motherboard makers / good and bad

[Raven]

hi.

looking for a motherboard capable of running a c2d but what brands are good and bad ?

gigabyte abit asus and msi is those i have been looking at.

is nforce something to look for or is intel965 better ?

Regards

Raven

[nathan]

i'm not that educated in this area, but i would recommend intel 965. But i suppose a part of it depends on what your looking for in the board. overclock? etc...

[FarFarAway]

i965 for Intel atm, though DFI's board is good, but very tricky to deal with

Asus P5B Deluxe/P5B-E plus or Asus Commando

[Raven]

Originally Posted by name='nathan'

But i suppose a part of it depends on what your looking for in the board. overclock? etc...

well my main requirment is passive cooling and not to expensive.

overclocking will be done but nothing extreme, 2.6ghz would be more than enough for me.

have no interest in running sli and i want to use my audigy2 soundcard.

need atleast 2 pci slots for the soundcard and tv-card.

Originally Posted by name='Kempez™'

Asus P5B Deluxe/P5B-E plus or Asus Commando

how about p5b ?

http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1...78&modelmenu=1

it has what i need and is within my budget.

[markkleb]

If you dont need Raid the Biostar is very good and inexpensive board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138037

OCing is very easy, and the PCI slots are excellent (none are wasted with a double wide GPU cooler.)

[Raven]

biostar isnt an option, have not seen them in any of the 8-9 stores i looked in.

[markkleb]

what about the Gigabyte DS 3? I seem to remember a few commenting on how good it was.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128012

[FarFarAway]

I wouldn't get a DS3 although I've seen some good results.

I wouldn't get a Vanilla P5B, can you not stretch to a P5B-E Plus?

[Raven]

not with todays prices.

regarding the ds3 im abit cautious about it, heard rumours about compability issues with it.

how good is abit ab9 ?

[BUFF]

it's a good but not great overclocker compared to some but that's becase it doesn't switch to the 1333 strap like most other 965s.The JMicron causes some people bother but that's true of other mfrs 965 mobos too.

See the review http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.p...oe_motherboard

Hopefully I'm getting an AB9 QuadGT this week but given your modest requirements another mobo worth looking at maybe the abit IB9.

It uses a different IDE controller than the JMicron, still overclocks to ~400fsb & it's a bit cheaper than an AB9.