Reliable, Solid Intel board

[AKA]

I've been out of the loop for awhile and I am not familar with all the new technology and hoping to get some information and direction.

What I have been reading so far hasn't been specific enough for me to catch entirely up on the new stuff yet.


In short I am looking for a solid, reliable Intel motherboard that will be running Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz.

One that can use DDR2 unless you can tell me what DDR3 ram will work solid with the motherboard. For that matter DDR2 if you happen to know, planned to get Muskin.


Will not be overclocking
Will not be gaming

Raid is a plus
Probably have Xp Pro 64bit


Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[razor2025]

I think any of the socket 775 Intel boards will fit in to your criteria. If you want raid, you'll be looking for ICH7/8/9/10(R) designated south bridge though.

 

[stevvie]

My vote for the MSI P35Neo2. I run both XP X64 as my main OS and Vista64 as my backup OS (still stupid niggles with DX10 with Vsync and TVout with ATI boards not to mention that all file operation still take longer than they should.) This board has the heat pipes over the north bridge so NO fan is needed on it and I have an E6600 OC to 3Ghz with a cheap Artic Freezer with a good Yate loon 120mm fan and it's almost silent. This board has been ROCK solid for me.

 

[KGB]

If you want the surest, easiest path to stability, get an Intel brand board.

 

[Sagehand]

I'd get a P35/P45 board with a ICH9R/ICH10R southbridge. If you aren't gaming and not overclocking, I'd go for something cheap. The MSI P45Neo3-FR is probably a good bet.

P45's with Raid(ICH10R) @ Newegg

Newegg doesn't have many P35 boards, but I'd bet you can find them very cheap elsewhere on the web.

 

[AKA]

Thank you all for your suggestions.


I think i've narrowed it down to a Intel BOXDP45SG LGA 775 Intel P45


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121348


If anyone has any experience with this board they would like to share, please do.

 

[P4spooky]

Just remember Intel P45 boards (the one you have chosen included) uses DDR3 memory. Still very expensive with no performance gain over DDR2 in Core2Duo/Quad platform.

My opinion is save your money and get a Asus P5Q Pro or Gigabyte Ep45-UD3P. Great boards, excellent stability and great performance. Add 8GB to name brand memory for $50 if you look around.

A little cheaper overall than the Intel board to boot

 

[Googer]

Intel's own brand has a long standing reputation for reliable motherboards. Can't go wrong.


This board is ideal for someone who isn't gaming centric. Yet it offers plenty of flexibilitiy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121361

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: Googer
Intel's own brand has a long standing reputation for reliable motherboards. Can't go wrong.


This board is ideal for someone who isn't gaming centric. Yet it offers plenty of flexibilitiy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121361

except this board is an LGA 1366... he's looking for a board that will work the E8400 which is an LGA 775.

the boards he would be more interested in would be the:
BOXDX48BT2 LGA 775 Intel X48
BOXDP45SG LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX

granted... both of these boards do DDR3 though

 

[jscedaz]

I was using an Asrock P43R1600 Twins which cost me around £62 which peformed great, it has 4x DDR2 slots and 2x DDR3 slots for future upgrade and supports a large variety of dual and quad processors for future upgrades.

Motherboard Overview: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overv...el=P43R1600Twins&s=775
CPU Support List: http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.a...el=P43R1600Twins&s=775

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: AKA

Thank you all for your suggestions.


I think i've narrowed it down to a Intel BOXDP45SG LGA 775 Intel P45


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121348


If anyone has any experience with this board they would like to share, please do.

I don't have that particular motherboard, but I have consecutively owned 3 Intel Brand Motherboards and the experience has been the same: Very Stable, Highly Automated Bios, Highly Compatible, Super-STABLE, very well laid out, and Tech Support gets you in contact with an American who speaks good English; but be sure you are using a BOXED processor or they may not talk to you.


Instead of Mushkin, you'd be better off with plain old crucial (POC) for this motherboard. Especially since you have no plans for overclocking. POC is cheap and very stable, but if you ever need to overclock, POC is very good at that. It's what the "Old Skoolers" used before this fancy bling-bling ram came around.

Seriously Good Stuff :thumbsup:


EDIT: The benchmarks have proven that at stock speeds you won't notice any improvements by using Ballistix or any other type of fancy ram and Intel will be a bit more friendly to you over the phone when you have POC installed.

 

[AKA]

Excellent suggestions, information and advice.

Will research the other suggestions and if DDR3 will be of no performance benefit, will look into any motherboards that use DDR2.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: AKA
Excellent suggestions, information and advice.

Will research the other suggestions and if DDR3 will be of no performance benefit, will look into any motherboards that use DDR2.

The only reason to go with DDR3 is long term:

1. DDR2 will soon cease to become cheap as foundaries slowly shift their production capacity over to DDR3
2. DDR3 will have much higher densities than DDR2.
3. Just as in the past with DDR1, PC133, EDO, etc. the newer tech will eventually cost half as much per MB compared to the last generation. (EG: currently DDR1 vs DDR2- DDR1 cost twice as much for the same # of MB)

Reasons not to Go with DDR3 (But get a MOBO that does both DDR 2 and 3)

1. Don't buy anything less than DDR3-1600 or you may as well stick with DDR2-800.
2. At this moment, the cost difference between DDR2 and DDR3 does not justify the minimal performance gains. You'll spend an extra $200 on RAM for a 2-5% increase in performance with some applications. That same extra $200 spent on a better CPU would provide much larger performance gains in almost everything.

(I have more, but lost my train of though while writing, so I'll post them later)

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: AKA

Thank you all for your suggestions.


I think i've narrowed it down to a Intel BOXDP45SG LGA 775 Intel P45


http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813121348


If anyone has any experience with this board they would like to share, please do.

The only thing I would argue that is needed on that board is: Onboard Video. Since you won't be gaming much or at all, you may as well spare the expense of buying a GPU and put the money in to a faster dual core or even upgrade to a quad core.