New Motherboard

[Disturbedguy]

Hello all,

Looking at getting a new motherboad.

I am not planning on going up to DDR3, i7 or any of that fancy stuff just yet.

You can see my hardware in the "My system" section on the left. Replace the 8800 with a GTX260 which wont work on my motherboard. Have tried every possible test to get it working and I know it was working before it was sent out, I hear the thing spin up and such, just no display on the monitor so im assuming motherboard doesnt support it and on top of that, the fact that ive borked 1 of my SATA ports a while ago means I want a new one.

So the motherboard has to support:

• My current DDR2 Memory
• Current CPU
• Have atleast 6 SATA ports (Mix between HD's and Optical Drive at present)
• Support PCI-E 2 (GTX 260)
• Obviously support my CPU
• Decent onboard sound would be an advantage
• Have proper Windows 7 support

Price, not to expensive and obviously not very very cheap.

I am also looking at getting an SSD soon so any recommendation for a decent SSD would be great. Main SSD use would be OS drive, possibly my main game (CoD4) installed on there.

So please, advise away

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I had a quick look on Ebuyer and here are some suggestions:

ASUS P5Q SE PLUS ~ £71

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152574

Uses the P45 chipset.

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR ~ £84

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155486

Uses the P45 chipset.

However the Q6600 goes for around £80 to £100 on Ebay ATM.

It maybe worth selling your Q6600 and existing motherboard while the secondhand prices are still decent.

You can use this to fund a Phenom II X4 955BE and an AM2+ motherboard.

For example a Phenom II X4 955BE and an Asus M3A78-T can be had for around £180:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673

http://www.scan.co.uk/ShopOffers/Index.aspx

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

[Disturbedguy]

Cheers Cat but I'm not really looking to upgrade and with my motherboard having the borked Sata port id rather keep it and put it to use in a second test rig or something, or maybe sell on here if I get buyers.

Main goal at the moment is a new motherboard to support my current hardware + the GTX260

[jim]

It's not worth looking for P31/5 if that's what you're saying, all been done and dusted for a while now - P45 would be a nice option, the Gigabyte one IMO.

It's got the SATA ports you need, there won't be much differentiation at the lower end when it comes to sound, and all the other things are covered.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I just realised some of those motherboards I listed use DDR3!! Doh!! Edited my previous post to reflect the DDR2 motherboards.

There is also the P43 based Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L for around £69:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174244

OcUK also have this Foxconn P45 based motherboard for around £70:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=5&subcat=1155

[Disturbedguy]

Yeah I was just looking at the Gigabyte one but it is a bit more than I wanted to spend :s

I was just about to post that Cat

[Disturbedguy]

Has anyone got any other suggestions as the prices for Cats are a little too expensive so was hoping for something cheaper and I am also planning on getting an SSD at the same time.

PC is being a pain so i have decided that if I am going to format, I want then I may as well get the hardware I want and sooner rather than later

[scaryjim]

Ebuyer have a couple of P43 motherboards at around £50: an ASRock P43DE @ £52.41 and an MSI P43T-C51 @ £52.79 - they both appear to meet all of your requirements...

EDIT: IIRC you live near Aria, in which case they have the ASRock motherboard in stock @ £52.86, if the option to pick it up tomorrow appeals to you

[Disturbedguy]

Cheers, think I might well go for the MSI board..just need to find a nice SSD now

[scaryjim]

What kind of capacity are you looking at? Or do you have an upper limit to your budget?

[Disturbedguy]

Capacity more than 60Gb, buget I dunno maybe £150 as very max budget

[scaryjim]

Try a second-gen Kingston SSDNow V-series 64GB for £113.90.

It uses the same JMicron 618 controller as the Wetern Digital silicon edge in the graphs from this Anandtech review. The review is actually for the Kingston v-series 30GB drive that is heavily cut down from the v+ series (Toshiba controller), but the WD gives a decent account of itself, with about the same performance as Indilinx-based drives. It also supports TRIM. There's no reason to think that Kingston's implementation would be significantly worse...

EDIT: Here's a review of the 128GB second-gen v-series which is pretty favourable. The random performance is nothing to write home about in SSD terms but is way beyond what even the best mechnical hard drive will manage. Looks like they're a good value budget SSD.

EDIT 2: Here's the conclusion of a review that basically says "it doresn't perform as well as other drives, but it performs well enough and look at the value!. Interestingly, the reviewers here also noted (1 page back from the conclusion) that the drive appears to have very good aggressive garbage collection which means it's ideal for running under a non-TRIMming OS, as it can restore itself to full performance in just a couple of minutes of idle time...

[Disturbedguy]

Cheers Jim, will check these out.

[Disturbedguy]

Going to try and have a look at performance/ price of a number of drives tonight, including this one if I get time!

Cheers again Jim.

[Disturbedguy]

This SSD - http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=30807 is currently on TodayOnly on Scan. Is it worth the money?
If not, which SSD that is on TodayOnly would people recommend?

Cheers