New socket 775 motherboard required

[Englander]

Following on from my previous thread, it appears that I'm in the market for a new motherboard so I thought I'd get the opinion of those more in the know than I am to see what's currently good.

The main requirements are socket 775, SLI, good for overclocking and an accessible pci-e x1 slot for my sound card. Having looked a bit, it appears that this slot is occassionally covered when SLI is being used. Preferably, the x1 slot should be at the very bottom (as it is on my p5n-t deluxe) but that is less important than the other features. I'll also just say that the top 8800GT has a single slot water block and the bottom one has a dual slot air cooler.

Thanks,
Michael

[Terbinator]

If your buying new a Nvidia chipset board will probably be quite expensive

[Englander]

Forgot the budget!! Was hoping for not much more than £80... Nvidia chipset isn't necessarily required.

[Hicks12]

P5n-d supports sli, dont know bout overclocking.... will try that as soon as my watercooling loop is sorted .

Might be selling it if you want .

[Englander]

Xbitlabs says that it's really quite a poor overclocker :/

[Terbinator]

May be worth selling your Q6600 and RAM and going Core i5 instead ?

[Englander]

May be worth selling your Q6600 and RAM and going Core i5 instead ?

I have actually considered the upgrade. It's hard to do much research on phones/ipods, though! How much would a fairly middle of the road set up cost? I just want to get a fair idea of costs + performance increase.

[Terbinator]

Well lets say you could sell your Q6600 for ~£90, the RAM for £60 and then your £80 you were going to spend anyway on a new board that leaves you with £230. I would recommend the i5 750 (£150) which will be a lot faster at everything than the Q6600, a basic P55 motherboard can be had for around £70 but then you've got the sticking point of the RAM which is say £80 for 4GB :/

The other path you could take is the AMD one nd get a Phenom X4 along with an AM2+ motherboard so you can use your existing RAM - although the upgrade may not be as fruitful.

[Englander]

So by my rather conservative mathematics, all in including money recouped from selling this stuff, it'll set me back edging towards £200. Quite tempted really! The 750 was the one I was thinking of earlier, but what speed RAM is decent nowadays?I'm still stuck back in the 800MHz days. Other than that, I suppose the original post should be amended to i5 motherboards!

[Terbinator]

Depending on where you shop you can pick up a 4GB kit of 1600MHz 8-8-8-24 rated RAM for around £90.

[Hicks12]

Xbitlabs says that it's really quite a poor overclocker :/

Noooo, my dreams of overclocking are crumbling already thanks to you .

Im giving it a shot right now though xD.

[Englander]

Well, RAM has been found for 90 quid (cl7 g-skill stuff at ebuyer) and i5 750s appear to be £160. Currently looking for mobos which fit my requirements now.

[Englander]

Finding the mobo hunting quite tricky... whenever I find one that supports SLI, the second slot always runs at x4 or something. How will this affect my 8800gt? Upper end of the mobo budget is now £130.

[Terbinator]

the i5 750 can be had for £149 from Scan on Today Only.

Edit: I lie, why has it gone up in price so much :O

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It would probably be better for the OP to get a P43 or P45 based motherboard and get a faster graphics card at some point.

[Englander]

I really don't feel the need for a new graphics card. My 8800gt handled everything fine and I only went SLI because I got hold of another for £25. I quite like the idea of going to i5 whilst the opportunity presents itself.