Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Brenjen on January 23, 2007, 09:26:28 AM
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I am about to embark on a new PC build for my wife & kids; I am going to build the system around the core2 duo LGA 775 socket & I can't find a motherboard I feel comfortable with yet. All the reviews I have been reading complain about memory problems or worse (read eVGA 680i board).
I like my ASUS board in my AMD rig, it's been rock solid with 10 - 12 hour a day use for a year & it was easy as pie to set-up so I've been leaning toward another ASUS but....all the "it's picky about what memory you use" problems have me wondering. I know Foxconn builds some good boards but they are the ones who built the nightmare evga board that everyone is having major issues with.
I'm currently pondering the ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI or the Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 LGA 775 Intel 955X. I am aware the memory standards are different on these two boards btw.
Anyone who has hands on knowledge of a good board they feel comfortable recommending, I'd like to hear from you. What memory you know works well in said board (or boards if you like more than one) & what chipset you like with these core2 duo cpu's. I am by no means a tech geek, I have built two systems in my entire life & both went smooth as silk (even the el-cheapo PC chips mobo build) & I want this one to be an equally easy to set up; stable, reliable system for the family.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.:aok
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Brenjen,
Funny. I was just putting my grocery list together myself for "my wife and kids" new computer. Here is what I've come up with for around $1400
1. Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 cpu $315 from zipzoomfly
2. Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe Mobo $210 from zipzoomfly
3. Corsair XMS 2GB (2 X 1GB) 240-pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM
Reported to work well with the Asus P5N32 mb. $265 from buy.com
4. Nvidia EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB video card $399 from zipzoomfly
5. ThermalTake ToughPower W0117 750W PS $152 from Page Computer
I'm still evaluating/comparing so I may change direction several more times but this may help you a bit.
Hope your wife enjoys her new computer. ;)
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lol, mine really is for the wife & kids. I'm not just saying that.
My girls don't do any real heavy gaming, the Sims, Harry Potter, Emergency Vet & a few other games like that is about all they do as far as gaming. My wife & daughters all have digital cameras & music (tons of pictures & music) that they use their PC for so I'm leaning toward the budget, low end game capable, large hard drive reliable as a mule type of build. I'm looking at these main parts;
ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI mobo for $140
eVGA 256-P2-N443-LX GeForce 7300GT VGA for $70
Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W PS for $70
Core 2 Duo E6300 CPU for $187
G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) for $205
Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s HD for $95
OR this mobo & memory
Foxconn 955X7AA-8EKRS2 LGA 775 Intel 955X for $145
Kingston 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) for $179
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go with Asus. Mine has been flawless.:aok
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Originally posted by BMnot
go with Asus. Mine has been flawless.:aok
Do you own the model I posted above? (P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI)
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I would go with the Intel P965 chipset. Although I believe that the nForce680i is the best chip for core2 at the moment, you wont find one for less than around $250. The P965 can be had for $100 and has the latest ICH8R Southbridge. Also THG says that you only notice the difference in the two when doing serious overclocking. If you want more info Toms Hardware guide is the place.
http://www.tomshardware.com/ (http://www.tomshardware.com/)
Here is some P965 info and 7 boards reviewed
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/13/shootout_at_the_core_2_corral/ (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/13/shootout_at_the_core_2_corral/)
Hope that helps. I wish I would have read before I bought my MB :cry
Dave
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Here is an incredable E6300 overclock using a P965 chip. Great article. its also kind of a follow up on the 7 MB shootout I posted a link to.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/18/overclocking-guide-part-1/ (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/18/overclocking-guide-part-1/)
Dave
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I plan to overclock the cpu; that's why I'm going with the 6300; unless it's just such a great chip it's not needed. This will be my first Core2 duo experience so I am completely unfamiliar with the chip & the motherboards that support them other than what I have read. Thanks for the links, I'll read them.
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So I take it that none of you that have built a Core2 duo (conroe) system have had a trouble free motherboard? I want to use the 680i chipset but I have read so many reviews that my head hurts & all of the first hand "I used this motherboard in my build" reviews are about 75% positive & 25% negative on every single board. I haven't run across one yet that the majority of users had no problems with.
I'll use the the Intel 9 series chipset if it comes to that but I was hoping for some first hand info from people who don't just review their motherboards by saying "it sucks, waste of money" like so many do referring to the 680i :lol
I'm not feeling the love on the eVGA 680i board, they are reeling from complaints about it on their forums. But from what I've seen the offerings from other companies like ASUS & Gigabyte aren't much better.
What to do, what to do.
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Mine has been rock solid. But I cannot make any suggestions as to what motherboard to use without someone interpreting it as an endorsement and that is not acceptable.
