Motherboard (and memory) for Q6600

[Miksu]

It seems I'm going to order a new Q6600 later this week but I haven't been able to decide which MB to get. I'm going to use my computer as a HTPC / gaming rig, so I need a motherboard which is quite silent, includes integrated LAN + sound card and overclocks.

Currently I'm most interested in Abit IP35-E which costs around 100€ here. IP35 is 150€ and because I'm not going to use RAID, E-model seems like a logical choice. I'm not sure if there's any other differences between the two models?

Any recommendations?

Also I'm going to buy some DDR2 memory (2 GB) and I'm thinking of using cheap Kingston Valueram. Should I go for 533MHz or 667MHz? I'm not sure how the overclocking works with Core 2-series but hopefully I can lock the memory at some frequency and just bump the FSB. Is there anything I should remember when selecting memory sticks (other than it must be DDR2)?

 

[Skrying]

Every motherboard on the planet these days includes a intergrated NIC and audio chip, I'd be shocked to find a retail motherboard without either. As for the particular choice the more important information would be price point and form factor.

Also, go with DDR2-800 and not less, especially if you want to overclock for performance reasons. You will notice the different between the lower clocked RAM and the higher clocked. The price difference should be rather small I would imagine.

 

[Davros]

I
Any recommendations?

Yes , A proper soundcard for gaming

 

[Albuquerque]

Yes , A proper soundcard for gaming

Don't start this rubbish in this thread; all creative fanbois need to DIAF. It's almost like religion -- anyone who doesn't see it your way is going to Hell. Go away and start another thread, or contribute to this thread in the manner in which the OP requested.

Now, back to the OP: I agree with the above-mentioned DDR2-800 suggestion; you'll need the headroom for better overclocks. The Q6600 starts with DDR2-667 speeds at default (if you're doing 1:1 with bus speed, as you should be). Thus, if you start overclocking the CPU with "only" 667 (or worse, 533) speed memory, then the only direction your ram speed can go is down.

Don't forget a quality powersupply, and by quality I don't necessarily mean a huge-wattage unit either. There are actually some very good quality, low-cost and low-noise PSU's out there if you look through some of the reviews.

I'm completely unsure about motherboards these days; it seems that motherboards are becoming more and more expensive, but with less and less features. Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I haven't seen the IP35 until you mentioned it, so I'm gonna go digging and see how it looks...

 

[Miksu]

Thanks for the answers.

Every motherboard on the planet these days includes a intergrated NIC and audio chip, I'd be shocked to find a retail motherboard without either. As for the particular choice the more important information would be price point and form factor.

Yeah, it seems that most - if not all - the motherboards nowadays have a LAN and a sound card integrated but I added them to the list, just in case. I'm also thinking of buying a new case but I'm going to stick with ATX. Some of the micro-atx htpc-cases look really neat, but there's good enough ATX-cases available too. And the price point is under 200$. Currently I have two candidates which are both from Abit: IP35-E and IP35 Pro. The price difference is almost 100€ and because of this I think I can survive without [SIZE=-1]µGuru and RAID. Also in the same price range is Asus' P5K.[/SIZE]

Yes , A proper soundcard for gaming

Nah, I can live with integrated audio.

Now, back to the OP: I agree with the above-mentioned DDR2-800 suggestion; you'll need the headroom for better overclocks. The Q6600 starts with DDR2-667 speeds at default (if you're doing 1:1 with bus speed, as you should be). Thus, if you start overclocking the CPU with "only" 667 (or worse, 533) speed memory, then the only direction your ram speed can go is down.

Ok, thanks. DDR2-800 it is then.

Don't forget a quality powersupply, and by quality I don't necessarily mean a huge-wattage unit either. There are actually some very good quality, low-cost and low-noise PSU's out there if you look through some of the reviews.

I'm thinking of using the PSU from my old system, which is Seasonic's S12-430W.

I'm completely unsure about motherboards these days; it seems that motherboards are becoming more and more expensive, but with less and less features. Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I haven't seen the IP35 until you mentioned it, so I'm gonna go digging and see how it looks...

Yeah, it seems that prices are going up. I remember buying some good Abit-board (NF7S2 or something like that) few years ago and it was supposed to be top of the line back then and I'm sure it didn't cost over 100 euros. Nowadays best MBs are near, or even over, 250 euros. My current MB is DFI's Lanparty UT Expert and I paid 220 euros for it and I'm really thinking that I could have spend my money better. Ok, the board has worked without problems but if I could find a decent MB for 100€, I then could use the extra 100€ for more memory or even for new games.

That's why I'm almost set to buy IP35-E. But it seems that I'm not in a big hurry because the Finnish retailers aren't going to get Q6600s before the mid of April.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Yep, also recommend the 800DDR2 memory over the 667DDR2 memory.

US

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The Q6600 starts with DDR2-667 speeds at default (if you're doing 1:1 with bus speed, as you should be). Thus, if you start overclocking the CPU with "only" 667 (or worse, 533) speed memory, then the only direction your ram speed can go is down.

No it doesn't. It starts with 266Mhz at 9x which gives 2.4Ghz. Memory is also 266Mhz quad-pumped to 1066Mhz. This though gives you a 4:5 ratio if I remember correctly.

Most motherboards should give you access to 333Mhz(667) though so you should be able to o/c to 3Ghz without issues. This will give you 1:1 ratio for memory/fsb.

