I am planning to build a new computer for FSX. I have pretty much decided on a Q6600 cpu and 2GB of pc8500 1066mhz ram and an 8800GT 512mb GPU. I will be running with a SATA hard drive and no raid and no SLI. There are so many motherboards to choose from I'm just looking for some recommendations for a reasonably priced motherboard that is also easy to overclock from the bios. Thanks for sharing your experience and suggestions.Martin

I would strongly recommend this board:Abit IP-35 pro http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813127030

That sound like a nice board Ryan. Man, Now I feel like building me a PC...again!:)Mannysome interesting info on this boardhttp://forum.uabit.com/showthread.php?t=124502

I ended up with an Asus P5K-e wifi/AP. It took a Q6600/GO to 3.6Ghz without changing anything but the FSB (to 400) and Vcore (to 1.425). Everything else stayed in Auto. It was a daw-gawn miracle. I'm now running Vista 64, 4 gigs-O-ram, a 3 drive raid 0, plus 2 Vcards (88GT/84GS) driving 4 monitors (3/19s and a 42). It's pretty well loaded up and would be runnin' rock solid, if I'd just stop messin' with it. Even got LOMAC back out of the box. What a hog that thing was, but 4 years later it's finally running like a dream. Fox one!

Just replaced an Asus P5B-deluxe with a Asus P5K-E (Intel P35 Chipset) and loving it. Changing nothing else, I am very impressed. I plan on over-clocking some this weekend. I can tell there is quite a bit of difference between the Intel P965 and P35 chipsets.P5K-E is a very good value for the dollar with adequate late generation bells & whistles including the fact that it is ready for the Penryn 45nm cores and DDR3 RAM, whenever they become common place.http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16813131225[b u]9-way Intel P35 motherboard round-up[/b /u]Third from the bottom review here:http://www.techspot.com/reviews.shtml

I had an ABIT board for an AMD FX processor, it worked well for me although the overclocking BIOS was a bit of a downer and the power regulators really got very very hot, easily over 100C at very mediocre voltage increases. Thhe passive heat sinks didn't do much for me and I ended up having to place a 120mm fan directly on the moffsets, making my PC sound like a spaceshuttle at Canaveral during liftoff.Asus makes good stuff, but there are reports of some quality issues with some products over the summer which is sad. They are owned by Gigabyte now.Speaking of which, I recently got a Gigabyte X38 board and it's an overclocking dream.http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mother...?ProductID=2665I'm in agreement with the positive reviews out there - I'm running my Penryn at 1.2GHz over stock and have gone up to a 500MHz FSB. If I didn't mind running the 9650 to over 1.45 volts, I'd be at over 5GHz ...There are great review sites out there you should consider, go visit TomsHardware, PC Perspective and PC Stats for reviews and comparisons.Hope this helps,Etienne

Might be good fixing the PCI bus at 100 rather than keeping it on Auto..

I was initially worried about all that stuff. Would the memory clock correctly? Would the FSB 'straps' (timings) adjust correctly, would the PCI and PCI-e busses stay put? I had everything manually set and dialed in so tweekedly, it wouldn't boot at all . . . and what was All that other stuff I hadn't even Started to understand yet. I was getting dizzy. I just reset the bios and let Otto (auto) handle it. No rocket-scientist mode necessary with these modern boards. It looks like the Gigibyte has some FSB holes (Strap auto-adjust problems) but the Asus just runs where ever you set it. 3.6Ghz with a $50 air cooler is fine with me. That extra 50Mhz is just not worth the trouble. This things not broke, so . . . . !