Does FSB matter at all???

Get the crosshair

rule of thumb:

almost always, new technology is better than old technology

(and don't trust all marketing - it is there to get people to buy their products, good or bad, and some make you pay a premium for it <cough> Fatal1ty </cough>)

LOL! Aight. Good board then?

The only reason I'm considering the other is A) the higher FSB and B) the M2N32-SLI has onboard WIFI, very nice.

Crosshair still better though?

And just for my general information, what's the deal with the FSB speeds?

In general the higher the FSB you can go, the higher you can OC your parts. This doesn't always show everything though. If some of your parts can't OC that high than the higher FSB doesn't mean swat! If you spend all of your hard earned $ on top quality parts and skimp on the memory or some other part, you'll only be able to as high as your lowest capable part. Yes there are ways to try and circumvent some issues, but in the end if you skimp on parts and are trying to OC to the moon, you'll be limited.
Do you have all of your other parts already? if so, what are they? if not, what is your proposed build and what is the budget for it?

Thinking of AMD X2 6400+ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
and 2 GB Corsair http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Budget is no object really, as long as it's not ridiculous-expensive. This is for "gaming" but I don't really play anything TOO demanding (WoW mostly).

Anyway, I'm not planning to overclock. Will the extra 425 MHz on the FSB matter at all?

If your not going to OC any, than the extra FSB isn't going to make any difference at all. Those numbers are for when you go into heavy OC'ing, so I wouldn't be too concerned about them. I'm not sure why you want to spend $250 or so on a mobo that your not going to OC. You would be better off with a $100 board and take that $150 for other parts, IMHO.

i see someone else wants to spend extra money for nothing. there are alot of nice boards that will do just fine for what you need for around a hundred dollars. i hate seeing people spending extra thats all.

^^ Agreed.

I have two of them and they are great.

Just choose a memory wwith the same clock rate as the FSB of the CPU.

Latest Core2Duo chips have FSB of 1333MHz. Important thing to know is that it is quad-clocked data rate, meaning the actual FSB clock speed is only one quarter of the data rate.
The new QX9650 has a FSB clock speed of 333MHz which is a quarter of its 1,333MHz FSB data rate.

So DDR2 667 is more than adequate for the latest Intel processor. and any other processor out the as a matter of fact as it matches the FSB clock speed because DDR2 667 has an actual clock speed of 333 give or take a MHz.

Choosing memory faster than 667 means data can be ready sooner but it does NOT translate into huge speed gains AT ALL.
So even though you are building an AMD based system 667 Ram is more than adequate either way.

Well one of the other things that drew me into the board was the LCD panel on the back. The fact that it will show error codes in plain English rather than BEEP BEEP is HUGE. And I guess the fancy motherboard lights are pretty cool too hah. I just want a motherboard that will last a long time, so I don't build a PC and it becomes outdated in a year.

One thing I found back when I had a FX60 machine was that I could get a higher useful clock by raising the multiplier from 13 to 14. That way the ram wouldn't reduce its speed as I raised the FSB to 225 for a speed of 3150 mhz.

@ OP- Instead of the 6400+, check out the 5000+ BE. Its cheaper, runs cooler and if you overclock it on the Crosshair board, you can take it far faster than the 6400+ can run.

Listen Paul, there are alot of nice motherboards out there with excellent ratings that will stay in date for awhile and last a good 4 to 5 years. They are much cheaper and just as nice and perform just as well as the one you are speaking of.

Rember its the parts you put into the motherboards that usaully makes the best running computers.