US

 

[Albuquerque]

No it doesn't. It starts with 266Mhz at 9x which gives 2.4Ghz. Memory is also 266Mhz quad-pumped to 1066Mhz. This though gives you a 4:5 ratio if I remember correctly.

D'oh, you're exactly right. I had the 1333Mhz FSB parts in my head like a dumbass when I was typing my reply

Sounds like we'd all still go for DDR2-800 though

 

[Dresden]

You beat me to this thread. I'm also in the process of upgrading and was wondering which mobo to go with for a Q6600.

Suggestions?

 

[Albuquerque]

After reading some reviews, I really like the Gigabyte P35 board. If I were assembling a C2D / C2Q system today, I'd probably go with one of the Gigabyte offerings.

 

[Malo]

Yeah that's why I went with a GA-P35-DQ6, as I really liked the P35 chipset features and Gigabytes offering had many rave reviews. Monster heatsinks for great overclocking potential and all the Ultra Durable features. There's also the DSR series for a less costly alternative. The BIOS is also packed with all the overlocking features you need (once you enable advanced mode of course)

You also get Penryn support with a BIOS update somewhere down the line and there is a model that supports DDR3 if you so desire.

The DQ6 is not a cheap board though!

 

[Miksu]

After reading some reviews, I really like the Gigabyte P35 board. If I were assembling a C2D / C2Q system today, I'd probably go with one of the Gigabyte offerings.

Yeah, that seems like a good board but it's rather hard to find Gigabyte's MBs here in Finland. And I haven't used any of Gigabyte's offerings before so Abit's and Asus' boards feel like a more secure purchase

Currently I'm tossing coin between these two:
Abit IP35-E
Asus P5K

 

[Unknown Soldier]

D'oh, you're exactly right. I had the 1333Mhz FSB parts in my head like a dumbass when I was typing my reply

Sounds like we'd all still go for DDR2-800 though

Kewl DDR2-800 is really a no brainer and it's cheap compared to other faster ram and doing 400 x9(if you can do it) gives you 3.6Ghz.

US

 

[Miksu]

I decided to buy the Asus P5K. I now have all the required parts except the CPU, which should be here early next week. I'm guessing that next thing I need to replace is my X1950Pro but that's an another story.

 

[Dresden]

I decided to buy the Asus P5K. I now have all the required parts except the CPU, which should be here early next week. I'm guessing that next thing I need to replace is my X1950Pro but that's an another story.

I was reading about that myself actually. Let me know how it is, I may end up copying you.

 

[Albuquerque]

I was reading about that myself actually. Let me know how it is, I may end up copying you.

+1. When you mentioned that board earlier in this thread, I gave it a look-see and I liked most of what I read. Still not sure that I would get it over a Gigabyte DS3 or something, but I'd still like to hear your experience with it.

 

[Miksu]

I got all the parts (yay!) but I won't be able to build my new system until early next week. I'm moving to a new place and stuff like that so my spare time is little limited for now.

What I've read from a Finnish message board, many users seem to have problem with crackling sound when using P5K. But this seems to be the case only when one is using an IDE-drive. With SATA everything is working like it should be.

I'll report back next week

 

[Miksu]

I got my system installed yesterday but it was so late that I had only little time to tweak things. Like I mentioned, I purchased Q6600 and Asus P5K (vanilla). These were coupled with 4GBs of Corsair TWIN2X2048-5400C4PT and Samsung T166 500GB.

Selecting the OS wasn't easy but I ended up installing Vista Business 64bit. Other options were WinXP 32bit and Vista Ultimate (32 or 64). But I decided it was time to move on and ditch the XP And also Business version doesn't include MCE so I'm going to save that license until I get my HTPC installed. I have to say that the OS is a really joy to use. Everything works really fast, response times are good and overall I just get good vibes out of it.

The memory is only 675MHz but with my briefly tests they seem to work atleast in 850MHz and I'm going to run more tests today. I chose these memory sticks because I found a good deal and that way I was able to buy 4GB instead of 2GB.

I didn't like the layout of P5K that much and even though I have a large case, I had some problems getting all to fit. I didn't have any problems fitting things inside with my last motherboard (DFI Lanparty NF4 Expert). Also the vdroop seems to be quite large but I'm going to check this today more accurately. There's a bios option which should eliminate the vdroop but from what I've read and seen, it's not working.

As the CPU cooler I selected Thermaltake's Big Typhoon VX which sees to be working quite well an the installation was really, really easy. Incidently my last cooler was also Big Typhoon.

 

[t0y]

Hmmm... I might as well throw a few questions of my own.

What's this "Compatible with all FSB1333/1066/800/533MHz CPUs except Quad Core" that many Asus board specification table says, for example in http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=534&l4=0&model=1655&modelmenu=1 ?

How compatible are motherboards in general with Crossfire/SLI? I'm guessing they should be compatible with both, but nvidia doesn't let asus show that in intel-based boards.

 

[Davros]

Don't start this rubbish in this thread; all creative fanbois need to DIAF.

wow someone got out of bed the wrong side

he asked for suggestions on a htpc + gameing rig
having a good sound card is a legitimate recommendation.
On the htpc side if he doesnt have an external decoder he will want a soundcard that decodes dolby
and on the gaming side he will want ds3d capabiltiy as a minimum especially if he is playing fps's with headphones also it looks like openal is going to be the dominant sound api of future games