A good conroe board please.

[mallett]

keep in mind though, the ds3 is really a budget board, if conroe wasnt new technology and the ds3 had just come out, ill bet it would be priced around the 40-50 mark. theres nothing on it that makes you think..oooh quality, apart from the returns label.

yeah i guess, but thats what im looking for really, a budget board. i not gonna be running the fastest system in the world, nor am i gonna be looking for crossfire or sli surport, so in fact the ds3 and alike are right down my street as they dont have all the fancy stuff im not gonna be using

i just wish i had the time to wait till some more 965 boards came out or even the nf5 chips for intel so there was more to choose from, but thats whats gonna kill me, time
what im looking for is to get my system up and running with no problems by the time im back at uni, i dont wanna be fussing with rmas by that time, theres more important things to be doing...... drinking!!

[Isy]

yeah i guess, but thats what im looking for really, a budget board. i not gonna be running the fastest system in the world, nor am i gonna be looking for crossfire or sli surport, so in fact the ds3 and alike are right down my street as they dont have all the fancy stuff im not gonna be using

i just wish i had the time to wait till some more 965 boards came out or even the nf5 chips for intel so there was more to choose from, but thats whats gonna kill me, time
what im looking for is to get my system up and running with no problems by the time im back at uni, i dont wanna be fussing with rmas by that time, theres more important things to be doing...... drinking!!

What you need is the AS Rock conroe board. Its about £58. You can change later when something better comes along.

[dancingmatt]

I can't believe it's so hard to get a good Core 2 Duo board! I've got an E6600 at home, I'm trying to settle on a motherboard to put it in and my god I just can't decide.

On the one hand I might just splash ~£147 on an Asus P5W DH Deluxe and get it done! Lots of connectivity, high-end quality...

On the other hand, I didn't want to spend more than £120. And I can't for the life of me find a good comparison and study of the differences between 965 and 975X to even narrow it down to a chipset. P5W DH Deluxe or P5B or .......

And I want to order today or tomorrow so I've got it all for the weekend!

DM

[jamena]

you could always get a cheapo ASRock board (anandtech seem to like it in their reviews...) for now and get something better when there's more choice?

[Clunk]

I can't believe it's so hard to get a good Core 2 Duo board! I've got an E6600 at home, I'm trying to settle on a motherboard to put it in and my god I just can't decide.

On the one hand I might just splash ~£147 on an Asus P5W DH Deluxe and get it done! Lots of connectivity, high-end quality...

On the other hand, I didn't want to spend more than £120. And I can't for the life of me find a good comparison and study of the differences between 965 and 975X to even narrow it down to a chipset. P5W DH Deluxe or P5B or .......

And I want to order today or tomorrow so I've got it all for the weekend!

DM

just setting up the p5b that arrived today. having had a p5wdh, i have to say that the build quality on this one is far better than the p5wdh (on the ones ive had anyway), it just looks and feels more expensive. more importantly, this fired up first time and hopefully it wont die. no idea what it overclocks like yet, but i suppose i just have to be thankful its working

[DarthVader]

just setting up the p5b that arrived today. having had a p5wdh, i have to say that the build quality on this one is far better than the p5wdh (on the ones ive had anyway), it just looks and feels more expensive. more importantly, this fired up first time and hopefully it wont die. no idea what it overclocks like yet, but i suppose i just have to be thankful its working

Can I ask what kind of memory you are using with that P5B board? I presume the P5B/Deluxe does not have issues with running memory at 4-4-4-12 since it is using the AMI bios instead of the AWARD one?

Oh and are the heatsinks on this board of a decent enough quality?

[Clunk]

im using corsair 6400 5-5-5 stuff...works great. yep ami bios. heatsink on mine wasnt making contact, its having a different one on anyway

[julian.day17]

im using corsair 6400 5-5-5 stuff...works great. yep ami bios. heatsink on mine wasnt making contact, its having a different one on anyway

Has anyone tried the corsair 5-5-5-15 1066mhz with conroe cps yet?

[DarthVader]

heatsink on mine wasnt making contact, its having a different one on anyway

Is this a common problem with the board?

[Clunk]

dunno, maybe i was unlucky with mine...its definately worth taking it off when you get it and having a look.

[dancingmatt]

Would never have thought to check.

When/if I ever get a board, that is...

Good luck Clunk!

DM

[shaithis]

just setting up the p5b that arrived today. having had a p5wdh, i have to say that the build quality on this one is far better than the p5wdh (on the ones ive had anyway), it just looks and feels more expensive. more importantly, this fired up first time and hopefully it wont die. no idea what it overclocks like yet, but i suppose i just have to be thankful its working

Be interesting to hear how you get on.

My board currently seems stuck at 4:5 RAM divider......even with the latest BIOS (0507).

Until I get my OCZ RAM replaced I am stuck at defualt speed because of this

[Clunk]

mine was having tantrums until i manually entered the mem timings..took me a while to find where to enter them, but before that, it wouldnt overclock at all. im just getting it all back in my case today...got to do my tubing for the 3rd time in 2 weeks last night got to 3.2ghz and was prime stable for about 3 hours until i turned it off to refit everything. i found that the lowest divider works best for this ram its the 1:2 i think, but i only had a quick play

another thing i noticed was that the temps were ridiculously high, up to 75c while priming, usi ng the intel heatsink, but the heatsink itself was cold to the touch, the northbridge was really hot, but thats probably because it wasnt touching properly.

[shaithis]

How did you change the RAM divider?

The lowest RAM speed my BIOS will allow me to select is the 4:5 divider....so a 266 FSB will only give me options from DDR666, no lower option available....

Very puzzled by this boards FSB/RAM handling.

[Clunk]

in the bit where the fsb settings are, right underneath that, youll see it change when you change the fsb, so if you set the fsb to 400, the ram goes to 800 and so on...theres a drop down box and itll let you change it upwards.

are these temps for real? cant be can they? very very hot!

[shaithis]

Very odd then...

For instance, I select FSB 266, RAM goes to 533......boot up, check CPU-Z and RAM is running at 667...

Set FSB to 333, Ram to 666, system wont boot.


Something very odd going on with these dividers....RAM is rated for 667 as well.


I will check my temps tonight, I don't normally look at them due to the number of boards I have owned that never gave an accurate reading.