945 v 965 Chipsets

[MrMaestro]

Hey,

I'm building on a tight budget, but i would like a decent motherboard. I'm looking at either the Gigabyte 945-S3 or 965-S3. The differences in the chipsets i know of are the 965 being compatible with quad-core processors and handling up to 8 GB of RAM. These dont concern me because I'm not going to be getting a quad-core cpu or using that much RAM. So I was wondering if the extra AU$40 for the 965 would be worth it for any reasons? Like I said im on a very tight budget, but if it really is worth the extra money then I'll get it.

Oh and the processor i'm looking at getting is a P4 531 3 GHz, i know it's outdated but I'm sacrificing that so that I may spend more money on a motherboard, so that I can get one that will be able to take a decent CPU like a Core2Duo in the future.


Thanks,

MrMaestro

 

[fredgiblet]

IIRC 945's can't handle Core 2's, so if you are eventually planning on upping to a Core 2 then you will want the 965, but I'm not 100% on that.

 

[Maxdad007]

There are some 945's that have been modified to tak C2D. I would probably get the 965 S3 and maybe look at a P-D as they can be had for right around $100 US.

 

[Anoobis]

The Gigabyte 945 S3 can handle a C2D. If you don't want to overclock anything and if the 945 S3 has all of the features you need/want, then it will work just fine. If you plan on overclocking in the future, you're better off with the 965 S3 or even better, the 965 DS3. The 945 is Intel's budget chipset so the BIOS will be very limited as far as overclocking options are concerned.

 

[Newf]

Tight budget?
Consider a 965G motherboard and use the integrated graphics until you can afford a PCI-E videocard (assuming you need one), unless of course you plan to overclock...
It really helps if you tell us what you want to use your new build for, especially in terms of:
1) Gaming and/or other 3D intensive usage.
2) Plans for overclocking.
3) Budget.

 

[whoaru99]

I think I'd go with the 965P. I have the S3 board and the setup/install went perfectly. Absolutely no problems so far (board came with F6 bios).

If you are thinking of getting a C2D in the not so distant future, perhaps you should consider getting a Celeron D to hold you over instead of one of the Pentiums.

I took a similar approach and almost bought an 805D or 820, but decided just to get a Celeron D 3.33 with Cedar Mills core. It was much cheaper than the 805D and 820 and works OK for a hold-over until I get the C2D.

I tried OC on the Celeron D and 4GHz was no problem at all. Didn't have to change anything except the clock/buss speed from 133 to 160 to hit 4GHz. I'll try for more one day, but just coming from a P3 @ 1GHz, even the non-OC Celeron D seems like a speed demon.