Cheap upgrade

It depends highly on her uses and needs I guess. When you recommend P43 and P45, don't forget that the P43 is exactly what the P31 was in relation to the P35. As chipsets, both P31 and P35 were both very capable and were built specifically with 45nm CPU's in mind so they're not exactly ancient either. The P31 DS3L is put together well and overclocks fine too but only lacks with respect to addons such as RAID and Firewire. Whether Danni values features like those and at what cost is up to her but I think that the P31 is well worth considering when you take into account how cheap it is!

I whole heartedly agree that a quality motherboard should be the basis of a functional system as you don't want to have to swap it out, but I also think it's important to weigh out the benefits that can be measured (price and specification) against those that can't be (performance), especially when it's meant to be a cheap and cheerful upgrade. :)
 
Yeah, forgot there was no p33. The p45 is a very sweet board and is known to be a good overclocker, so if the money will stretch and you are willing go for the p45 as it has raid and other nice functions, otherwise go for the p31
 
Fair shout. Be aware though that there are P43/P45's without RAID because they don't have the ICH10R southbridge so if RAID is required and you are able to spend more, make sure it has that southbridge or an ICH that ends with R :)
 
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