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I am only looking for first hand "I built mine around this chipset & it just happens to be this brand"
If you had a bad experience with a certain chipset or mobo I'd be glad to hear it too & I will in no way view any one persons personal choice as an endorsement by HTC or any individual since good or bad depends a lot on the builders knowledge; I am trying to arm myself beforehand :aok
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hardocp just reviewed the asus p5b-e and seemed to like it well enough. It's not an enthusiast board but it sounded like a nice reasonably priced board.
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I just finished building a new system, here's what I put together (all parts from newegg)
MSI P965 Platinum MS-7238
Intel C2D E6600 with stock heat sink fan, running very stable at 3.1ghz @ 57C max (41C normal)
A-Data 2x 1-Gig DDR2-800 1.8v 5-5-5-18
Triple head video using:
Single head Nvidia 7900 GS PCIe X16
Dual head Nvidia 6200 le PCIe x16 (2d display only)
2x ST3320620AS via Intel Matrix Raid (100g root mirror) (400g data stripe)
Antec SONATA II case with stock 450watt power supply(I even kept the silly air duct, but added the optional fans)
Win XP 32bit Pro SP2
Man I LOVE this thing, and it went together with only one problem, I needed a floppy drive to "F6" the Intel raid drivers during the WinXP install. (I really thought floppy drivers were a thing of the past!!!!)
For reference, I upgraded from a 4yr old 2.4ghz P4 Dell machine. WOW what a difference :)
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Sounds sweet. I've never put together a raid array; I was thinking about doing it with this P/C, I have a spare floppy laying around. It sort of pisses me off to, it's the only thing I can see ever needing a floppy for :lol
I almost went with the sonata case, what is that crazy air duct on the side for? Does it feed clean air to the power supply? It looked like I would have to remove it to put in the motherboard & I am thinking of using the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro & I was afraid it might interfere with it. My wife & kids picked out some cheap, ugly case anyway so it made my concerns a moot point.
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Yea, the black plastic thing on the Sonata case is an air inlet duct. As is from the factory I don't think it would be worth much as the air would have to be sucked thru it. Also, it does have to come out to gain access to the motherboard or PCI slots.
Most ppl confess to simply doing away with the duct, If I didn't have spare fans lying around I probably would have also. However, since I did have fans to fit it, I now use the duct to force fresh cool air over both the PCI slots and the CPU. Seems to work pretty well, but the fans did make the case slightly less than silent during normal use. When benchmarking, they can actually start to sound like a small jet engine back there :)
BTW, the raid array isn't anything unusual and the hardware is built into most motherboards these days. I'm thankfull I did the mirror as one of the drives started "clicking" and causing timeout errors. I've got a replacement drive on the way, in the mean time I just unplugged the troublesome drive and everything just keeps on working :) When the new drive arrives, I just plug it in and let the hardware re-create the mirror. Simple, fast, cheap and reliable (as long as I don't loose the remaining drive while waiting for the replacement!)
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If you're looking for a low-end gaming, general use system dump half of that ram immediately. 2 gigs is a definate overkill for anything but high-end gamers.
You'll save an immediate $100 with no hit in system performance.
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In recent years I have exprience in two brands of motherboards.
Asus, and Gigabyte.
Both good but if I had to choose between the two I'd have to give ASUS the nod
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I consider 2 gig my practical min for even general use. I experienced HD thrashing doing even amature photo editing with 1 gig of memory, and so did my wife even though she doesn't game at all. You can get 2 gigs of decent memory for right around $200. Dropping to 1 gig will save you maybe $100 at the cost of thrashing if you actually USE your computer for anything tougher than email.
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Two gigs is the minimum & I'm getting it for under $200. The cost of the ram is not a major concern, the entire build is only running me $776 minus shipping.
Thanks for the help guys, I'm mainly concerned about the motherboard stability; it seems all the 680i boards are flaky & I can't find one with the features I want that has less than a 25% failure rate among reviewers. Stability is my main concern.
Yeah Lerch; I know raid arrays are common & the mobo's are set up for it already...I've just never done one & reading about how to do it, they seem like a hassle. Striped you get the performance gain & mirrored you get the reliability gain...unless you go for a set of striped with a mirror back up. What do they call that a raid 2? Anyway, three discs would be pushing up the price for no real gain for the wife & kids; they are upgrading from an old (nearly 7 years old) Dell 4300 desktop with a 6800LE vga & a 2.8 gig P-4 1 gig of sdram....so this build will be significantly faster as it is. That Seagate barracuda HD is still going strong after all these years too.
