TR Forums

Hi All,

I am trying to get all my pieces of components together. I got a good deal on this "ASUS EN8600GTS SILENT/HTDP/256M GeForce 8600GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card" and want to know which Motherbaord is good and will it support this DDR3 and backward compatible?

1. What motherboard to get for this video? Preferably ASUS. Will the video works with the DDR2 board?
2. I got the "CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory" and will this work with the video card mentioned above. Can this support the DDR3 video card? Do I have to get the DDR3 memory to run the video card?
3. I'm planning on getting the E6850 CPU the 3.0 ghz.

Any suggestion on the board and why. The main concern is will it work well with the video and memory that already bought. I'm looking to use this for games and media applications. Also, for multitasking. Thanks for the help.

You've got a confusion of ideas.

The video card will work fine in any modern motherboard. Its memory is on the card and has nothing to do with your RAM.

As far as an Asus recommendation, the question is what processor you want to get.

This is how you should organize a build:

1) CPU choice
2) Appropriate motherboard choice based on CPU
3) Appropriate RAM based on motherboard choice
4) Any PCI-E video card

What's your budget?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131219

That would work nicely with the video card, RAM, and CPU you indicated.

computron9000 wrote:

This is how you should organize a build:

I would probably do it this way:
1) Appropriate motherboard choice based on chipset/CPU/form factor/integrated peripheral preference
2) Appropriate CPU choice
3) Appropriate RAM based on motherboard choice
4) PCI-E video card

P.S.: The P35-based ASUS P5K EPU or P5K motherboard is $100 less and should work fine. Even the P5K SE could be okay.

Yeah, either way. In any event, from my standpoint its backwards to select a video card and RAM, and then go to the CPU and and motherboard choices.

Hi Computeron,

Thanks for the reply. I'm glad the memory for the video card is different from the Ram memory. so, it is ok to work have them together.

I'm thinking of getting the INtel E6850 any 3.0 CPU Duo core 2. My budget for the motherboard is around $120-$150. something that can take the quad core for future upgrade. Any suggestion on this?

the reason why i got the video and ram first is that I got a good deal.

As for the board and ram I made that as the last decision because my friend can get me a 50% deal for the Intel cpu and waiting for that then i can get the board. so, what ASUS board should I get. Also, i get confused with the chipset on the board. What does that have to do with the board and what does it do? Thanks for the help all.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

P.S.: The P35-based ASUS P5K EPU or P5K motherboard is $100 less and should work fine. Even the P5K SE could be okay.

Refer to JAE's post for the motherboard to purchase. As far as the chipset goes, I'd just read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipset

Have you looked at the latest System Guide yet?

Hi Fly,

I read the guide and it does help a lot more for my new upgrade.

I know that this question might be off topic from my subject line but can someone tell me where to read on what Intel CPU to get? There are so many and different model for each line.

All I want is to play game and use it for encoding movies and multi-task for media applications. Any suggestion on what Intel CPU to get? i know I mentioned that I'm planning on getting an E6850 Duo Core 2 but I'm thinking of a QuAD. Any difference to this? Thanks for the help all?

Have a look at the latest TR review: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14573/1
A quad core will definitely help for video encoding but they can be slower than a highe clocked dual core for games.

Btw in that review just take the e8400 as roughly a 6850. The 8400 is slightly faster but it won't be to the point where the comparison is invalid.

Or you could just browse the archives for an old review.

Crazy idea, but how about looking through the reviews in TR's CPU section to an idea of how the various ranges perform? Not every processor has been reviewed, but it's not to hard to work out from the overclocking results roughly how much performance is likely to change with clock speed.

e.g. E6750 review, E7200/Q9300 review.

Edit - beaten to the punch! Shouldn't get distracted by work while posting... BTW, there's a direct E8400 vs E6850 comparison here which shows the E8400 advantage to be generally 5%-10%. It also uses significantly less power so overall is much the better choice unless you get a much better deal on the E6850.

Great. Thanks to all.

Now that I have decided to go with the E8400 is because a buddy of mine is getting it for $84 bucks for me. His friend works for Intel so i got a pretty good deal.

So, Can someone give me an idea which board should I get for the CPU?

along with the Asus 8600GTS silent video card, Cosair 4gb memory I have mentioned in my first post.

I'm looking for a ASUS board and I might get the WD 640gb Sata Hard drive & Pioneer 20x dvd-rw sata along with it.

Any suggestion for the board??

Hi Just,

Thanks for the suggestion but I'm thinking for this board would it be good?


ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Please let me know. thanks

The P5K-E is a more advanced version of the P5K-SE or P5K, so yes.

thanks great...I am waiting for it. I should be getting it tomorrow.