Q6600 + ?

[Caveman]

Hello all.

I have just been given a used but never abused Q66 SLACR from a friend but im not too sure what motherboard I should buy. Being as the chip is a bit old I dont know what would be best to buy.

I'd like to overclock it to 3Ghz which ive been told is very easy for this chip. So I dont need a motherboard that costs like £100 with all the fancy things that I probably wont use.

At the moment I am using a AMD 6000+ X2 with 2GB 6400C4 DDR2 memory. Would I beable to use this memory with my new cpu? If this RAM doesn't work well with this CPU what RAM would you suggest?

Price isn't really a problem as long as its not stupid amounts. Like £250 for RAM.

What im looking for is a semi-decent gaming rig. Something thats gonna play most games on High/Medium settings. My GFX is a XFX7900GS 525M (O/C'd to 600M) I will be looking to upgrade this at some point as I think its going to bottleneck my new system.

Any suggestions/recommendation would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[matty-hodgson]

The RAM will work with the chip just fine.. But I'd suggest maybe getting another 2GB..

[Caveman]

Ok thanks ill look into getting another 2GB of RAM. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what Motherboard would be best to buy?

Many thanks.

[matty-hodgson]

I'd look at getting a low end P45 tbh.. Just about anything will get a Q6600 to 3GHz.

[Fraz]

This board is certainly a good little clocker, but may be a bit expensive for your needs at nearly £100. I bought it a few months back when the original motherboard I had with my Q6600 died.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

Got my Q6600 up to 3.4 GHz with very little difficulty.

Although I found it didn't like Crucial memory very much (or indeed, RAM in all four DIMM slots, although this might be a P45 mem-controller problem in general). I had to buy 2*2GB Kingston sticks for it in the end, and sold my old RAM.

Can't say I know much about P43 motherboards, but if you're looking for really cheap motherboards, maybe look into those.

[Caveman]

I will have a look about for that board.. Maybe I can find it cheaper. Someone also suggested I get a GAB - EP45-UD3L.. But I can only find the EP43 or the EP45-UD3LR. Im not too sure whats the difference between the EP43, 45 and the 45LR are. Are these good boards?

[Ulti]

The P43 chipset is a VERY watered down version of the P45 chipset and can barely overclock from what I've read. I'd advise you to look at second hand P35/P45 boards, or from clearance websites as they aren't worth much nowadays.

[jim]

I'd advise a cheap P45 - depends what your needs are. How many SATA ports do you want? How many PCI-E slots? You get the picture.

If you're going to populate all 4 RAM slots you'll probably need to overvolt the FSB slightly to keep it stable - so 2x2GB would be preferable to 4x1GB.

[Caveman]

Well I would need around 4-6 SATA ports. Just the one PCIE slot. I've heard SLI/XFire isn't really worth the money. What I was looking at doing is keeping my 2x1GB 6400's and buying a set of 2x2GB 6400 and dropping both sets in, would this not work?

I've found a few cheapish (£70) P45's. Are there any boards I should stay away from? As I said I dont need all the fancy things that a £150 board offers I just want to get the Q66 up to a decent well capable speed and get good-ish FPS in most the newer games.

Thanks.

[Queelis]

Well I would need around 4-6 SATA ports. Just the one PCIE slot. I've heard SLI/XFire isn't really worth the money. What I was looking at doing is keeping my 2x1GB 6400's and buying a set of 2x2GB 6400 and dropping both sets in, would this not work?

I've found a few cheapish (£70) P45's. Are there any boards I should stay away from? As I said I dont need all the fancy things that a £150 board offers I just want to get the Q66 up to a decent well capable speed and get good-ish FPS in most the newer games.

Thanks.

You can always try to use both sets. It may work, it may not work - definitely worth trying. If it doesn't work, just sell off the 2GB RAM kit

On the mobo, you can try this one, it's 75 pounds and should clock decently enough. I'm a bit lazy to look up other e-tailers than scan, but then again, I'm not quite familiar with them, not living in the UK.

If you find something that you think would suit you, just post the links here, we'll take a good look at them

[jim]

What I was looking at doing is keeping my 2x1GB 6400's and buying a set of 2x2GB 6400 and dropping both sets in, would this not work?

6GB of RAM? What did you want to use it for, out of interest? That's a heck of a lot!

You certainly can do, and it should work. You'll probably have to overvolt the FSB, and it may limit the extent of how far you can overclock - but 3GHz isn't that high a limit, so you should be fine.

Depends how confident you are really.

[Queelis]

6GB of RAM? What did you want to use it for, out of interest? That's a heck of a lot!

So says a man with 8GB RAM

[jim]

I don't use it, only ever used 4GB. I just bought the additional 4GB because it was a good price - one that I suspected I couldn't get again. Installed it... for the heck of it really.

And it therefore means that I should be able to use this PC for a pretty long amount of time now. I doubt the Q9550 is going to be too slow for gaming any time soon, so with 8GB RAM it's as future-proofed as I can make it. If I installed the extra 4GB at a time when it was actually useful, it would probably cost me a heck of a lot more.

[Blaineoliver]

If you already have AM2, why not sell it and your current chip and drop in a Phenom II chip, if compatible with your mobo?

[Caveman]

I'll also keep a look at for that board. Im thinking of getting 6GM because I need to upgrade my RAM and I thought instead of paying £60 for another 2GB I might as well pay the extra 25 and get another 2GB on top of that. Yeah I probably wont use it but too much RAM wont hurt?

A few reasons I dont use a AMD Phenom II chip.

I was given for free a q6600.

I have a AM2 motherboard and it needs to be AM2+/3 to work?

So far the boards i've seen are;
GAB-EP43T-UD3L

A bit cheap so im not too sure bout this one. ASROCK P45DE

This one was recommended here. ASUS P5Q SE2+
Its older model is here, what are the differences?ASUS P5Q SE2

This one was recommended else where only it had a R in it, I think thats because it now supports RAID? GAB-EP45-UD3LR

I know the first one I should stay away from being its a p43 it was just mentioned elsewhere.

Many thanks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is the model number of the AM2 motherboard the OP uses currently?