you don't mind. Besides graphics cards and a possible physics processor, what hardware component do you think would be next to jump on the PCI-e?

 

[Eurasianman]

PhysX was talking about moving up to PCI Express.

Maybe sound cards or NIC cards? 8O