Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
jfri

To choose a motherboard (for a FSX system)

Recommended Posts

One thing that makes this a difficult task is that no matter what mb I find there always seems to be some customer review reporting problems. This was the case with a P35 Gigabyte mb.Would you prefer some special manufacturer? Should I stay away for some particular manufacturer?I think I have these must requirementQuality things should workSupport for 45 nm CPUSupport for at least 4 Gb RAM (since I intend to use Vista 64)Affordable I don't wan't to pay for features I don't need no absolute requirement but it would be a proMany PCI slots, at least two not obstructed by the videocardGood supportIs this a good requirement list? Any suggestion for a good mb

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've just shopped for a motherboard myself. I hadn't done this for a few years. A few of my findings:You may want a floppy disk on your build. Unless you have a usb floppy, you'll want to pay attention. The newest motherboards are eliminating the floppy drive connection.You may care about having a ps2 connector for keyboard and mouse. Not all motherboards are providing these, but some still do.Some motherboards allow for ddr3 ram, they're the more expensive...the lesser expensive boards allow for ddr2 ram. If you plan to overclock, some boards are better than others becuase they'll allow for simpler settings of voltages, and good control of fans. One board I reviewed had an external button to use to clear cmos, first time I'd seen that.The front side bus options are limited on cheaper boards to 1066. If you plan to run the newer core-2 duos you'll probably want the 1333 mhz front side bus.One board I saw had a huge northbridge heatsink that was making it hard to fit aftermarket heatsink fans. I didn't want that.After I shopped for a few days, I ended up ordering Asus P5K Premium. Kind of a middle ground product with some high end features, but still using ddr2 ram.I know Nick N has made a strong statement in favor of ddr3 ram, but it boils down to money for me, I already have ddr2 memory, and the ddr2 motherboard is a lot less change, so together it adds up.Good luck,Bob

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've always used the 'egg's power search http://www.newegg.com/Product/PowerSearch....=280&GASearch=3including any/all of the features I want in my MB, then set up a comparison page of several to help narrow things down. Once I've done that, I read through ALL of the reviews there to see what types of issues people are having - very good at picking up the little nuances associated with each product or manufacturer. I've personally had good luck with Gigabyte, but Asus has been good to me too. Regards, Kendall#1: E8500 @ 3.95 - HyperTX2 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 4GB Ballistix Tracers PC6400 EVGA 8800GT - XG's 174.74 Seagate 250GB 7200.11 CH Yoke/Pedals/Saitek Throttle Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. 3GB PC4200 - X800XT Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X-530's


Regards, Kendall

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

>manufacturer. I've personally had good luck with Gigabyte,>but Asus has been good to me too. And I had picked a Gigabyte card. But then I read a customer review over a gigabyte mb. It told about a problem that made the system restart by itself during startup and set the system settings to default. So he had to reset the OC setting again. His research had revealed that this was a common problem through the whole P35 serie.And you got a P35 Gigabyte. Have you seen or heard about this?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

>You may want a floppy disk on your build. Unless you have a>usb floppy, you'll want to pay attention. The newest>motherboards are eliminating the floppy drive connection.>I needed a floppy when installing Win XP on a SATA drive. But with Vista I have heard it's not needed.>You may care about having a ps2 connector for keyboard and>mouse. Not all motherboards are providing these, but some>still do.>That was a surprise. Why would they remove the PS2 connector?>Some motherboards allow for ddr3 ram, they're the more>expensive...the lesser expensive boards allow for ddr2 ram. >From what I have heard DDR3 does not make any significant difference in FSX.>After I shopped for a few days, I ended up ordering Asus P5K>Premium. Kind of a middle ground product with some high end>features, but still using ddr2 ram.>And that is working witout any problems?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

> And you got a P35 Gigabyte. Have you seen or heard about this? Never happened to me, but I had read about it before and after I bought my DS3L. The system just reverts back to fail-safe settings during a bad startup if you push the OC too far or have some hardware issues. Notta big deal to me. I'll also add that I've built systems with boards from various manufacturers and you're gonna find some issues in all of them - some are due to a bad production run and some things get ironed out with bios updates. I was considering the Asus IP35E for much less than the ds3L for my budget build, but at the time they had a boot issue I didn't want to deal with and didn't seemd to be getting resolved with bios updates, so I went this route. Anyway, I just try to weigh what types of issues the board has had and make a judgment based on the severity and whether it's because of a design issue or can be ironed out. Again, ALL the manufacturers have issues with their boards - luck of the draw sometimes...... Regards, Kendall#1: E8500 @ 3.95 - HyperTX2 Gigabyte P35-DS3L 4GB Ballistix Tracers PC6400 EVGA 8800GT - XG's 174.74 Seagate 250GB 7200.11 CH Yoke/Pedals/Saitek Throttle Dual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905 #2: Dell 8400 3.2 H.T. 3GB PC4200 - X800XT Diamond Xtreme/Logitech X-530's


Regards, Kendall

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

<Both keyboards and mice are availabe in usb connectors now, that's what ur "supposed" to use with those boards.<>I wouldn't know, but Nick Needham has posted that he wouldn't use anything else. Of course, its all about bottlenecks, so it depends on the rest of your system also. <It should arrive tomorrow. I'll do my build this weekend and let you know!Bob

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest jahman

><connector?>>>>Both keyboards and mice are availabe in usb connectors now,>that's what ur "supposed" to use with those boards.>$5 will get you a couple of USB to PS2 adapters at your local PC store.Cheers,-jahman.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

>> And you got a P35 Gigabyte. Have you seen or heard about>this? >>>Never happened to me, but I had read about it before and after>I bought my DS3L. The system just reverts back to fail-safe>settings during a bad startup if you push the OC too far or>have some hardware issues. Notta big deal to me. >My intended reseller have no DS3L Gigabyte but there are DS3 DS3R DS3P all with iP35. There are also iP45 variants. Womder what all these designation stands for?But if there is no problem if you don't overclock to much I think a Gigabyte seems interesting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

><connector?>>>>Both keyboards and mice are availabe in usb connectors now,>that's what ur "supposed" to use with those boards.>Why? Has USB some advantage over PS2?><difference in FSX.>>>>I wouldn't know, but Nick Needham has posted that he wouldn't>use anything else. Of course, its all about bottlenecks, so>it depends on the rest of your system also. >If it is significanr Gigabyte has a motherboard that can use both DDR2 and DDR3 at a slightly higher cost than my suggestion.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Looked at this board yet? Looks like a solid boardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813136053


| FAA ZMP |
| PPL ASEL |
| Windows 11 | MSI Z690 Tomahawk | 12700K 4.7GHz | MSI RTX 4080 | 32GB 5600 MHz DDR5 | 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD | 2x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 | EVGA 850W Gold | Corsair 5000X | HP G2 (VR) / LG 27" 1440p |

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I too spent months looking for a motherboard. I finally settled on a Gigabyte P35-DSR3 and after a year I have not had a problem. Craig

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...