What MoBo for the Micro ATX

[rhomp2002]

I have a X-QPack2 case that I am going to redo almost everything in it. I have already an ASUS EN9600GT TOP video card and 4 GB Mushkin XP2-6400 RAM. I am looking at either a Q9450/Q9550 or an E8400/E8500 for the CPU. The cooling I am looking at is the Cooler Master GeminII S since I think it will fit pretty well.

I am looking at the ASUS P5E-VM HDMI or the DFI LanParty Jr for the MoBo right now but that is open to discussion.

I am not a big gamer; I want something that will play my videos and also give me good timings on the rest of the computer experience. I do a lot of word processing, surfing, emailing and I like to keep things moving along pretty well. Gaming may come up in the future but not so much yet. I am also looking for something that will last me a good while. I don't intend to keep changing things around just to keep up with the latest. I want something good now and that will be good in the near future. I think the setup I am looking at will do that but I am definitely open to options.

[SiM]

I think either of the aforementioned ones are good and are worth going for

[staffsMike]

I'd go with a the DFI, it's crazy spec for a uATX and overclocks like a mad man.

[Antagram]

I'm considering an Asus P5Q-VM (nearly £92 at ebuyer) that uses the new G45 chipset. It has onboard video, but I like that option as backup when retiring a system. Doesn't include HDMI or RAID.

If you want RAID and HDMI (+maybe other features) then there is the P5Q-EM. Costs around £100 + postage depending on where you source it from. But at the price your entering DFI territory.

[Webby]

Personally if I was spending ~£90-100 on a uATX board I would go the extra mile and get the DFI JR then if in the future it got relegated to a low power system or media centre I would when that happened buy a media centric graphics card for £20 which will be better graphically than the IGP on the G45 board and you will have a better featured board for the here and now.

[Antagram]

Is the x8 PCI Express 2.0 graphic slots of the DFI something to be concerned over? No idea how much bandwidth current cards use.

[Webby]

x8 PCIe 2 is the same as x16 PCIe 1 and since no card is yet using the full bandwidth of x16 PCIe 1 not really an issue.

[joshy989]

The P5Q-EM has expressgate so its great if u dont want 2 start the os up if u want to access the internet quickly!!

[Webby]

Just how long does your system take to boot? If Hibernated my system comes back to usable within a minute... depending on what was loaded of course!