Asrock mobo/ram compatibility question...

[inversion]

I have decided to upgrade my fathers ( and mine) pc slowly, he wants to be "frugile"
Keeping his current agp vid card etc....
The mobo is a
Asrock ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket T (LGA 775) VIA PT880 PRO ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Link= http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813157092
Going to use a Intel e6400 (even though I have always been a die harder AMD fan, too many good notes about OC'n this cpu etc... I will also be water cooling my e6400 and have a water cooled 6800gt oc)
What do I have to worry about ram compatibility brands etc...
Also the main question would be:
Would it be better (for a gamer) to add 1= 1gb ddr2 533/667 or for now stick with the 2gb's of ddr pc3200?
Also would he be better (as a mathmatics user etc...) using 1.5 gb's ddr pc3200 or upgrading to 1gb ddr2 533/667?
And, again, what would be best bet for ram compatibility on this combo?
I hope this question falls in the right place, if not please move it or let me know to move it.
Now that I see this I will also post this in the mobo question area, please delet or move it if I am wrong, I know how annoying it is to have idiots like me making dumb posts...lol....
In advance, thanks for the help, weren't for forums like this I would be even dumber... 8)
DaMorbid1

 

[Mondoman]

Both the chipset and motherboard are not very good. There don't seem to be any good-quality options for moving to C2D without also switching to PCIe.

 

[inversion]

Well in my other post someone pointed out that it is only 4x pcie slot, even though in areas it makes the statement 16x pcie slot.
If that is the fact I am quite po'd as of now, never have I seen newegg stoop like that, heres the other post if anyone is interested, didnt really know where to exactly post this.
similar post= http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1426644#1426644
Also if thats the fact, would be no better than I have agp wise, what board (if any) offers good agp + 16x pcie slots?
Ticked I be....
again thanks everyone for putting up with thy dumgness....

 

[inversion]

I really could use the advice fast, already have ordered these boards and want to complain if this is so, the pcie slot is not 16x like it states in my links.

 

[mkaibear]

The PCIe slot is 4x. It is *physically* a 16x slot. A PCIe 16 card will fit in it and it will work at 4x speed.

If you're planning on OC-ing, don't get the Asrock board. Wait, save up, and buy a better board.

 

[inversion]

Thank you sir, just the info I was looking for, I hate I have been out of the circuit due to illness, I really missed alot of new tech advancements.
I do still think that ad is very very misleading and have found other posts stating the same.
Thanks again

 

[13thmonkey]

Thank you sir, just the info I was looking for, I hate I have been out of the circuit due to illness, I really missed alot of new tech advancements.
I do still think that ad is very very misleading and have found other posts stating the same.
Thanks again

I've got one with 2Gb of PC3200, and it works fine (sata implementation might be a bit weak, but I'm the only one with that problem that I've heard of). There's about 10 people using one of those boards that post regularly, none of them have real problems as far as I can tell.

Anantech did a whole set of tests comparing the DDR solution to DDR2 solutions, and found 5% difference when gaming, and similar on non gaming benchmarks, i.e. intensive processing. Ditto with the PCI-Ex4 vs AGPx8 vs PCI-Ex8/16

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2813&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2814&p=1

The comments about OC'ing are very valid.

I'm using mine as a stopgap until I had a PCI-E card, and now waiting for DDR2 to come down in price again. If you get it stick with the 1.90 Bios, the others have increased fan speed.