Help! Torn between boards.

[MrLoLeR]

I'll be doing a build in november-ish and am pretty torn on a motherboard decision. I'll be running a 4850, 4GB DDR2, E8400, Vista x64 with NO intention of going Crossfire or OC'ing.

I've looked at a few of these:

Asus P5QL Pro P43 Newegg.com - ASUS P5QL PRO LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Gigabyte EP43 Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Biostar TForce P43 Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TForce TP43D2A7 LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Some of the 24-pin powers slots arent' optimal but i can cope. The main questoin is, what is a reputable board with good customer service. I'll be doing mostly gaming and want to keep the board under 100 bucks. Anyone have any experience with any of these? Or some different boards under 100 bucks with PCI 2.0 and 45nm CPU support? Thanks guys.

 

[zmatt]

All three of those companies are good. In fact you picked the three companies that I would recommend. If yo can stretch it, grab a P45. Biostar's TP45 is a good value.

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TForce TP45HP LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

 

[MrLoLeR]

Yea that looks like a good board. If i decided to go P45 i would want a board with only one PCIex16 slot. I have no use for two. Theres also the P5Q SE P45 for 99 bucks

Newegg.com - ASUS P5Q SE LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

I'm probably making too big of a deal out of it. A motherboard is a motherboard and most of them get mixed reviews. Someone gets a "dud" every once in a while.

I'm thinking of going with the P5QL Pro. $84 bucks and a free $50 game with it seems like a good deal to me. I think :/ lol

 

[zmatt]

That's not a very good reason. Its not more expensive on the P45 side to have 2 slots, and it wont be any slower. I'm pretty sure that is standard equipment for a P45.

That Asus is a good board. Its on the lower end but you can't go wrong with an Asus.

 

[Poizen22]

why wont you overclock its free performence?

 

[MrLoLeR]

Well, i may overclock eventually. But i'm on sort of a tight budget which is why i'm trying to find one of these $99 and under boards. I'm gonna try and squeeze a new heatsink/fan into the picture for potential OC'ing if the board permits a nice one. I'm still new to the OC'ing scene though.

 

[Akubane]

I dunno. I have the biostar i45 and I don't like it as far as overclocking goes.

Unless you have DDr2 1066 or DDR3 ram your FSB will be limited, as the FSB-DRAM multiplier options are almost non existant.

I'd grab the gigabyte or asus myself. If you're on a budget you probably have ddr2 800 ram. Gigabytes award BIOS is phenominal on their x38 boards. That should probably have it too. I don't know about the asus boards. I've had 2 and they both bricked within 2 weeks so I havent bothered with em since.

 

[MrLoLeR]

Yea i've got some G.Skill DDR2 800. I've got everything except the Motherboard. Here are my full specs.

Silverstone Strider 700
CoolerMaster 690
Saphhire 4850
G.Skill DDR2 800
Vista HP SP1 x64
Intel E8400

Just need a board to put it all in lol.

The Gigabyte does look pretty good. Its reallly a toss up between that one and the Asus P5QL Pro for me. I'm just indecisive as **** over it.

EDIT: Actually that Biostar P43 is looking nice as well. Got some pretty good reviews for mild OC'ers and its $75 after a $15 MIR.

 

[NosBoost300]

ummm so whats wrong with the p45 from biostar?? i love mine (well besides the placement of cmos jumper)

 

[Akubane]

Nothing is 'wrong' with it at all. doesn't it hold the world record for FSB right now?

I just hate the BIOS. As I said the FSB-DRAM multiplier options are nearly non existant. So unless you've got Ram that overclocks like a Beast, or you're running 1066 or above. forget about hitting 500 fsb. Ram would need to at least clock 900mhz and be stable to hit 450.

If I had 1066 this'd be the 2nd best mobo I've ever owned. (beside the placement of cmos jumper, as you said lol)

With the BIOS on the gigabyte board I had, I could manually select whatever multiplier I wanted, so it didn't matter what I had the FSB set to. It was then limited by the mobo itself, and not the ram.

I dunno, I've never owned a set of ram that could overlock over 200Mhz so maybe my experience is abnormal and I've just been unlucky with the 4 pair of DDR2 800 i've owned.