Hey Fyber - Intel motherboard/cpu?

[Boris]

Hey fyber, I seem to recall you saying you recently picked out some of those main parts and such for a brother's compute. Do you happen to have a notion of what good intel core 2 duo (LGA775) chips and motherboards there are hanging around.

Bonus: anything that takes NVidia SLI, since I still prefer their cards. (In before 'bu-but ATI, crossfire')

I'm doing my own research on this when I can today, but I just thought I'd ask if you knew what was tasty and handy in the field of LGA775 socket CPU's these days. Also, if you put it together, could you comment on the reliability of that doofusy 'the pins are on the motherboard not the chip lols' kind of setup they have?

[FyberOptic]

I never did any research on the Core 2 Duos, he just got a Celeron D 360.  It's doing pretty good so far though; more powerful than mine, and his is a budget processor.  I know mine's getting behind the times, but it sold for as much as we paid for his whole combo not too long ago.

Anyhoo, I personally really liked the chip casing.  No shitty exposed silicon to chip off/crack with the heatsink.  And no pins to have to worry about bending or touching (in case of static).  It just sits down in the slot, you fold a metal "lid" down over it, then pull the lever to lock it in place.  It felt rather safe installing it compared to all the others I've put in compters over the years.  And the heatsink fastened through the motherboard, screwing down right into place; no more perilous adventures of trying to use a screwdriver to hold down a metal bracket to hook it around the side, or plastic sliding levers that like to break.

[Boris]

Mmm, the heatsink installing that way sounds like a benefit. Mostly I was commenting on that because of reading reviewer horror stories where the dumb pins on the motherboard bend when you lever the chip down into place. Could be just a case of 'be slower and more careful' but the pins on the motherboard could actually be pretty fragile too. I guess if you had no trouble with that kind of rigging though, I'd be able to handle it fine. I'm going to look into the Core 2 Duo's to facilitate my next update cycle here since AMD is suppsedly feeling slower and sluggier these days for the same cost. Also intel chips have always had that edge for media which is important since games are basically the only reason I'm considering this update.

[FyberOptic]

Considering the problems you've had with crashes and freeze-ups on your current one, you might just be better off getting some combo somewhere.  Those usually seem to have the best luck of working mostly right upon installery.

[Boris]

I'm too much of a conssumate dork to let somebody else put mine together. I could have troubleshot the problem with the current rig more perhaps, but two things make it look less and less like a hardware problem:

1) It only occured in a game utilizing directX
2) It has ceased upon upgrading to Vista.

My theory is my cheap 6600 NVidia card was produced too early in the PCIe lifecycle and was rife with bugs that just couldn't be anticipated, it was only malfunctioning after significant uptime and use. Better modern drivers and an update of the whole directWhatever system probably helped stablize it since it wasn't happening as much even toward the end of my 2k times.

But anyway, I suspect I can install the thing all right from the looks of it, I'll just have to go slowly and carefully.

[FyberOptic]

Combo doesn't always mean that it's put together, mind you.  My brother's wasn't, for example.  It came separately boxed.  But, we knew it most likely worked together well since it was bundled, plus it ends up being cheaper.  The motherboard he had before this one was also a bundle, but that one already had the cpu and heatsink installed.  The less I have to fumble around with the stuff, the better, in my opinion.  I just want it to work.  And so many times, upgrading leads to problems somewhere or another, so one less thing to worry about is fine with me.