Re: New system build

Great minds think alike. [Although I think you meant GA-965P-DS3 rather than -DSR].

The P35 series of motherboards is later, higher end. Arguably better, but it probably doesn't matter unless you are going to run a "Santa Rosa" CPU, and it's going to be more expensive.

I'd go higher end on the CPU; the E6550 (2.33GHz) is $178; the E6750 (2.66GHz) is $204, but those are both 1333MHz FSB (not supported by all lower end motherboards & chipsets). The E6600 (2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB) is $227. These all have 4MB cache and are "Conroe" processors.

The E4000 series are "Allendale", a lower grade CPU, although they are a lot less; the E4400 (2.0GHz), for example, is about $126. But it's only 2MB cache, and it also doesn't have the full instruction set (including virtualization) of the E6000 series products. (The E2160 is only $95 or so, but it's WAY down in terms of performance).



Roy Coorne wrote:
Keith wrote:
Hi all-

I haven't built anything for a while (last system just died, it was an AMD750 on an ASUS K7 something).

While I'm drooling over the latest technology, I just started looking at prices and got a kick in the pants. Rather than going quad core, I probably need to be looking at a decent dual core CPU and MB.

My primary concern is stability and ease of setup; overclocking is nice but not necessary.

If you have any recommendations for a good price/performance ASUS MB, please reply.

Thanks,
Keith

If Asus, then P5B (or P5K); otherwise Gigabyte GA-965P-DSR (or P35-DS3) - together with Intel E2160 or E4400.

Roy
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