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Well I went with this set-up after much agonizing over which mobo to choose;
ASUS P5N-E SLI mobo
Core 2 Duo E6300
2 Gigs of G skill DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
And other assorted tidbits like a case, power supply, video card, keyboard & mouse etc.; the entire build minus the OS ran me $750 Hopefully it will be stable & reliable! To everyone who tried to help a big Thank You &
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Got the parts from Newegg & they all arrived today. It all went together without a hitch & posted fine. All the diagnostic progs I need to stress test it tomorrow have been installed along with the AV & AS.
That board boots nice & fast; this has been my most straightforward & hassle free build yet. That Core2 Duo is a nice CPU, the lack of pins freaked me out a little & the way you install the stock HSF left me thinking I was going to break the mobo but all things considered it's pretty sweet. It's about time Intel got one right.
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Awesome! That's the way it's supposed to be.
A lot of magazine reviewers thought the exact same thing about the cpu socket design, but apparently it hasn't been as much of a problem as they thought it might.
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Originally posted by eagl
I consider 2 gig my practical min for even general use. I experienced HD thrashing doing even amature photo editing with 1 gig of memory, and so did my wife even though she doesn't game at all. You can get 2 gigs of decent memory for right around $200. Dropping to 1 gig will save you maybe $100 at the cost of thrashing if you actually USE your computer for anything tougher than email.
Interesting, my machine uses about 200Mb or ram on average on most apps available. On photoshop it wont get past 512mb.
2gigs for a budget system is just a waste. You might aswell invest to high-end rest of the system.
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Actually, some of the art files I have will easily chew up 2GB of RAM, but those are not your typical files (24x48" 600DPI 32 bit color).
I have a ton of 3D models which will eat up over 1GB of RAM.
While video and/or audio editing, I can easily eat that 2GB of RAM up as well.
For me, 2GB is a minimum.
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Brenjen, yeah, you just have to be a little more careful with the pins being on the motherboard. The socket is suppossed to be good for about 10 insertions.
Glad to hear your comp is up and running.
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Originally posted by Brenjen
Got the parts from Newegg & they all arrived today. It all went together without a hitch & posted fine. All the diagnostic progs I need to stress test it tomorrow have been installed along with the AV & AS.
That board boots nice & fast; this has been my most straightforward & hassle free build yet. That Core2 Duo is a nice CPU, the lack of pins freaked me out a little & the way you install the stock HSF left me thinking I was going to break the mobo but all things considered it's pretty sweet. It's about time Intel got one right.
Dont feel bad .... my father left the plastic cover on the E6600 and mounted the whole thing with HSF... didnt boot so well until I visited him, and showed him the intricate "oreo" cookie removal technique.
I think that says alot.. about pins etc.. if you can mount it with plastic cover.. and it still worked fine after.
Balsy
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Originally posted by Skuzzy
Actually, some of the art files I have will easily chew up 2GB of RAM, but those are not your typical files (24x48" 600DPI 32 bit color).
I have a ton of 3D models which will eat up over 1GB of RAM.
While video and/or audio editing, I can easily eat that 2GB of RAM up as well.
For me, 2GB is a minimum.
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Brenjen, yeah, you just have to be a little more careful with the pins being on the motherboard. The socket is suppossed to be good for about 10 insertions.
Glad to hear your comp is up and running.
To me 2 gigs of ram and a budget system doesn't match. If you do memory intensive professional work, it's no job for a budget system.
He said he was getting the box for light usage.
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Depends on your definition of a budget system. My definition is, capable yet under $1,000. I only paid $790 shipped for the entire thing. It's not going to shred high end games but it will allow the wife & kids to do all the stuff they need it to do right now. If they decide they like a particular game that needs more graphics power & they just won't rest until they get to play it; I'll take out the 7300GS vga & get a better one; the rest of the system will already be ready to take on the challenge.
The memory I bought was under $200 for that 2 ghz, there wasn't a big price difference between 1 ghz & 2 ghz. You are right that they probably will not use the 2 ghz at the moment, but one of my daughters wants to play around with some video editing this year & I figured better to have a matched set now for a decent price than have to buy it later. Plus, who knows what they may want to do with this PC in the next two or three years.
It's just my opinion that 2ghz of system memory is a no brainer (especially when it's cheap). If all you are ever going to do is surf web sites & read email 512mb is more than enough; but that would give you ZERO over-head if you turn out not to be a 75 year old grand mother.:D
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HA-ha-ha....mobo dead I suspect. :mad:
The P/C didn't shut down through windows for the wife a couple of times & now it won't post, beep or anything...just dead.
Joy