What mobo/processor would you recommend?

[juz]

<p>I wanna buy a new system, starting with a motherboard and processor. What would work mainly for gaming/eq2.</p><p>Looking to spend around 1k-1.5k for the mobo/processor.</p><p>I have PCI-E graphics card and 240pin ddr2 533mhz ram. (2 gigs). I wanna upgrade my video card in the future but cant buy it all at the same time. Thanks!</p>

[Derrmerth2]

<p>If you have the budget you say, go with a <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Intel E6850 </a>for a processor hands down. It is a fantastic CPU with great benchmarks and if you have the know how, overhead to clock the chip up 40% easy. For consumers, it is the <a href="http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=921&model2=872&chart=419" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">best performing processor outside of the Extreme Editions</a>. While it is under argument about the comparison of perofrmance per dollar or watt, a CPU heavy game like EQ2 will love having the 6850 to use.</p><p>Motherboard side I would have to say wait between 2 to 4 weeks for the introduction and availability of motherboards based on Intels new X38 chipset. Maybe not to get one, but to see at least what the full range of capabilities and performance they will have. If the reviews are less than I expect them to be, go with something based on the P35. The P35 has already proven to be very solid mobo chipset and hopefully its big brother the X38 will do even better. I would also advise you to do some reading on the features that are to be in the X38 and those in the P35 and see what sounds right for you. A big thing I have to point out is the X38 will be compatable with the next version PCI-express used for video cards now. PCI-e 2.0 (it's called) will double the bandwidth in the current PCI-e and no doubt the card of your dreams will one day use that slot type.</p><p>Questions? Post em here.</p>

[juz]

Thanks for the info, will surely read up on that although I'm not a fan of overclocking anything hehe. Don't know if I can wait 4 weeks but I'll make a decision after reading up a bit.

[antwar]

<p>one thing to note here, if you do plan on overclocking do NOT use the OEM heatsink that comes with retail processors. you will get a MUCH better overclock, and a cooler one to boot, with an aftermarket heatsink. personally i like the zalman 9700 series heatsinks. the zalman fatality CPU heatsink is basically just a souped up 9700 heatsink. the fatailty ones are a bit pricier and harder to find i must admit, and the 9700s will do just fine.</p><p>one thing you do not mention is if you plan to multi-box (not to be confused with botting) or not. if you go with a quad core CPU, you can get up to 4 instances of EQ2 playing beautifully... albeit, on extreme performance most likely. simply assign each instance to a single core in the task manager. works great i hear.</p>

[rivj0r]

I'm not a fan of overclocking either. For me its all about stable.What I went with is;Asus P5N-E (Low cost mobo. Great sound, basic features only, Gbit NIC)Core 2 Duo E6850 Got mine as a free upgrade on a failed e6600 and its a nice jump up2GB Corsair Dominator 1066Mhz RAMSince you've already got the graphics card all of that will come in your price range pretty easily. I highly recommend it, even convinced a few friends to get the same setup. No complaints as yet.

[Tebos]

<p>Check the following site:</p><p><a href="http://www.motherboards.org/ranking/motherboards/Intel7752007/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.motherboards.org/ranking...s/Intel7752007/</a></p>

[cradeg]

be aware that a multicore cpu is not bringing you much benefit in EQ 2 (today) ... so i would not recommend to buy a quadcore !

[hobi]

<p>the quad care is a nice chip but like said earlier not  much for gaining performace with this game which i believe was coded for a single core cpus.  only use it would be is running multiple apps  maybe like dual boxing and each core running a a instance of the game but that gonna be the only benefit. now if yo they can make so an unsued core could be use per say to act a an extra gpu  then it may have a performance impact.  this is why amd only released thier quad core for servers as it little bennifit to  a desktop user. as for over clocking ability  amd dual core x2 on amd am2 socket are designed to be overclocked. alot of people been able to over clock the x2 6000 cpu to 8ghz and havit running stable with the stock heat sink  and good case cooling some ppushed even further using water cooling ect.  plus it uses less power then amds quad cores.</p><p>but either way want good performance on the you need mainly alot of system ram at least 2 gb and a solid graphics card like 512 mb one or a couple 256mb cards in sli</p>

[Tebos]

