A quick question!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L stable with 4x1gb ram and a Q6600?? I assume that 4X1gb PC5300 XMS2 is ok. The compatibility list only has the DDR800 variant and not the DDR667 DIMMS. Having heard that the IP35 is a bit unstable with 4gb of RAM I just want to make sure beforehand! I intend to do no overclocking as I am speccing this for a work computer!!

Is the MSI P35 NEO2-FR any better??

I am also intending to use a VX550W psu and possibly a 7600GT or X1650XT for the graphics card.

I am installing everything into either Antec NKS4000 or an Akasa Zen.

Any other comments regarding the build would be appreciated!!

Thanks!

[Pob255]

You could more than happly get away with the corsair VX450w

I like my MSI P35 NEO2-FR
Granted I don't have a quad core or 4gb (see my system)
(This is the first time I've heard about the IP35 haveing problems with 4gb, it can have problems booting with more than one stick when the voltage is set to the 1.8v default, you just need to boot with one stick then set the voltage higher before putting more sticks in)

But back to the MSi, I cannot think of any major flaws off hand, a couple of minor ones
It cannot regualte a 3pin cpu fan (unlike the Abit IP35)
It must have the additional 4 pin molex power cable in to boot.
ummm
I have to mod my non-atx case again to make it fit

My original POST picture was a space ship and after I updated the BIOS it's now a clawy hand.

When you first turn it on it seems to fail to post afew times, don't worry it's just automatically finding a memory voltage it's happy with. That's a great feature
It's sort of a minor niggle because I thought there was a problem at first and kept fiddleing instead of letting it get on with booting (no mention of the reboot voltage searching in the manual, I found out from MSI's Q&A webpage)

[Andy3536]

Have the cheaper version of that board with 4 X 1 gig PC 6400, has worked perfectly for many months.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is the model number of the cheaper motherboard?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Oops!! Just saw the board you had in your system profile. I cannot find it on Scan though ! How is the 64bit XP support for these motherboards??

[Pob255]

something I should mention about the MSI Neo2-fr

It has some built in automatic overclocking stuff, both in the BIOS and a windows utility. It's supposed to alow it to automatically oc as demand on the system increases, the windows utility allows you to change the overclocking settings on-the-fly from within windows.
I say supposedly because I've not used it yet, I've just tweeked a couple of settings and bumped the FSB up to 333mhz to run my e6600 at 3ghz.

EDIT: Cannot help you on the xp 64bit question as I've never used it.

[Thorsson]

I have the Abit IP35-Pro and it's as stable as you like with 4Gb RAM.

[Blackmage]

Yeah the only time stability and ram comes into play if you are overclocking the cpu your 4*1gb should be fine

[BUFF]

Having heard that the IP35 is a bit unstable with 4gb of RAM I just want to make sure beforehand!

afaik it's fine.
However, (& Yellowbeard from Corsair will back me up on this) 2x2Gb DIMMs is preferrable to 4x1Gb DIMMs as it's less stress on th ememory controllers.

[Thorsson]

Well I'm OC'ing at 3.6 and my 4x1Gb Crucial Ballistix has been no hinderance. I've had it at 3.75 stable (not tried higher), but the CPU was a bit toasty (or the fans too noisy) for my liking.

I've always felt that the real difference between having 4 memory sticks and 2 is that you're twice as likely to find one that doesn't OC well. I got lucky this time.