Best stock P-35 board?

Gigabyte and ASUS build top quality enthusiast MBs designe for overclockers in mind. ASUS uses American Megatrends BIOS, Gigabyte Award if you have a preference as to the controls of your machine. Use a RAM configurator to find the RAM guaranteed to work with the board you choose. You can also email RAM mfg. tech support and ask about which RAM works best after you m ake your choice of MB.

http://crucial.com/

http://corsairmemory.com/#

http://www.kingston.com/default.asp

Ok, found the RAM configurators. Thanks a bunch that helps a lot!

I've read about the Gigabyte and ASUS boards, but like I said I don't plan on overclocking. I used to back in the day (about 10 years ago) but after blowing up numerous motherboards I've gotten very conservative in my old age.   I'm sure they're fine boards but I don't want to pay for features I won't be using.

Maybe someone can give you specific P35 MBs they have had success with. The two companies I mentioned are good about providing BIOS updates, drivers etc. It's really more a matter of preference as to which company's product you buy. The chipset is the same on all the boards.

Things are different now, regarding "blowing up" boards!

Most quality boards will just reset to stock without frying anything now, if you exceed capacity/design/tolerance, etc. Nice having an automatic reset, not even having to reset the cmos jumpers or push a reset switch.

Q6600 has a front side bus of 1066, so your ddr2 memory (run dual channel, or two paired sticks, for fastest performance) needs to be pc 5300 at minimum, and higher speed if you plan to overclock.

Chipsets are made by intel and nvidia, both are good. Most motherboard companies use these two. They play leapfrog, one better this month, one better next month. One note, the nvidia chipsets run hotter and use more power than the intel ones. My evga 680i board has an nvidia chipset, and runs about 5c hotter temps on the northbridge, and uses 8-12 watts more than my last Gigabyte D3 (965) and Asus P5B deluxe (965) did. My psu displays total watts on the led readout. But the evga board ran my ram, the other two did not.

Pay at least $100 for the motherboard, and you will be ok. If you stick with the value ram pc5300, ok too. Most of the problems with ram are the required voltages. Most motherboards come with the ram voltage set at 1.8, some enthusiast ram (tighter timings, higher speeds, etc) require 2.0, or more to even post. I had lots of problems with some OCZ high speed pc6400 stuff on 2 motherboards before I found the problem.

Also note, the Q's run hotter, so good case air flow and maybe an aftermarket cpu cooler is worthwhile. And stability wise, some of the old 975 chipset boards are hard to beat. Plus, they are cheap if you can find them.

Here is some options to look over. I would probably go with the Abit mobo or the DS3L (for the cheapest). The DS3R is probably the most well rounded one with RAID support and more SATA ports.

Mobo - $98 shipped - $20 MIR (if you trust MIR’s) = $78 Hard to beat at this price.
ABIT IP35-E INTEL P35 CHIPSET ATX FORM FACTOR 1xPCI-E(X16)/2xPCI-E(X1)/3xPCI/4xDDR2 W/SATA2,LAN(Gb),USB 2.0 & AUDIO
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?&scriteria=BA2...

Mobo - $106 shipped Good reviews and OC’s well, hard to beat at this price.
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Mobo - $137 shipped As good as DS3L, but has RAID and more SATA ports
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Pick any one of these memory selections and you will be fine, including OC'ing them too.

Memory - $102 shipped - $40 MIR = $62!! Solid performing CAS 4 DDR2
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Memory - $110 shipped - $47 MIR = $63!! Good OC’ing RAM + CAS 4 too.
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Memory - $93 shipped - $30 MIR = $63!! CAS 4 and good RAM
GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Also a case to consider and a good PSU for powering that rig up!

PSU - $100 shipped - $45 MIR = $55, can’t beat for this price
Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, TUV, CE, FCC, CCC, CB, C-tick – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Case - $40 shipped - $10 MIR = $30!! Can’t beat the quality and price on this one.
COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E1681...

Not sure if any of this helps, but I thought I'd throw it out there for ya.

My 2cp's

Thanks for the replies guys. Luny I'll go with the DS3L, I think.

As for cooling, would a second case fan on the CoolerMaster case be sufficient, or should I look into getting a CPU fan?

I'm in the same dilemma here....or should i wait for a X38 board?