Long Bow

Well my mobo is effectively dead and as such I need to upgrade. I really didn't want to upgrade now, I was hoping to wait until the P45 mobos and the next gen video cards were released to see how things look.

I'm going to be re-using everything except for the cpu, mobo, and ram.

I have commented on tons of threads here about builds yet when it comes to mine I'm struggling to make the best choice. I just wasn't prepared to do it now. I have the go ahead to upgrade these parts but the clause is that I can't upgrade when the nehalms come out, this rig has to be solid for 2-3 years outside of video card upgrade. So I'm interested in your opinions?

The rig is for gameing first and some photoshop cs3. I'm leaning heavily towards getting a q6600 simply because I can OC it to keep up in games while benefiting from the other cores if and when needed. I like the 8400 as a second option but due to the length of time I need this for the quad is safer?

Motherboards are causing me no end of stress. Seeing as I need a solid base to last me two to three years I'm leary of going with the p35 boards, as great as they are. I have looked at a few x38 boards like the Asus P5E and the Gigabyte DS4 (though no were stocks it) but the new eVga 750i looks really nice and can OC well. The PCI-E 2.0 slots are a sticking point for me. I know currently that they are not needed but in 1.5 - 2 years they may be nice to have?

For ram I have been looking at the Crucial Ballistics 2x2GB pc6400 ram. It apparently will OC really well. My fall back is the OCZ platinum series.

My budget is $700 Canadian, I'm looking at buying from either:

http://www.ncix.com

http://www.directcanada.com

Best selection and prices for me plus only one tax instead of two.

Fire away, I will consider everything but benchmarks and facts sway me more then personal opinions.

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Bamboo

Considering the situation you are in, would it be possible to just spend $75 on a cheap but usable motherboard now just to get you through till nelehalm?

For instance, look at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%2475+-+%24100

That Gig. board got some great reviews.

Here it is for you:
http://www.directcanada.com/products...cture=GIGABYTE
$87.80

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birdie_in_Texas

hey Longbow..check the Admin forum..I posted a reply to you about fry's..

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birdie_in_Texas

ordered 2 of these..$$$ cheaper than newegg..also has rebate..
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5269577


$199.00 for Q6600
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5101696

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Long Bow

Thanks Birdie, I will look into the admin forum soon. Those are some sweet prices but I fear that all the fees and duties to get them will eliminate any savings.

Bamboo I'm thinking about that route as an option. However I know my wife and no matter how cheap I go this time she will say no to upgrading in anything less then two years. That is why I'm so concerned about getting the right mobo.

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Bamboo

I actually explained things to my wife last time I did an upgrade, and she actually understood that it was either me spend $100 now just to keep the computer running or $1000 for a whole new system. And $100 is a drop in the bucket she will forget about in a year compared to the dent $800 will make.

On the other hand, you could actually pull off the cpu/mb/ram upgrade for about $400-$500 easily, since you can get the q6600 for close to $200 now, with a $130 or so motherboard, and under $100 for 4 gigs of RAM.

Are you sure you can reuse your OS?

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Long Bow

I believe I can re use my OS. I don't think its an OEM, luckily. If I was just to replace the mobo I would need to find a decent socket 939 board.

I did some looking around and found I think a good solution:

Q6600 (retail) - $218
DFI LP Dk X38 - $206.70
OCZ PC1000 2x2gb - $118

Total with tax, free shipping and insurance is $573.30

I could trim some money from the ram and I still might, but the difference is rather small. The motherboard will OC like crazy, has a decent feature set and will handle all the 45mm processors if I go that route. Plus its pci-e 2. To get a decent p35 mobo I'm looking at around $140-$185 though the gigabyte starts lower down at about $90.

I might consider buying another 939 socket mobo and just holding off as well but now that I'm this far along why stop Seriously though I could only find one and it was the same price as these and not a very good board at that.

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Bamboo

Yeah, didn't know you were still 939. Ouch.
How old is your Gfx. card though. With all the new goodies, sounds like it will be a bottleneck for you.

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Long Bow

Currently I have an 8800gts 640mb. I think that it will do for now, no need to upgrade until the new cards are out.

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ScratchMonkey

One of my guildies reports an amazing amount of bang-for-buck for $200:

http://matureasskickers.yuku.com/topic/415

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Bamboo

I still can't see going AMD. I really want them to come back, but it just is not the time.
I am actually so tired of reading articles about their compatibility problems I just quit reading them. I still see the headlines in my RSS feeds though.

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ScratchMonkey

What kinds of compatibility problems? (Might be worth starting a new thread on the subject.)

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birdie_in_Texas

my gaming rig now is a 4600+ socket 939 with 3-gigz pc3200, 8800gts (the 340MB one) and dual 150-gig rappy's in the raid..all that in a micro LAN case..! and i get 100fps @ 1680x1050 with XP Pro SP4 32-bit playing CoD4...

socket 939 is still VERY viable...i do not have crysis, so I cannot say if it would even run, but it does CoD4 just fine

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=DdogG=

I am impressed that you feel comfortable putting sp4 on that xp box this early.

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Long Bow

LoL, Birdie is a microsoft theif, he stole sp4

I'm definetly not going AMD this time. I loved my amd64 3700. I was able to hit 250fsb and a bit higher no problem, 24/7 stable and cool with the right parts (it will most likely be up for sale soon ). It did a good job allowing me to play games up to COD4. It struggled a bit with Arma. However I usually go with what ever is the top chip at the time, currently the intels are there so I'm going that route.

I have pretty much made up my mind and Im going with the DFI X38 as the price isn't much more then a good p35 board and it will OC just as high as most p35's. It will also be a bit more future proof for me then the p35.

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