[b0dge]

Word up Homies.

A guy at work had a problem with his pc and replaced his mobo before realising that the RAM was knackered, so he gave me the old mobo just in case it still worked. It didn't. I know this because I bought an E5200 and 2x1gb of Corsair Dominator DDR2-1066 and tested it. I was a bit disappointed because it's a rather nice Asus P5B Premium, but hey, what did I expect?!

I've already got an Nvidia 7900GTX which I'll be upgrading in very near future.

So now I need a motherboard. What chipset would you recommend? I'm going to be oc'ing the 5200 to within an inch of it's life and I'm only ever going to have one Nvidia graphics card at a time, so Crossfire/SLi isn't a worry. I have an ATX case, so it doesn't need to be uATX or anything crazy.

Budget is also quite a consideration. I reckon seventy-five quid or so, max.

Whadya reckon? P45 or X48?

Thanks in advance!

b0dge...

[Carbon]

P45, EP45-UD3P is the best overclocking board IMO.

[b0dge]

Hmmm, maybe I'll have to up the budget a bit. That board does look good.

In fact, all the P45 boards are about £100 or more...

[b0dge]

I'm looking at the Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L.

I reckon I should get enough out of the E5200 with a P43 board...

[Carbon]

You're welcome to give it a shot - I assumed you had a high budget with the X48 suggestion. The E5200 has a big FSB hole though so you may not get as far as you like: you may have to down the multiplier and up the FSB and that may mean the RAM ends up being your limiter.

[b0dge]

Yeah, I hadn't really looked into the cost of the boards and assumed £75 would be enough.

Ah well, I got the Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L for £45 on ebay. Used but complete and working.

What do you mean by FSB "hole"?

[Carbon]

A FSB range at which the processor will not run regardless of voltage settings.

[b0dge]

Ok. I'll be aware of that. Cheers.