Thanks Marvin i was afraid of that, does anybody know a board that supports both ddr2 and ddr3 and a q6700? ddr3 seems to have very little performance gain for the price and after buying two new graphics cards and a new processor i dont want to spend more money unless it is necessary

You want the 780i if you're going to use DDR2.

A 64 bit OS is something i have been considering, but ive been dreading hunting down all the 64 bit drivers if i make the upgrade. Im stuck with the motherboard descision because a 790i with 2 gigs of ddr3 RAM is about $250 and a 780i with my current RAM is about $160, but if i go with the 780i in a year when i want ddr3 i'll need to uprgrade again. I heard that the intel x48 supports both ddr2 and ddr3, but the nvidia board seems to have better feautures for what i will be doing with it, any thoughts on the x48 over the 790i?

If you're VISTA, I think a motherboard change means you need to buy an OS again.

why would you need to buy vista again due to a mobo change? i've swapped mobo's numerous times and have never had to buy vista again.

forget ASUS....ASUS is not doing to well the last few years they are no longer the top dog. it got so bad at one point a couple years ago that they almost merged with Gigabyte, lots of details but one of which that killed the deal was Gigabyte demanded 51% to take controlling interest, which would have meant Gigabyte called the shots.

the Striker II is not getting very good reviews, check some here also though there are not a lot of review on that page, look at the percentages of each egg rating, also look around newegg at other ASUS board reviews, you will find that most of them are only pulling 3 maybe 4 eggs (stars).

I was actually going to suggest Gigabyte but it looks like they don't have a 790i board, after the 600 series they moved on to intel chipsets.

so with that I would suggest the EVGA board. by comparison here are the reviews on it MUCH better. 75% 5 eggs vs 43% on the Striker II. and by the same token if you look around your will find that EVGA,Gigabyte and a few others are pulling mostly 4 and 5 stars.

make sure the RAM you get is Dual Channel as that is what the board supports, some DDR3 boards are triple channel and you have to run a minimum of 3 sticks hence the 3 or 6G kits.

you also may want to consider bumping the RAM to 4G, I know you don't need it now and won't use it all on XP, but consider if you are planning on moving to a 64bit OS. at that point you will want it. you can always add 2 more sticks to go up, but the price diff between 2x1G stick and 2x2G is not much and will save you in the long run moving to 4G. the other reason I suggest 2x2G is that the more sticks you run the harder is it to keep them stable, alot of RAM or Mainboards become unstable when running all dimm slots full, especially if you try to overclock the RAM.

might I suggest this  OCZ Reaper DDR3 CAS 6 for your RAM. I'm running 3 sets of the DDR2 800 version in 3 differenet machines and love it. 2 sets are CAS 4 and my set is CAS 3.  I also like Corsair and Mushkin RAM.

Is this RAM dual channel? i cant find the specs on that

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=W1333UX2GM

Thanks blackcurtain, i've decided to go with the EVGA board and a slightly different version of the ram (with a heatsink instead of without) and i have experimented with overclocking, but im sure that for the games i run, supcom, sins, bioshock, mass effect, which all run fairly well on my system now, i won't need to overclock that much. Mobos and RAM is precisely where my knowledge of computers stops, everything else i've replaced and upgraded, thanks for the help

+2

granted, the striker has not been a huge success for asus but don't slam the company due to one bad board. gigabyte, dfi, evga, and others have all manufactured a lemon or two in the day, as has asus. i've used nothing but asus and dfi boards for the past few years. out of 8 or 9 asus boards thru the years, i've had issues with one and it was replaced very quickly by asus. the dfi lanparty boards were great, too. frank wong of dfi was great to talkk to concerning overclocking, also. frank knows those dfi boards inside and out! the only gigabyte board i've owned was a hassle from day one. the replacement they sent me was screwed up, too. i found their customer service to be lacking, also. i put them right down there with epox customer service. it's too bad epox and abit are gone. they both made some quality units. actually, that can be said about almost any mobo manufacturer. they all have quality units and they've all made a few lemons.

it's definately NOT about one board. it IS about ASUS having problems for the last few years. it is truely hit or miss as to whether you get a good or faulty board. QC is in the shitter!!!!!!!!!

it is about the FACT that of the last 6 ASUS boards that myself or a friend owned 2-5yrs ago died prematurely (6-18 months) or as I said in a prior post 1 board was RMA'd TWICE, yes 2 times, a third board delivered before he atually got a working board. it was from the M2N32 series a couple yrs ago. I've had 2 - k8 series boards take a dumb with 18 months of purchase between 3 and 5 yrs ago.

I am happy for you that you have had good luck with ASUS boards, seriously I am, at least someone is getting what they paid for.

I swore by ASUS in the early 2000's and would by nothing but. however my own experience as well as seeing THOUSANDS of reviews on line with ASUS boards overall getting an average 3 star rating from those who buy them...no thanks, you can do your part to keep ASUS afloat if you wish, I will not and as such my consience will not allow me to recommend them to others.

do you realize that ASUS was about a hairs width close to being under the control of Gigabyte 2 years ago??? ASUS was struggling for a while, Gigabyte was looking to expand, and the 2 were talking about a merger and were about ready to sign, one of the big deal killers...Gigabyte knew the condition of ASUS and its recent quality and demanded 51% of the company, which means GB would be the controlling interest, basically ASUS denied the merger in the end  because they knew Gigabyte would not allow them to continue to operate the way they had been. ASUS was not willing to give up controlling interest and its going to bite them in the but if they don't change things.

out of curiosity...when was the last time you had a Gigabyte board? years ago they were kind of the bottom of the barrel, the last 5 yrs they have stepped it up. I have owned or used in build for others 5 Gigabyte boards in the last 2 or 3 yrs (since the 570 chipset)  with no problems.

well, guys, i'm sorry you've had such horrible luck with asus boards. i don't know what to tell you about your poor fortunes. all i can say is asus boards go in 75 to 80 percent of the rigs i build for clients and i can think of only 2 that have been sent back for replacement. granted, i only build 2 or 3 rigs a week since i do not own a store-front business but 2 to 3 per week on average for the past 6 years isn't bad for a town of 13,000. the remaining rigs use either gigabyte, asrock, and on rare occasions dfi. i've sent maybe 5 gigabyte boards back. based on my experience, i highly recommend asus boards. i dont' claim to know everything about building rigs or the products that go into them but i do use a lot of them. heck, i've been known to ask yrag for help on  occasion.

but, this basically boils down to personal preference. i like asus and others don't. i don't have a problem with that. the way i look at it, if you like the components in your rig, you're happy with them, and they perform as they should, everything is fine and dandy. right? anyway, have a great day, everyone.

captain, i hope whatever you buy or have bought works well and you're happy with your decison.

Ok, everything is ironed out now, except for one thing and its picky. In the BIOS the option to set FSB and RAM frequency is blanked out, my RAM is listed as "overclocker's RAM" on the website and it seems odd that i can adjust the CPU multiplier, but not set the FSB. But It's a small thing since everything runs fine on normal settings