Recommend me a LGA 775 Motherboard.

Boston

I've a particular attraction to Gigabyte motherboards (always felt you got the most for your money) put I'm open to toehr suggestions.

Anti

What do you plan on using it for, whats your budget? do you want sli or crossfire, onboard video, onboard sound. etc etc.

Boston

1) I'll be using it will CPU intensive mutli threaded applications. (CAD applications)
2) Budget is up to $220 or there about (I can buy from newegg)
3) SLI/Crossfire, thats somethign to do with gaming is it not? I care not for gaming, I will however want dual output DVI and as far as I can see that basically means ATI, so i guess crossfire.
4) Onboard sound
5) FSB 1333 min
6) At least 6 SATA 2 ports.
7) Large memory capacity (8gb)

8T8

Dual DVI is present on most cards it's not something unique to either vendor though typically the bottom of the barrel stuff is VGA/DVI only.

An ATI card like this one will do the job & has two DVI outputs. If you look around Newegg you will probably find ones with dual DVI and passive cooling as well.

As for a motherboard well Gigabyte-P35-DDR2 and your pretty much sorted.
Has;
8 SATA ports
1333 FSB
8GB RAM
Onboard sound

Boston

Ok, thank you, I notice two PCI express x16 slots, does that mean I can operate two graphic cards concurrently. That would be desirable.

I'm looking at this card. Its nice and passive, which is something I'm more interested in then the latest and fastest. Any opinions? Alternatively I can go for a nvidia model here

8T8

I'd go with the 2600XT as you can a few video decoding extras in it plus HDMI/Audio output via a special adapter that comes with it.

As for the two PCI-e x16 slots yes you can run more than one card the second slot is actually x4 though it really doesn't make any of a difference at the low/mid range.

Only ATI cards can run in tandem for 3D {Crossfire} on Intel boards NVIDIA restricts that feature to it's own brand motherboards {SLI}. For multi display purposes it does not matter any card will work on any motherboard though it is best to keep them from the same vendor two ATI cards to two NV ones.

Anti

what he said

Boston

Due to stock restrictions I think I'll go for this one. It has some nice heat pipe cooling. And I'll go for the ATI card.

Anyone recommend a Heat pipe CPU cooler for a Intel Core 2 Quad? I've used this in the past on an Athlon 64 and found it good, but is it good enough for a Quad

8T8

That will work fine, I believe the Tuniq Tower 120 is still king of the hill though that or I think the Thermaltake 120 (odd they have similar names).

Anti

The thermalright 120 ultra extreme 120 is the current best of the lot, the similarity in names ios because of the " 120 " which indicates that they use a 120mm fan, be aware though. the Thermalright does not come with a fan, but the tuniq does.