Latest and greatest PC motherboard question

[iCe]

I'm not going to get into a rant about how irritating it is when a computer store salesman is a complete moron and sold me the wrong motherboard and wrong processor and now i have to drive 3 friggen hours one way back to Corpus to return the board because he lied or was too stupid to know what hardware he was selling I was SUPPOSED to have a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M L2 LGA 775 Processor and the board has a 3.4Ghz P4D installed on it I was supposed to have PCI-E slots and it has an expansion slot for adding PCI-E slots. I knew I should have made him show me what he was selling me... He even told me that it was core 2 duo and both processors were running at 4Ghz. Their store doesn't even sell a core 2 duo that runs at 4Ghz... I'm pissed... maybe it's a good thing he is so far away...

If you were going to upgrade or build your own PC what processor / motherboard would you recommend. I have to have PCI-E slots (not capabiltiy to expand later).

[HOUSCOUS]

I am thinking upgrade my PC system, too. I would build my own PC as well, so I would like to hear more from fellow TPF members.

[iCe]

Here's what I've found so far (all at New Egg). Reviews here- LINK

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard -
$142.99

Processor- Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557X6800 - $949.50

Combo
Thermaltake toughpower W0105RU ATX12V/ EPS12V 700W Power Supply and
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case -

$281.98
-$20.00 Combo
$261.988

About 3 nanoseconds after I hit the order buttion, if I hit the order button, all of this stuff will be obsolete. I'm waiting for my Air Force / hard core gamer kid to call nad tell me what he thinks

[KdLaneJr]

I'd go to Tomshardware.com and start reviewing the motherboards there. They review all the bleeding edge boards, processors, memory, etc., then put together insanely fast and reliable system recommendations.

The last desktop I put together had an AMD 4000+ processer in it. Runs insanely fast.

This link http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html should help you figure out what you are looking for.

[Murph]

I tend to prefer ASUS to Gigabyte mainly because I have had some really, really bad luck with them, and ASUS tends to be rock steady. The Core Duo X6800 is THE processor right now, and blows the socks off of the AMD FX-62 processor. Invest in at least 2 gb of the best ram you can.

[Daniel Bates]

Or 3 gigs of RAM... the more RAM you can get, the better, especially with RAW and 16-bit TIFFs from that gargantuan 16.7 MP camera of yours.

[tragic hero]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

Or 3 gigs of RAM... the more RAM you can get, the better, especially with RAW and 16-bit TIFFs from that gargantuan 16.7 MP camera of yours.

ram > all

[iCe]

I've got 4 GB of Ram... and a 750Gb SATA drive. The salesman got that right.

I'm looking at this combo now. I'm getting closer

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum/Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
Supposed to have very good cooling

Thermaltake W0116RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply - Retail
You can never have enough power and this one comes with the case.

Intel BOXD975XBXLKR Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Reviews on this board are very good. It's supposed to be very stable

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 Presler 3.73GHz LGA 775 Processor
This looks like the hottest processor out there right now. At least for the next 30 seconds or so.

or

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz 4M sharing L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
I'm not sure which is the better way to go. The first processor supports hyper-threading where this one doesn't.

[AlexMorse]

I buy 100% of my pc gear from newegg. After a ton of great prices, speedy turnaround, and fantastic return/service policies no one else will ever get my PC business.

But.. I switched to mac last year, so that's kind of moot I guess.

[Daniel Bates]

Yep, I'm 100% Newegg.com. They're the BH Photo Video of computers...


I've been out of computer technology for a few months, so I don't recognize any of those components. Chips move so fast, it's hard to keep up...

[iCe]

I like NewEgg. I've bought a lot from them (for work). I just figured out that the Presler is "old technology" that's about to be phased out so it looks like I'll go with the Conrol processor. Waht a PITA... you can't just point and click and hope you get it right. You actually have to think

[Jim Victory]

I'm in the process of building a new system right now.

I'm going with an Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard with the Intel core 2 Duo E6600 LGA775.

Case: Cooler Master Wavemaster TAC-T010E1C
Power Supply: Antec 550W Truepower TP2-550-EPS12V
Ram: 2x1GB Corsair XMS2-6400
Hardrive: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB
DVD: Samsung 18x DVD+RW
Video Card: EVGA Geforce 7950GT
Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme
Mouse&Keyboard: Logitech G7 & G15
OS: Win XP Pro SP2

[Jim Victory]

Originally Posted by iCe

I've got 4 GB of Ram... and a 750Gb SATA drive. The salesman got that right.

I'm looking at this combo now. I'm getting closer

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum/Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
Supposed to have very good cooling

Thermaltake W0116RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply - Retail
You can never have enough power and this one comes with the case.

Intel BOXD975XBXLKR Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Reviews on this board are very good. It's supposed to be very stable

Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 Presler 3.73GHz LGA 775 Processor
This looks like the hottest processor out there right now. At least for the next 30 seconds or so.

or

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz 4M sharing L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
I'm not sure which is the better way to go. The first processor supports hyper-threading where this one doesn't.

The Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS is a good case. i prefer Cooler master because I have been using their box for years and it is easy to work on with a sliding tray.

PS: I prefer Antec but I'm sure the Thermaltake are good. Again I have used Antec for years and have never had them fail on me.

The E6800 conroe is very costly right now and you may find the cost vs perfromance of the E6600 or E6700 to not worth going with the top.

I would seriously look at the Asus MB. I have used them for years and they perform very well and if your in to overclocking they are excellent.

[iCe]

Hey Jim,

Thanks, I already pulled the trigger on the E6800 and the Intel MB. I spent the entire night looking at parts and I finally decided to take the plunge and realize that whatever I get now will be old news in a week I'm not going to over clock my processor so I should be ok.

When I first saw Coolermaster in your post I thought "dang... Jim is hard core... he's using water cooling"

So far, the system I'm putting together will have:

Ram: 4x1GB DDR2
Hardrive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB
DVD: To be determined
CD/RW: To be determined if at all
Video Card: Geforce 6800 Extreme
OS: Win XP Pro SP2
Display- (2) Viewsonic VP2130b

The video card that I chose has two DVI outputs that will work great with the Viewsonics.There are higher end cards out there but I think this one will work for me. My existing PC doesn't have PCI-E slots otherwise I would already be using them. In fact... the lack of PCI-E slots is what drove this upgrade. That and spending all night long / all weekend long batch processing images. I'm hopeful that all the dinero I'm spending will drasticly cut my image processing time. Much to my dismay, the Dell case that I have is not very friendly when it comes to changing MB's so I upgraded the case. My youngest son told me to max out the power supply since he had a power supply induced fire onboard his over clocked turbo bad ass gamer PC. And cooling drove my case choice. I looked at this bad boy but it's way too big. It wont fit under my desk. I'm not sure that it doesn't require a commercial drivers license to use it

Now begins the wait for the parts to come in

[HOUSCOUS]

Hello, guys. I haven't seen a motherboard which will support 2 Core 2 Duo on PC except Apple has its own brand???