Help selecting motherboard (E6700)

[Riden12]

Hi,

I'm in the process of building a new system and am having some difficulties combing through all of the motherboard options (ATX). I'll be running a Conroe E6700 chip (not OC'd) with an 8800 GTS video card. Planning to run 2gig DDR2 800 mem but not sure on which brand yet since I want to make sure it's compatible with the MB. The only other item I'm looking to do is run two HD's in Raid 1 mode.

I'm hearing a lot of complaints lately about the nForce 680 chipset so I'm hestitant to go that route but I'm not sure what good motherboards there are on 975 or nforce 590.

Any help is appricated! Thanks!

 

[Riden12]

did a little more research on the Intel 975 XBX2 and from the reviews it seems like it's the most stable board if you're not overclocking (which I won't be). I'm leaning towards this one since it seems like a good stable board. The reviews I've read off newegg for the P5B and P5W seem pretty mixed. Some good experiences and some awful with different setups and compatibility.

I'm looking to go with 2 gigs of DDR2 800 memory. Does anyone know if this board is picky with memory? If so and you have this board, what memory are you running in it now?

Any other suggestions are welcome!

Thanks again!

 

[zushiba]

I'm kinda in the same boat I recently RMA'd my gigabyte DS3 I got from newegg because it was DoA, it refused to post. The fans would turn on and everything seemed to be working but nothing would seem to bring it around.

There's the review here which seems to point at the MSI 975X Platinum Power Up Edition but after reading reviews on the board I'm not so sure that's the route I want to go, people seem to be having a lot of ram issues.

the Intel D975XBX appears to be stable but I can't find any place online that I want to buy it from.

If you do make a decision please post about it I am interested in seeing what others are buying.

 

[MarcelJV]

did a little more research on the Intel 975 XBX2 and from the reviews it seems like it's the most stable board if you're not overclocking (which I won't be). I'm leaning towards this one since it seems like a good stable board. The reviews I've read off newegg for the P5B and P5W seem pretty mixed. Some good experiences and some awful with different setups and compatibility.

I'm looking to go with 2 gigs of DDR2 800 memory. Does anyone know if this board is picky with memory? If so and you have this board, what memory are you running in it now?

Any other suggestions are welcome!

Thanks again!

Given your initial criteria you would be well served with this board. Make sure it is revision 2.
Memmory support can be found at this link ftp://download.intel.com/design/motherbd/bx2/D7364501US.pdf

You will note that the memory specification calls for 1.8v or 1.9v memory so most likely the BIOS is set this way. If you use memory the requires higher voltage you may find that this board will not post with that memory. Most will but will shut off not long after as the memory is requiring more power then is allocated. In this case you need to get to the BIOS in a hurry and up the voltage to that of the RAM you bought. If you are not looking to over clock then just about any value RAM will run at 1.8 or 1.9v and you would be OK.

This is one of the more expensive boards around, but given the 8800 GTS you are looking to get money may not be a issue here. Still...
Given your simple requirement of supporting Raid 1 you might do well to look at cheaper motherboards that support Raid 1. These include Gigabyte P965 series DS3 or S3 (since you will not over clock). These three support RAID 1 and are reasonable cheap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280+1070509908+107171850+4017+1297419555&Subcategory=280&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
NOTE the S3 is not listed here but it does support RAID 1 and is about $30 less than the DS3. These board feature the (965 Chipset) which performs about the same as the 975, but a little slower (maybe 1-5%).

Hope this helps.