Seeking advice - 775 Mobo, hdd's, ram

[mattydies]

I want to purchase a new (RELIABLE) Main Board.

I currently have a the hardware listed below (yet to be properly oc'd, all is stock atm since board has been my LARGEST HASSLE / GARBAGE PRODUCT EVER)

1) I do not want to buy another ASUS product again, for a loooooooong time.

2) I wish to upgrade my ram. I wonder about adding more of my current ram
HP2-5300 DDR2 - Mushkin Enhanced

The timings can be tightened up and oc'd a fair bit for super low latency.

Are there any 775 Boards and 6/8 ddr2 slots and overclock-ability? (and also with 8 SATA 2 ports + ESata? Or would I be better of with a SATA sontroller card?). I am mainly a console gamer, but do game on PC occasionally, I like my computer to be quick and responsive, set up for Bluray watching and burning, and running lots of stuff at the same time.

3) I would like to lots of SATA2 slots (2 raptor 74's to be set up raid one), as well as a large storage drive (raid 10). I am unsure if I want to add more 750gb's to my one existing one, or to buy larger drives? I have 2 main concerns - future (raid) (expandability, reliability and speed) and cost.

4) The newest windows I have used is 32bit Windows XP Pro (daily OS, school and home) I have never really used vista (or a 64bit os). I want to try a Windows 7 Beta, 64-bit version. (with my current CPU - E6600) With this in mind, any thoughts?

Thanks in advance, I look forward to stepping back into some something new and neat :)


Matty-D

[Babrbarossa]

NCIX.com - Buy Gigabyte EP45-UD3P ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 2PCI-E SATA2 RAID HD Sound 2GLAN 1394A CrossFireX Motherboard - GA-EP45-UD3P In Canada. eight sata slots

I wouldn't add more of that 5300 ram unless you can get it up to 1000 speeds with decent timings (you might be able to with that mushkin though)- RAM is too cheap of an upgrade to allow your overclock to be crippled by it.

[mattydies]

WOW, that board seems amazing :D Seems like it will be a GREAT fit for me, thanks again :D

A couple more questions
- Can the board run SLI (It says crossfire, are they different chipsets or something?)
Hmmm I guess that just makes one question.

IT would be interesting to FINALLY try and tune my ram (Tight timings, higher speed & Combination) and at the end, if new ram is desirable, oh darn, time to guy some ram :)

[ImmaPC]

The UD3P CAN NOT SLI. CROSSFIRE ONLY, unfortunately. If you'd like a board that does SLI and overclocks well, you could always check out the EVGA 750i SLI (FTW), or if you are/become ambitious, there's also the 780i SLI which will let you Tri-SLI...

I wouldn't bother adding more RAM and then trying to OC it, you might as well get a DDR2-800/1000/1066 since DDR2 is suddenly dirt cheap. Here Are Some Good DDR2-1000 Or Higher Kits For Your Purusal, If You Wish.

Just as well, I would reccomend you get a new Video card, cos you might want one to go with your new system, like a burger and fries, or cheese and wine, or beer and nachos :D

There's the XFX 4830 - $150, falls in between a 3870 and 4850, significantly better than the 8800/9800GT (8800/9800 are exact same card, but one has Tri-SLI), or if you really like Nvidia you can go with the 9800GT - $130 which is still a very decent card.

A step up from those is the 4850 - $190, gets you significantly more frames than 4830 for $20 more. Then, there's the Nvidia equivalents, the 9800GTX+ - $210, which is actually a bit better than the 4850, but once again for $20 more. This card used to be the 9800GTX but NV did a 55nm refresh and the results were significant. Another step higher, we get the HIS 4870 - $240, which once again has significantly more frames than the 4850 or 9800GTX+. The NV equivalent is the GTX260 C216, which is far better than the 4870, but costs over $300.... :D

[mattydies]

Babrbarossa - I think the UDP3 is the board for me.

Thanks a bunch for the recommendations to both (as well as ImmmaPC's links)

I think both these ram kits look pretty darn tempting. 2 of either 4gb kits would be bad ass.

Is that the ram you have in your sig?
Buy Mushkin XP PC2-8000 Redline 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1000 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit

Canada Computers - Memory > Desktop Memory > DDR2 1066 PC2-8500+ : Mushkin XP2-8500 DDR2-1066 4GB (2x2GB) Extreme Performance Series CAS 5-5-5-15 (996599).



As for the video card, I will stick with my 7800GT for now, but I am pretty sure it will be the next candidate for an upgrade. At that point I will see what suits my needs. Perhaps an ATI (in case I want to make use of the crossfire later on)

[ImmaPC]

I would go for the Redlines, because they are slightly cheaper for a slightly slower speed, by 66mhz. You can easily OC the Redlines to the 1066Mhz that the XP's run at, and keep the CAS timings as well.