Mobo + CPU quad core combination?

[GlennS]

I'm intending to do a big upgrade to my computer sometime around January/February, but have gotten a bit bogged down in motherboards, which are very confusing.

I am planning to pick up 8GB of DDR2 Ram, a SATA hard drive and a 450W power supply.

I was also thinking of getting a Q6600 (quad core for Supreme Commander), or something similar if there's a better motherboard + CPU price/performance combination? I intend to run Vista, and my monitor resolution is 1280x1024.

I also have some old parts which I intend to use, and some may cause some difficulty. I have a x1800xt 256MB which I'll replace near the end of 2008. I also have 2 IDE DVD drives plus an IDE/ATA (?) hard drive. Lastly, I have 3 PCI (that's the old sort) devices: a TV tuner, an Audigy 2 ZS and a wireless LAN adapter (a rubbish one, so I'd happily drop it for onboard wireless). I am concerned that most new motherboards appear to list 1 ATA port and millions of SATA - do I need one per ATA/IDE device?

I'm also having second thoughts about buying all that RAM - its very cheap at the moment, but I've been stuck for ages on obsolete socket 939 (expensive processors, no fast dual cores) because of the expense to replace the DDR1 I have at the moment, am I going to run into this issue again in two or three years time?

I have no intention of running RAID, SLI or Crossfire, ever. Obviously I don't need onboard sound or graphics, but don't mind. I probably wouldn't overclock, although I might be tempted to do a little if it didn't involve voltage changes.

And obviously I don't want to spend the Earth on a motherboard...or more than say £70 (preferably more like £50).

It could be a tricky one, anyone got any ideas?

 

[slicessoul]

Get a P35 board such Asus P5K-E Wifi (+/- 139$ = 70£)
Do you really need of 8GB RAM ? 4GB is sufficient.
Asus P5K has 1 IDE port, it's enough for those 2 DVD drives.
Drop your IDE HDD, help yourself to buy those SATA drive. Move your datas from the IDE to SATA. If you insist on using the IDE HDD, buy a controller or drop one of your DVD drive.
Drop the wireless LAN card, this mainboard already has one.
This mainboard has 3 PCI slot, so, it's enough for your TV Tuner, Audigy and controller (if you stick on IDE hDD).

 

[GlennS]

Thanks, the motherboard is nice, but I can't find it for less than about £90, which is much more than I was looking to spend on a motherboard.

1 IDE/ATA port supports 2 devices then? Selling off the other hard drive is a good idea - would make the whole thing quieter as well I suppose.

 

[Newf]

I'm intending to do a big upgrade to my computer sometime around January/February, but have gotten a bit bogged down in motherboards, which are very confusing.

I am planning to pick up 8GB of DDR2 Ram, a SATA hard drive and a 450W power supply.

I was also thinking of getting a Q6600 (quad core for Supreme Commander), or something similar if there's a better motherboard + CPU price/performance combination? I intend to run Vista, and my monitor resolution is 1280x1024.

I also have some old parts which I intend to use, and some may cause some difficulty. I have a x1800xt 256MB which I'll replace near the end of 2008. I also have 2 IDE DVD drives plus an IDE/ATA (?) hard drive. Lastly, I have 3 PCI (that's the old sort) devices: a TV tuner, an Audigy 2 ZS and a wireless LAN adapter (a rubbish one, so I'd happily drop it for onboard wireless). I am concerned that most new motherboards appear to list 1 ATA port and millions of SATA - do I need one per ATA/IDE device?

I'm also having second thoughts about buying all that RAM - its very cheap at the moment, but I've been stuck for ages on obsolete socket 939 (expensive processors, no fast dual cores) because of the expense to replace the DDR1 I have at the moment, am I going to run into this issue again in two or three years time?

I have no intention of running RAID, SLI or Crossfire, ever. Obviously I don't need onboard sound or graphics, but don't mind. I probably wouldn't overclock, although I might be tempted to do a little if it didn't involve voltage changes.

And obviously I don't want to spend the Earth on a motherboard...or more than say £70 (preferably more like £50).

It could be a tricky one, anyone got any ideas?

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
As mentioned above the IDE parts are an issue. You will get 1 IDE port (supports 2 devices) on any affordable Intel motherboard. You can easily use 2 optical drives on it, but I also recommend an SATA hard drive for your Vista install. Unless you plan to get 64bit Vista, 2GB of ram will do just fine. You may also find that Vista will work better with the on-board audio, but there are 3 PCI slots available on this board. If you get a cheap PCI card for IDE expansion, you could still use your existing hard drive for storage and get better burn/copy speeds when you use both optical drives at the same time. I would not ask for the headaches of trying to boot off the PCI expansion card though...

 

[GlennS]

That looks like a very suitable motherboard, and comes well reviewed. Out of interest, there are boards with similar features at around that price point from other big-name manufacturers, is it a particularly good board or are Gigabyte particularly well thought of?

I am currently running XP and 1.5GB of RAM and some things (couple of recent games) fill all that up and start swapping, so I figure that I need Vista 64 and 4 GB. The rationale behind getting 8GB was that I might need it a couple of years down the line, its cheap at the moment and I figure prices for DDR2 might go up when DDR3 is prevelant (see how expensive DDR1 is these days).

I have also discovered there are no Vista 64 drivers for my wireless LAN card, so I'm going to have to abandon that anyway. Never mind, it was rubbish and I don't actually use wireless at the moment.

As for the Audigy, there are Vista drivers and a hack to make EAX work (which Creative are trying to sell for $10, cheeky bleeps), I don't know whether it will actually give me better sound quality than onboard any more, but it will let me use 3D sound effects in pre-Vista games.