<cite>Ryos@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>the quad care is a nice chip but like said earlier not  much for gaining performace with this game which i believe was coded for a single core cpus.  only use it would be is running multiple apps  maybe like dual boxing and each core running a a instance of the game but that gonna be the only benefit. now if yo they can make so an unsued core could be use per say to act a an extra gpu  then it may have a performance impact.  this is why amd only released thier quad core for servers as it little bennifit to  a desktop user. as for over clocking ability  amd dual core x2 on amd am2 socket are designed to be overclocked. alot of people been able to over clock the x2 6000 cpu to 8ghz and havit running stable with the stock heat sink  and good case cooling some ppushed even further using water cooling ect.  plus it uses less power then amds quad cores.</p><p>but either way want good performance on the you need mainly alot of system ram at least 2 gb and a solid graphics card like 512 mb one or a couple 256mb cards in sli</p></blockquote><p>The alternative to this is to purchase a single-core proccessor? That's not being very pro-active. It doesn't matter if today's application's are not built with multi-core in mind, it's the price point of what hardware one can purchase today, and going with a multi-core processor is price attractive.</p><p>Did you know that nVidia has developed a multi-core driver for their product line, and in doing so, has enchanced performance to a certain degree. It's been well over a year since nVidia has had a multi-core CPU aware driver.</p><p>Many more companies are scripting their drivers or application codes to be multi-core aware.</p>

[hobi]

<cite>Tebos wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ryos@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>the quad care is a nice chip but like said earlier not  much for gaining performace with this game which i believe was coded for a single core cpus.  only use it would be is running multiple apps  maybe like dual boxing and each core running a a instance of the game but that gonna be the only benefit. now if yo they can make so an unsued core could be use per say to act a an extra gpu  then it may have a performance impact.  this is why amd only released thier quad core for servers as it little bennifit to  a desktop user. as for over clocking ability  amd dual core x2 on amd am2 socket are designed to be overclocked. alot of people been able to over clock the x2 6000 cpu to 8ghz and havit running stable with the stock heat sink  and good case cooling some ppushed even further using water cooling ect.  plus it uses less power then amds quad cores.</p><p>but either way want good performance on the you need mainly alot of system ram at least 2 gb and a solid graphics card like 512 mb one or a couple 256mb cards in sli</p></blockquote><p>The alternative to this is to purchase a single-core proccessor? That's not being very pro-active. It doesn't matter if today's application's are not built with multi-core in mind, it's the price point of what hardware one can purchase today, and going with a multi-core processor is price attractive.</p><p>Did you know that nVidia has developed a multi-core driver for their product line, and in doing so, has enchanced performance to a certain degree. It's been well over a year since nVidia has had a multi-core CPU aware driver.</p><p>Many more companies are scripting their drivers or application codes to be multi-core aware.</p></blockquote><p>not really saying a single core is an alternative what i failed to  really point is the fact in regards to eq2 and if on a budget  a quad is a bit overkill and not gonna get i real big increaase in preformance.  if on a budget and want something decent for this game and many others performance wise just go with a solid dual core . one could go single core if they want some single core outhere can keep up with with lower end dual cores and do the job nicely. and just point out  out this game seems to rely more on  system and graphics power than cpu anyway. as to op stated was looking for  cpu mobo  that runs this game decently.</p><p>for 700bucks i just built a sytem with an amd dual core x2 6000 with an nvidia 500 mobo and a 512 mb nvidia 8500gt with 2 gb ram and it runs this game for the most part on extreme at 30fps or better except a few area such as a raid instance. but will take care of that  wheni decide wether or not to get another 512 8500gt  to run sli with or wait till i have the  money and with a bigger card and that quite a jump for me wher my previous system  was an athlon xp 1600 with 1 gb ram and a 256mb gforce 5500fx card agp card! and i was running the game decently on medium settings. and also i was on a budget as what i could afford to built a new system</p>

[Tebos]

<p>yeah...a quad-core maybe overkill, but one can "manually" assign a variety of tasks to the other core's while gaming. It's definately an attraction.</p><p>By the way, this game has always been CPU dependant. If you haven't noticed, the in-game "Shadows" feature and some of the other in-game graphical selector's are being tasked for the CPU to handle. Many discussion's on these very boards through the years has revealed this fact.</p><p>So...when upgrading a system to cater this game, the order in which to upgrade parts is as follows:</p><p>CPU</p><p>RAM</p><p>Video</p><p>Hard Drive Performance</p>