Confused about chipsets!

[Bukkake]

Hello.

I did a search before I posted this but all the threads I found were apparently deleted :/

I am looking for a reasonably priced board with good ish overclock ability.
I'm not going to be playing Crysis or anything, just want games like HL2E2 etc to run smoothly.

I'm frankly confused about chipsets. There are so many out there that I don't know which one to get!
I've heard P35 is a good chipset. Is it better than 975X?
I've heard a lot of people say that, however on the Intel site, 975X is listed under "performance chipsets" and P35 under "mainstream chipsets"
And what of the G35/43/45, the Q35 and the P43/45? And all the other trillions of chipsets?

And what of other chipset vendors like SiS, VIA, nVidia, AMD etc?

I am on a budget and want to get a good chipset motherboard to go with my E6750.

Apologies for my stupidity.
IMO Intel should list their chipsets differently or something.

Thanks for your patience!

 

[evongugg]

Welcome to the forums!

For Intel (simplified):
If you want Crossfire get a X38/X48 motherboard.
If you want SLI, get a 750i/780i motherboard.
Otherwise get a P35/P45 motherboard.

 

[hairycat101]

Well, from the sound of it, you aren't interested in CF or SLI. What is your budget? What is the video card you plan on using? Completely new build? PSU? P35/P45 <<< good stuff!

 

[outlw6669]

Agree with two above but submit that the P45 is sufficient for current generation CrossFire at resolutions 1920x1200 and below.

And what of other chipset vendors like SiS, VIA....

Avoid them like the plague.

I've heard P35 is a good chipset. Is it better than 975X?
I've heard a lot of people say that, however on the Intel site, 975X is listed under "performance chipsets" and P35 under "mainstream chipsets"
And what of the G35/43/45, the Q35 and the P43/45? And all the other trillions of chipsets?

Yes, the P35 chipset is better than the 975 chipset.
The 975 series is a few generations old and, while it was a performance chipset in it's day, thoroughly outdated.
Bye the same accord, the P35 chipset is last generation and has been replaced bye the P45 chipset.
For single card configurations, though, the P35 will work just as good as the P45 one.

The "G" and "Q" prefix designates that the chipset has onboard graphics.
Not necessarily a bad thing but I prefer to avoid them.

 

[goonting]

P45 has features even not found on previous 975X gone are the days of 9xx series chips.

 

[Bukkake]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies!
Really helpful!

The card will probably be an nVidia GeForce 6 or 7 series card, unless anyone here thinks different?
Seen some good reviews and they seem to be beating the ATi counterparts.
PSU - I won't be guzzling watts like a Crysis-head, but I probably can't afford to go generic either?
So 500W of a recognised brand I suppose.
Not going to run XFire or SLI.
My budget is around GBP250, which is about USD440.
That will probably have to go up because of the power supply though unless I can find a cheap goodish P35 motherboard.

It sucks, my other PC broke and I need a new one for university!
I would keep my old graphics card, but it is AGP, and I can pick up GeForce 6s and 7s for quite cheap these days.

So what do people think for the motherboard?
ASUS? Gigabyte? Abit?

Lots of choice = hard to choose!

Thanks again for the swift replies!

 

[hairycat101]

I like Asus and Gigabyte. For a direct X9 card, the 7900 (nvidia) or 1900 (ati) are pretty comparable. I wish I could help with your component choices, but I really don't know what is avaialbe in your area.

 

[Onus]

A $440 budget is really tight. I know you can't buy from Newegg in the UK, but as a reference, here is a potential build. O/S, monitor, KBD, rodent, speakers not included:

Rosewill R230-P-BK Black 0.5mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #:R230-P-BK
Item #:N82E16811147075
$31.99 -$8.00 Instant $23.99

Cheap case, but is roomy will take an additional front 120mm fan in addition to the standard rear one.

BIOSTAR G31-M7 TE LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Model #:G31-M7 TE
Item #:N82E16813138125
$49.99 $49.99

Stretch this to a P35/P45 board if you can. The small size and integrated chipset will severly limit any overclocking.

ASUS EN9500GT OC/DI/512M GeForce 9500 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
- Retail
Model #:EN9500GT OC/DI/512M
Item #:N82E16814121271
$94.99 $94.99

Antec Basiq BP500UB 500W ATX12V Version 2.01 Active PFC Power Supply - OEM
Model #:BP500UB
Item #:N82E16817371019
$39.99 $39.99

Full range PSU should work on your power too and meets European requirements for Active PFC.

Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E2180 - Retail
Model #:BX80557E2180
Item #:N82E16819116052
$69.99 $69.99

A-DATA 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model ADQVE1A16K -
Retail
Model #:ADQVE1A16K
Item #:N82E16820211066
$37.99 $37.99

Runs at the JEDEC standard 1.8V.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #:ST3250410AS
Item #:N82E16822148262
$59.99 $59.99

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model iHAS120-08 - Retail
Model #:iHAS120-08
Item #:N82E16827106264
$28.99 $28.99

Subtotal: $405.92
======================
I'm not going to pretend this is a performance build, but as a budget build, its performance should be pretty decent. The GPU is a little better than you were describing. If it will help you afford a nicer motherboard, drop back to an 8600GT or HD2600XT.

 

[hairycat101]

Ah... I was wondering where a GBP was. All I could gather is that it wasn't US currancy. =)

 

[grizz86]

nice pic hairycat

 

[modtech]

All current Intel chipsets are really nice. P31/P35/P43/P45 are mainstream but manufacturer's like Asus and Gigabyte have put together some really good boards that are worthy of the enthusiast segment. You really can't go wrong with any of them.

 

[Zorg]

Get a a low end P35 if you can find one, they are being replaced by the P45. Do yourself a favor and don't get Micro ATX.

You can find people here that will tout almost any manufacturer, but ASUS and Gigabyte are the probably the main ones.

 

[Onus]

Yeah, microATX will impose some limits, typically due to heating and the universally-present integrated graphics (even if you turn it off). If you need to fit a budget though, you may not have too many choices. I did find a GIGABYTE GA-EP31-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P31 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail, for $70, which isn't too much more.

(@hairycat, GBP = Great Britain Pounds)

 

[hairycat101]

(@hairycat, GBP = Great Britain Pounds)

Yea... figured it out when someone else said something about England.

 

[modtech]

GA-EP31-DS3L (and the slightly older P31-DS3L that lacks DES) seriously rocks. It's not in my main rig but I have like 3 of them working almost 24/7 and overclocked.