CPU and MoBo: Buy seperate or as a combo?

NickTheNewbie

The time for me to build a new computer is drawing nigh and I wanted to ask you guys something.


A lot of online shops (i usually go tiger direct or newegg) sell CPUs and motherboards either seperately or as bundles. I want to upgrade to a core 2 duo, and I'm not sure if I should pick out a specific cpu and mobo and buy them seperately, or buy a bundle.


Are the motherboards the usually come with bundles complete shite, or are they usually pretty good quality?

theclam

You should be looking up reviews for your motherboard regardless. If the motherboard you want comes in a bundle for a good price, go for it, otherwise buy it separately.

Clipse

In general, go with whichever is cheaper. I've seen motherboard/cpu bundles (for instance at MWave) which offered very high end motherboards... but they tended to be $10 or so higher than just buying the cpu and motherboard separately at another site (Newegg). The best route is to decide on what features you want/need in a motherboard, find one that has all of those features and good customer reviews, and then compare bundles vs. separate purchases.

NickTheNewbie

Well then while we're on the subject can I ask you guys for motherboard suggestions? I'm looking for something that supports the core 2 duo, has pci-e (SLI not necessary) and preferably has the latest nforce chipset.

Deusfaux

NickTheNewbie wrote:

preferably has the latest nforce chipset.

then your choice is pretty much just the evga board.

the asus striker should be available any day now if it isnt already too

robaal

NickTheNewbie wrote:

I'm looking for something that supports the core 2 duo, has pci-e (SLI not necessary) and preferably has the latest nforce chipset.

...why?

Intel P965 is pretty good, and the newest nforce chipset doesn't seem to be any cheaper (though I've only seen the "premium" version).

NickTheNewbie

robaal wrote:

NickTheNewbie wrote:

I'm looking for something that supports the core 2 duo, has pci-e (SLI not necessary) and preferably has the latest nforce chipset.

...why?

Intel P965 is pretty good, and the newest nforce chipset doesn't seem to be any cheaper (though I've only seen the "premium" version).

Ok let's back up even further! What do you guys suggest for chipsets?

vonPoonBurGer

robaal wrote:

NickTheNewbie wrote:

I'm looking for something that supports the core 2 duo, has pci-e (SLI not necessary) and preferably has the latest nforce chipset.

...why?

Intel P965 is pretty good, and the newest nforce chipset doesn't seem to be any cheaper (though I've only seen the "premium" version).

Yeah, I was just gonna say the same thing. To the OP, maybe you've got better sources than me, since I live in Canada, but the prices I'm seeing on nForce Intel boards are not attractive. On the AMD side of things, nForce all the way, sure, but Intel has been making decent chipsets to match their processors for years, and from what I've heard the P965 is no exception.

Edit: I was only seeing the new 680 boards, the nForce 590s are pretty competitive with the 975X boards. Even still, the P965 boards beat the lot on price.

NickTheNewbie wrote:

Ok let's back up even further! What do you guys suggest for chipsets?

If you're looking for a Core 2 Duo system, there are four choices I'd considers: nForce 590 or 680, Intel P965 or 975X. If you don't care about SLI now or down the road, the P965 is the stand-out choice. You can get a feature-competitive P965 board for a fair bit less than you'd pay for any of the others. Nvidia doesn't even make a midrange non-SLI chipset for Intel processors, hence the P965 really stands out on price.

NickTheNewbie

I'm new to buying intel boards, so I wasn't aware their chipsets matched their processors so well.



So far that's 2 votes for the intel p965 chipset. Is that the general consensus?

robaal

If you'd want SLI then there are also nforce 570 SLI boards - not expensive (~$100) but also crap at overclocking and support only ddr2-667 memory and below; I also don't know if they'll support future Intel CPUs.

OTOH newegg has the supposedly-great-overclocking Gigabyte S3 at $116.