Which motherboard to buy (Guru help needed, please)

[firebird-jpx]

Dear Sirs,

I have just come off the telephone from the United States AsRock sales team (whom, which I have to say were very unhelpful and impolite - which is a first for me when speaking to America's)


Anyhow I advised them I was using a 775i65G R3.0 motherboard (micro motherboard, as this is the only size to fit my PC case), which I have got to send back to Germany due to an unknown fault that will not power my PC, although the PSU is fully working, nothing has changed or been placed into the PC for the fault to occur one day it was fine then, yesterday nothing


Quick specs:

1x Weston Digital 1TB sata drive,
1x HIS Radion HD 4670 AGP 1GB DDR3
1x Intel 775 2Quad Q6700 2.66Mhz
1x Powercool 850 Watt 80+ PSU
2x 1GB DDR 400 RAM
1x PCI 5 USB Ports
1x Creative Labs Sound Blaster (unused)

I have plenty of in and out fans to keep the PC running at around 42'ish Degrees Celsius


The USA sales team gave me two from the below link 'G41MH/USB3 R2.0' and/or 'G41M-S', as they said the on-board motherboard graphics chip was far superior to the 'HIS Radion HD 4670 AGP 1GB DDR3'.

Now from this link: http://www.asrock.com/mb/index.asp?s=775.

Please can someone tell me a definite answer if the above advice given by the USA sales team is true or not (and why, as I consider the AGP v's On-board graphics to be a bit untrue, but I may be wrong). Also, if something is better in the 775 micro size range then they suggested, if not then which to go for.

Once I have receive someones help, I can then send the faulty 4 month old motherboard back to Germany and either to request an exchange (with a possible slight increase in price difference) or simply a replacement?

Many thanks in advance for reading and replying, Jonathan

[firebird-jpx]

Re: Which motherboard to buy (Guru help needed, please)

Dear Sirs,

One more point I forgot to say, if there is not going to be little difference using the On-board graphics on the proposed micro mobo's and that the mobo is more advanced as it is a PCI-E slot, which is in todays market, then I can sell the HIS HD4670 on e-bay or something.

I do not use the PC for gaming the PS3 is for that, as long as it's going to be great for windows 7 aero display and Adobe Photoshop's 3D facility. Then...... I'll change BUT I do need the pro's and con's and the best 775 socket micro mobo model number when it gets sent this week to the seller.

Kind regards, Jonathan

[parsec]

Re: Which motherboard to buy (Guru help needed, please)

I hope you realize that your options for mother boards, not only for your CPU type and mother board size, but what is actually available in the market place, is very small.

Things may be different in Europe, but in the USA, finding any new socket 775 CPU boards is difficult, and the very few available do not have the best chipsets used with those CPUs. Earlier this year, I could not bring myself to purchase the "best" new mother board I could find for a socket 775 CPU I have (Q8300), since it was inferior to the board that expired.

The ASRock staff suggested the two boards you mentioned simply because they are the only socket 775 boards that are compatible with your processor and size requirement. More significantly, they are also the only two in current production, out of three total ASR socket 775 boards.

Which means the list of ASR socket 775 boards you provided the link to, is a nice historical list of boards that ASR once produced, but not anymore. If you can find any of them at a retailer, great, but don't expect them to be stocked. The major online PC retailer in the USA, Newegg, has a grand total of four socket 775 boards, three of which are the three boards ASRock still makes.

IMO, you have more basic concerns than which video chip or board is better. For example, your 775i65G R3.0 motherboard uses DDR memory, an old standard that I must say is obsolete. Both of the ASR boards available for your CPU do not use DDR memory, one uses DDR2, the other DDR3 type memory, none of which is compatible with the other. If you go to another model of board, you will be getting new memory as well.

Your AGP slot video card cannot be used in either of those ASR boards. The G41 board has a better video chip than the G31 board, and whether or not either is better than you AGP card is really a moot point IMO.

Any new board you get for your processor will be a last hurrah, and you won't be able to find a new model at all pretty soon, sorry to say.

[firebird-jpx]

Re: Which motherboard to buy (Guru help needed, please)

Dear Parsec,

Thank you for your comments but you have not provided any model numbers for me to track down.

Please can you advice the top three 775 socket motherboards from asrock I should get, please provide the model numbers also.

Any other motherboard experts to add wish to add???

Kind regards, Jonathan

[parsec]

Re: Which motherboard to buy (Guru help needed, please)

Dear Parsec,

Thank you for your comments but you have not provided any model numbers for me to track down.

Please can you advice the top three 775 socket motherboards from asrock I should get, please provide the model numbers also.

Any other motherboard experts to add wish to add???

Kind regards, Jonathan

I assume you did not read my first post very well, or simply do not believe it.

The following are the only socket 775 boards that ASRock currently has in production.



I've included non-775 boards in that picture simply to show the beginning and end of the socket 775 portion of ASRock's current offerings.

Don't forget that only the boards with 'M' in their name are the size you require, as well as your current board that does not contain that code for some reason.

Good luck.