moisiss wrote: My old computer died the other night... after some general trouble shooting I think I have narrowed the problem down to either the motherboard (MSI k8t Neo FSR) or the CPU (AMD 64 3000+). As you can tell, the comp. was about 4-5 yrs old so I have decided to build a new one instead of trying to hunt down and replace the suspect parts. The problem is, I wasn't planning on building a new machine for a while so I am kinda out of the loop when it comes to the specifics.

Equipment/software I plan on using:
-Firepod
-Cubase LE
-Reason 3.0
-Guitar Rig 2
-some VST plug-ins
-XP pro

I won't be doing anything REALLY crazy.... usually just one or two tracks at a time... But I would like to get the latency as low as possible (I was able to run 2.5ms latency w/ the Firepod and my old AMD 3000+/1.5ghz RAM without too many problems) and would like everything to work (of course)

Anyway, I did a little research and have decided on either the Intel C2D E6750 or the C2Quad Q6600... They seem to be really great for the $$.

So I guess the next thing is to decide on a Motherboard. I looked at a previous thread...

(Dead Link Removed)

and saw that Scott (adk) suggests an intel p35 or X38 (non Asus or Abit) board... not sure why no Asus (Sweetwater comps. are built on Asus boards and many other DAW builders on Gearslutz seem to have had some luck w/ Asus) or Abit, but following those guidelines I have been looking at a few MOBO's...
namely,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
- This board was used as the basis of Sharkeyextreme.com's "Value gaming build" in November (which is what I used to build my old AMD comp. a few years ago and it ran really well until a week ago) http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/3714091
and has received very good reviews on Newegg.
- I realize that it does not have Firewire ports on the board but plan on using my PCI firewire card that worked flawlessly on my old comp.

I've also been looking at a similar board (with some upgrades)...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128082
- I like more Sata ports and eSata....

And I've been looking at...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121314

So, Does anyone have any other suggestions? I have been looking at this stuff all day and my head is starting to hurt. I don't want to buy something, put it together, and find out that I overlooked something and none of my gear works like it should.... or maybe I'm over-analizing (after-all, my old comp. worked really well and I didn't even look up DAW related info before I built it... just followed Sharkeyextreme guide... maybe I just got lucky)?

i would go with GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 i have GA-G33-DS3R which is more expensive it has more sata ports that i dont need, i did not realize this till after i bought it, but im using a Intel E2180 2.0ghz with 2GB 800 ddr2 ram and i have no issues i can run it at 3.0 ghz, but gets a bit to hot so i run very stable at 2.66 I use sonar 7 with m-audio fire 410 and i have no latency issues.