Lost in a mire of C2D motherboards...

[jamena]

945, 965, 975, p35, g33, x38, g31, 680, 650, and more...
I'd imagine that buying sometime in the next month means I should look for G33/P35/650 boards? I have been trying to switch to Linux ...where intel/nvidia seem to get the best support? Something common is a good bet for Linux it would seem.

The plan: a C2D setup that can overclock a bit at least, and be compatible with Quad-core as apparently their prices are going to plummet...

uATX would be my preference as it opens up a few nice case possibilities, but I understand that ATX is still usually better for the same money?

High quality onboard audio (and not just 7 rubbish noisy channels that cannot do positional stereo) is the only feature I'd be particularly interested in. Or at least onboard audio that is capable of good stereo positional audio, perhaps supporting EAX for gaming


comment/suggestions welcomed.
Boards just spotted in the wild that won't be available for a month are good too.
Thanks!

[Zak33]

spare pci slot for a sound card then...........

[jamena]

spare pci slot for a sound card then...........

if it's an ATX definitely room for PCI soundcard, but if it's uATX and a small case...less is more!

[Thorsson]

Linux and games? Good luck there m8.

Otherwise P35 looks good, but it will be interesting to see what the X38 does. Got a month or so before those Intel price cuts. Worth waiting to see what shakes out.

[Agent]

Linux and games? Good luck there m8.

Quite a few games come with native Linux support now mate

The gaming support for Linux is much better than it used to be too.
Not saying its on par with windows, but its certainly not as bad as it was.

[jamena]

Linux and games? Good luck there m8.

hey hey hey I got CSSource up and running on my aged xp-M 2500 with 1.5Gb ram and only a poor old 9800pro via Wine and Ubuntu. Rubbish fps (sub-20?) compared to windows (>30 mostly @1280x800) but I understand that nvidia are closer to the same performance these days. At least it worked, and did so without that much difficulty!

Otherwise P35 looks good, but it will be interesting to see what the X38 does. Got a month or so before those Intel price cuts. Worth waiting to see what shakes out.

Yes, beginning to think I'll wait a month at least. The G33 chipsets look quite promising for uATX thus far too and there will be more choice in a month plus there's definitely choice there for Quad core...