need help choosing mother board.

[SkylineRemix]

I'm actually helping my colleague to make a list for a custom build computer for home. The original plan was to actually purchase a unit from Dell or HP but then i went there to see, they actually offered alot of crap and also quite expensive and also using Vista. If i select XP there, it'll cost me another 92 bucks... So i give advice on getting a custom build and let the computer shop (like AllIt, Cycom, ThunderMatch) handle with the warranty issue.

Mainly, the comp will be using for work (and not really into gaming) and also to replace the 5 year old AMD comp.

Things that have been decide on using Intel chip instead of AMD for this new one. So it'll be either C2D E4500 or C2D 6550.

As for the board.. I'm not sure if i should recommend a iP35 board or not. Even so, there's alot to choose from too... Budget for the board would be about RM350 i think.. if can go lower then it would be better. I have these few boards in mind:

-Asus P5K SE / Asus P5K (any difference actually?)
-Asus P5KR
-Gigabyte P35-DS3L
-Biostar P35D2-A7
-Biostar TP35D2-A7 T-Force


Before i forget, the budget for the new PC is RM 3500 with LCD Monitor.

[Mac Daddy]

Of the boards you mentioned in the 90 CAD range the Asus P5K SE and the two Biostar boards I don't like the look of the chipset cooling and overall quality of the boards.

The Gigabyte P35-DS3L is in the same price range and the chipset coolers look better to me and the overall quality.

The Asus P5KR is a nice board but your getting up into the 150 - 200 dollar and at that point you might as well get into a PCI-E 2.0 board like the GA-P35-DQ6.

On the CPU's I went through this myself the E4500 has a rated FSB of 800MHz and a 2M L2 cache whereas the E6550 has a rated FSB of 1333 and an L2 cache of 4M. It makes a big difference for the 40-50 dollar difference and actually I got my E6550 for 140CAD it was on sale here

Hope this helps

[SkylineRemix]

So Gigabyte P35-DS3L and Asus P5K SE would be better?

[Mac Daddy]

The chipset cooling on the Asus P5K SE are just aluminum sinks the ones on the P35-DS3L are copper. They are pretty much the same price and have the same features otherwise so your call

(The ones on the Biostar boards look identical to the ones on my cheap 40 dollar ASrock 478 board)

[SkylineRemix]

performance wise?

[Chai]

It should be very similar. You can't tell without benchmarks.

[Mac Daddy]

Yes I agree with Chai very close and hard to tell without benchmarks. I would check prices in your area if the ASUS board is more expensive I don't see why the components and caps are of a higher quality on the Gigabyte board.

Not bashing ASUS but I find you pay more for less with them I took 3 months to choose the motherboard I have now. Both are nice boards your call.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by SkylineRemix

performance wise?

Honestly... without benchmarks, you can't really tell the difference. In other words, focus on more important issues like layout, quality, warranty, features, price, etc.

[SkylineRemix]

This is what i've come out with (according to Viewnet's Price list on the 1st week of April).

-Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (RM 609)
-Gigabyte P35-DS3L (RM 334)
-Gigabyte GF 8600GT (RM 364)
-Kingston 1GB DDR2 667 (RM 58 x 2 = RM116)
-Western Digital 500GB SATA 16MB (RM 299)
-Samsung 20x SATA DVD-RW (RM 99)
-ViewSonic VX2235 WIDE 22" (RM 799)
-Cooler Master Extreme 500W (RM 189)

Someone please rate it... thanks

[Adrian Wong]

Looks okay to me. Except maybe for the 8600 GT. Kinda weak unless you don't play 3D games.