Hi

Now i know such question were asked here but would like to collect some updated thoughts from the experts here

I am in middle of buying for motherboards that would perform the best for Q6600 with 8800GT.

maybe overclock if necessary but no SLI or anything heavy duty. Going with ddr2 1066 for now but would want to consider ddr3 support for the future or not doesn't really matter that much.

I did bit of reseach and came out P35 would best fit for my build. but which p35? my budget line is around $150... but willing to put close to $190ish if mobo is worth it.

Any Suggestions?


Thanksalot

PS. If you can recommend a case for my build would appreciate greatly. Again budget line is around $150 for the case as well.

With p35 boards, brands seem to matter. I believe Asus has the best p35 boards. I haven't used it, but reviews are good. Do not get a $190 p35 board. The cheapest x38 board cost $207, and far outperforms even the best p35 board. No matter how much you soup up a Mustang it won't outrun a Ferrari. For moderate overclocking, a p35 board is a good deal if you can find a good brand and model below $150.

Id like to see where you got your info about the x38 far surpassing P35 performance, because from what ive seen its marginal at best.

OP: Your best bet is definetly a P35 based board its all you need and in the price range. As dagger suggests the Asus P5K range is very good (i would skip the P5KC though)... DDR3 is currently not needed and does provide a large enough improvement over DDR2 for the extra cost. Gigabyte also have a strong P35 range, and if you dont need any other extra features (RAID, firewire etc.) i would recommend the GA-P35-DS3L or the EP equivelent.

I have to agree with chookman on that. From what I've read here on Tom's and other sites, the performance increase on some of the newer chipset and more expensive MB's is not real significant. I have the Gigabyte board mentioned with Supertalent DDR2-800 (4x2GB) I can take my Q6600 to close to 3Ghz with a Coolermaster Hyper L3 without a Glitch, or significant temp increase. Paid under 100 for it at a local shop, new. Good board, though it lacks RAID. No Biggie though to install an aftermarket card for cheap to get that feature. Lots of good SATA2 raid cards out now.

Ah, I misworded that. It was "overclocking performance," not just "performance."

X38/48 boards run at 1600mhz fsb natively, and reliably oc to 2000+mhz. P35 boards run at 1333mhz fsb natively, and reliably oc to 1600+mhz. If you run at 1333mhz fsb on both boards, it won't make a difference. If you run 2000mhz, it's a big difference. X38/48 will work at that speed, P35 won't. For reference, on Q9450, 1600mhz fsb = 3.2ghz, 2000mhz fsb = 4.0ghz.