Good cheap board.

[Silk_the_Absent1]

I'm thinking of upgrading to a Phenom II X3 720 BE, and passing this Brisbane X2 3600+ to my mother, since my olde Northwood 2.8 800 isn't cutting it for her (my sister plays some games on the system, and it just isn't anywhere near as fast as the old X2 that was killed by the lightning strike).

Anyway, she wants to keep it close to $100 or so tops (less is fine, too). Biostar has some 790GX boards in the $100-110 range, and in general I tend to like their tforce boards, but I'd like to keep my options open. Any suggestions for a good, cheap board?

-Adam

[davidhammock200]

I'm thinking of upgrading to a Phenom II X3 720 BE, and passing this Brisbane X2 3600+ to my mother, since my olde Northwood 2.8 800 isn't cutting it for her (my sister plays some games on the system, and it just isn't anywhere near as fast as the old X2 that was killed by the lightning strike).

Anyway, she wants to keep it close to $100 or so tops (less is fine, too). Biostar has some 790GX boards in the $100-110 range, and in general I tend to like their tforce boards, but I'd like to keep my options open. Any suggestions for a good, cheap board?

-AdamExcellent Reading: AnandTech Phenom II System Buyers' Guide (http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3521&p=1)

[Silk_the_Absent1]

Yeah, I saw that, but as I said, the Phenom II will be going in this system. The new board will be used with my current X2 3600+ in their system.

Oh, and the reason I am looking at the 720, is that it is currently the only DDR3-compatible Black Edition, has 6MB L3, and the X3's have a chance of being successfully unlocked to an X4 (http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/).

-Adam

[370forlife]

Alot of new biostar boards are cheap and nice. As long as you stay in the T-series, anything else is iffy. Most Tforce series have UCC solid capacitors in crucial areas, and the rest are usually OST, which are known as bad capacitors, but fail less than others. The Tpower series are all 100% solid UCC capacitors.

Their bios's are usually pretty nice, with lots of OC options, and the option to flash the bios from a USB drive. Usually have memtest built into them, too.

Asus makes some cheap Micro ATX boards, too that are pretty nice.

[Silk_the_Absent1]

Going for this combo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.165025), the price works beautifully, and it should be fine.

I am also going to order a set of 4GB memory, and I'll pass this set of 2GB on to them. Is it worth it to get DDR2 1066 over 800? I'm thinking it probably isn't, but I just wanted to make sure.

-Adam

[Silk_the_Absent1]

I am also going to order a set of 4GB memory, and I'll pass this set of 2GB on to them. Is it worth it to get DDR2 1066 over 800? I'm thinking it probably isn't, but I just wanted to make sure.

I don't mean to sound impatient, but I really want to order before the combo deal is pulled. I need to know on the memory.

-Adam

[Silk_the_Absent1]

From what I can find, there is no noticeable difference, so I think I'll go with this Corsair set (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184), hopefully the MIR won't take forever. I'll order it all tonight, unless there are any different suggestions.

-Adam

[MrWicked1968]

I'd get this RAM: OCZ Reaper (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227267)

or

G.Skill PI Black (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231209)

[Silk_the_Absent1]

Of those two, I'd probably pick the G.skill. I don't want to have to go as high on the voltage as the OCZ needs at stock speed. My only concern is the height of the heatspreaders, and whether they're going to get in the way of the processor heatsink.

-Adam

[MrWicked1968]

G. Skill HK (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231219)

same timings and voltage without the larger heatsinks

[Silk_the_Absent1]

Yeah, I saw that, thinking of that set, also considering this 1066 set (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231166).

-Adam

[Silk_the_Absent1]

Ended up going for that 1066 set, I figure that, at about the same price, I'd go for it. It should all get here Thursday.

-Adam

[Silk_the_Absent1]

I are Phenom II!

Using my old HSF (stock FX-60/Opteron quad pipe (http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=399) HSF), because it's much better than the 720's stock HSF.

I still will want to do a standing reinstall to make Vista play nice with the new features, but it is running fine at stock. I'm going to keep it there for now, at least until the AS5 sets in, but then...

Well, it is a Black Edition, and it is potentially unlockable to a quad, so I'd be doing it a disservice if I didn't play with it, right?...

:D

-Adam

[rupertbear]

I just want to ask, what is a good and cheap motherboard that can push my E6420 at 2.13GHz to 3.5 GHz and up, that is, with a CPU Cooling and a high end DDR2 800 to 1200 RAM. And can someone please suggest a good combination of motherboard and ram and cooling for my setup?

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