Mobo suggestions

[frosty satan]

Hey, thinking about upgrading my mobo, uhh any help would be great, has to be compatible with my current hardware, and a new cpu (45nm range, the new ones). thanks for any help
also can you plug DDR2 ram into ddr3 slots?

[polobunny]

No, DDR2 has to stay in DDR2 compatible slots. DDR3 is not backward compatible.
As for a good mobo, it depends on your budget. Currently, I find there's good offering in the Intel P35 chipset DDR2 line in terms of compatibility, performance and price (most go for close to $150)

Do you have any processor upgrade in mind?

[frosty satan]

umm kinda, am thinking about the Intel S775 Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core CPU or one of the similar ones probably

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by frosty satan

umm kinda, am thinking about the Intel S775 Core 2 Extreme QX9650 Quad-Core CPU or one of the similar ones probably

Hmm, for that kind of processor, a X38 or X48 based board with DDR3 seems all advised to be honest.
If you ever decide yourself on buying this quad core, you might want to hit Capper up, I think he still has one to sell.

[Yellowhello]

What's your budget for the mobo? With that bad ass CPU you have in mind, I'm assuming to have quite a bit of money to lay down. Maybe the ASUS Striker II Extreme, or any other X38, X48, or 790i DDR3 based mobo. If you can't afford that, any P35 or X38 DDR2 based mobo will be OK.

[azianai]

and if you're not that nuts about the budget, maybe get something like this:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Dynamic Energy Saver Ultra Durable II Intel Motherboard - Retail
im using it now and i love it for my DDR2

[RBIEZE]

if you want to run SLI ,the Evga 780i is a good choice.
It uses DDr2, so that saves a big chunk of money .

I'm of the opinion that untill high clocked ddr3 drops in price, it wont be a viable option for most users.

Ive had good results with this board,It'll easily hit an 1800 MHz FSB

[JayA55]

Just to chime in on the suggested 790i real quick, since that's the board I went with after reading all of the rave reviews and benchmarks. Now, maybe I've just received the special PITA edition, but this particular board has been nothing but a headache thus far. Initially the board would not boot XP, I had to boot Vista on IDE drives in order to get the thing going. From there I couldn't update my bios, tried via disc, USB, and finally by their windows software. None of them worked. Decided to stick with the original bios and did some very mild OC, which eventually resulted in crashing, reset the bios/board back to default, and it wouldn't boot anymore.

All in all from my brief experience and looking at these boards from the 680 -790i series they are known to be very buggy, but have amazing performance if you grab the right one.

Anyway, enough of my rant, I am shipping this board back for another (I did have the opportunity for a refund, but I want to give this one more go). My suggestion is if you want to take the risk (because there are a handful of people having problems with this board) go for it, I think it's worth it. I would personally suggest the XFX 790i though, EVGA tech support is kinda, ehh. Not bad, but certainly wasn't as helpful as I would have hoped.

Again, potentially great board, but it's usually the luck of the draw with any manuf.

[halutzparilla]

if your tight in budget i would suggest my mobo you can get it cheap at newegg... Abit IP32 it work great, though i havnt touch OC potential of it yet...

[polobunny]

Originally Posted by JayA55

Just to chime in on the suggested 790i real quick, since that's the board I went with after reading all of the rave reviews and benchmarks. Now, maybe I've just received the special PITA edition, but this particular board has been nothing but a headache thus far. Initially the board would not boot XP, I had to boot Vista on IDE drives in order to get the thing going. From there I couldn't update my bios, tried via disc, USB, and finally by their windows software. None of them worked. Decided to stick with the original bios and did some very mild OC, which eventually resulted in crashing, reset the bios/board back to default, and it wouldn't boot anymore.

All in all from my brief experience and looking at these boards from the 680 -790i series they are known to be very buggy, but have amazing performance if you grab the right one.

Anyway, enough of my rant, I am shipping this board back for another (I did have the opportunity for a refund, but I want to give this one more go). My suggestion is if you want to take the risk (because there are a handful of people having problems with this board) go for it, I think it's worth it. I would personally suggest the XFX 790i though, EVGA tech support is kinda, ehh. Not bad, but certainly wasn't as helpful as I would have hoped.

Again, potentially great board, but it's usually the luck of the draw with any manuf.

You need to install the drivers using F6 during Windows XP installation for the SATA/RAID.

As for BIOS updating, I can't tell you what's wrong. You could always try Dos-on-USB (available from download.com), normally that does the trick.

By "wouldn't boot anymore" do you mean the board wouldn't powerup or your Windows instal wouldn't boot anymore? Maybe the problem is elsewhere, RAM being faulty or such.

Anyway, keep us updated. I'm so extremely tempted to grab a eVGA 780i SLI mobo with Q6700 OEM (bundled together) for $500 and sell the quad. Someone really has to stop me, or maybe someone wants a Q6700? :P I know I could let it go for cheap, like in $400 range.