Help me choose a Motherboard

WingaWinga MrSouth Africa Icrontian
edited February 2008 in Hardware
I am looking for an Intel Mb, preferably with the P35 chip.
I will be running an E6550 off it and an 8800GTS graphics card.
I need at least 6 sata connectors and a minimum of 6 USB ports.

I will not be running two graphics cards so crossfire and SLI are not important.
The problem I am having though is the lack of PCI slots (the white ones)

The best layout I could find was on this board, however it's not a P35 chip and they are no longer available in South Africa anyway. My price range is around $200. Any help or feedback is appreciated.

Comments

  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    how many pci slots do you need, and what do you need them for?
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    I need 3 maybe 4 depending on how they spaced. The 8800 graphics card normally encroaches on one of them making it impossible to use.

    Otherwise it's for my sound card, wireless card and the cooling fans for the 8800 . The cooling fan mounting clips over a PCI slot.
  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    so, do you really need 3 working pci slots, or just 2 for the sound/wireless that are low enough that the cooler isn't in the way?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Will you be CPU overclocking?
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Technically i only need 2 slots, for wireless and sound.
    However the 8800 runs incredibly hot and I need to dissipate that heat. The cooler I have is very effective but it hogs a PCI slot. There is no other way to mount it and it will not fit over any other slot on the board.

    I have looked at many boards, some with the correct amount of slots but that fall short of my other specs. I am also hoping to get a board with heatpipe cooling but that's not a must. If only 2 slots were needed the choice of board would be very easy and I would have bought one by now.

    I will be overclocking but am not looking to squeeze every ounce out of it.
    I would take rock solid stability over huge OC capabilities when choosing my board.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    New boards will overlap an X1 express slot, not a PCI.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    There are plenty of boards available with only one PCI-e slot. It's pretty easy to find a good quality board with four PCI slots.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2008
    Check out the Asus P5K-E. Its a lot of board for not a lot of money. Based on the P35, onboard wireless (save a PCI slot unless you use wireless-N). Great overclocker too.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    lemonlime wrote:
    Check out the Asus P5K-E. Its a lot of board for not a lot of money. Based on the P35, onboard wireless (save a PCI slot unless you use wireless-N). Great overclocker too.

    Nice choice
    I had a very close look at that board. Apart from the fact that it doesn't have all 6 SATA connectors on the board it would have suited my application perfectly.
    Unfortunately the board is out of stock with all the main South African online retailers and no hope of them getting their hands on any more.
    What I may do at the end of the day is get a board with really good onboard sound and lay my aged Audigy 2ZS card to rest. That should free up a slot.

    I'm open to suggestions on that front. I have no idea what goes for good sound these days.
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited January 2008
    Winga wrote:
    Nice choice
    I had a very close look at that board. Apart from the fact that it doesn't have all 6 SATA connectors on the board it would have suited my application perfectly.
    Unfortunately the board is out of stock with all the main South African online retailers and no hope of them getting their hands on any more.
    What I may do at the end of the day is get a board with really good onboard sound and lay my aged Audigy 2ZS card to rest. That should free up a slot.

    I'm open to suggestions on that front. I have no idea what goes for good sound these days.

    I believe it does have six SATA ports on the board plus one ESATA. I'll have to double tonight. I believe two are colored black, and four red--all should be functional.

    I can't really speak to the onboard sound as its only been used on the Icrontic test bench.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    I think I have found a board that fits all my criteria and has a socket layout that will accommodate my fan and the two cards.

    It's the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R IP35.
    It seems like a pretty solid board and is available in SA.

    Can anyone recommend good compatible memory for the board. I'm looking at DDR2 800. I can get OCZ for a good price. If you think that will work, which in the range should I go for?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    The GA-P35-DS3 series boards are very popular and have a very good reliability and performance reputation. I've got the DS4 version (heatpipe cooling) and consider it an excellent board and rock solid stable. I don't think you'll have problems with any major brand PC2 6400 DRAM with that board. *In my DS4 I've run Geil, Corsair, and G.Skill without any problems. Muddocktor and a few others here have the P35-DS3, but they'd probably tell you the same thing as I did concerning RAM compatibility.

    * I had some compatibility problems A-Data DDR2 800 - I can't remember if it was with the DS4 or one of my Abit IP35-Es. I'm thinking it was the Abits.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Thanks for all the input. RAM is the only component I still need to finish my build. I am slowly upgrading to Intel from all my 939 platforms and it's a bit new to me.
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Thrax has a conversion to help you figure out how the C2D operates with relation to RAM speeds. CLICK ME FOR CANDY! (Page 3 has the "cheat sheet")

    On a side note, I'm using the P35-DS3R right now and would (and have) recommended it to friends looking for a cheap and powerful solution. Great board.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    IF you want "Official" memory, PC2-6400. If you want a little extra bandwidth, and headroom to overclock and still have your motherboard "(Un)officially" support it (MEaning, Intel doesn't but your mobo mfgr does), get PC8500.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Thrax wrote:
    IF you want "Official" memory, PC2-6400. If you want a little extra bandwidth, and headroom to overclock and still have your motherboard "(Un)officially" support it (MEaning, Intel doesn't but your mobo mfgr does), get PC8500.

    I have (Un)officially decided on this Corsair RAM (pdf)

    Otherwise if I go the "Official" route I was looking at THESE (pdf)

    Will the PC8500 work OK with my board. I would hate to lay out the $$$ for something that isn't compatible. Also the 6400 is designed for 64-Bit Operating systems. I assume it will still work fine on 32-bit with no hit to performance?

    If I go the PC8500 route I will only get 2Gigs. If I go the PC6400 I will get the 4Gigs as shown. I would also like to know if it is better to have more RAM and lower speeds or less RAM at higher speeds. There is very little difference in price between the two options I have shown above.
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    I'm using 2x1GB PC-8500 in my setup, Winga.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    RAM - I'd go for quantity. If you want ultimate FSB overclocking though, you need 8500. You can always use dividers to keep the RAM within its capabilities and instead overclock through a higher CPU multiplier. For overall performance, meaning real world versus benchmarks, you would be best served with the 4GB DRAM. As you know, WinXP 32 will only use 3GB of RAM.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    As you know, WinXP 32 will only use 3GB of RAM.

    Will Vista 32 bit be able to handle all 4?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Yes.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    No.
  • WingaWinga Mr South Africa Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    Yes.
    Thrax wrote:
    No.

    Clash of the Titan's

    So which one is it?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    The only OSes that will give you 4GB of RAM <b>in Windows</b> (As in 4,194,304 KB of usable memory space) are:

    Any 64bit Windows, any flavor of Linux (32 or 64), Windows XP32 SP0 or SP1, Windows 2003 32bit, Windows 2000 Advanced Server 32bit.

    ALL other flavors of Windows (<i>Especially</i> Windows Vista 32 and Windows XP-32 SP2) will give you 2.8 - 3.4GB.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2008
    Thanks for the correction, Thrax.

    Sorry, Winga. :eek3:
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