Intel D975XBX2 vs. the ASUS P5B deluxe….P965 vs. 975X

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philmar

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Newbie question here.
Intel D975XBX2 vs. the ASUS P5B deluxe….P965 vs. 975X

I am building my first custom designed computer and have decided to go with the:

Conroe E6600 Core Duo 2.4 GHz processor
2 GB RAM
EVGA e-GeForce 7600GT nVidia 256MB PCI-Express
3 Seagate Barracuda hard drives
Coolermaster Centurion 5 silver mid-tower ATX Case with 380 WATT PSU
Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX CPU cooler and a fan for the hard drives

Here is what I plan to do with this new rig. It will be solely dedicated to processing large batches of multiple RAW and TIFF files in PhotoShop CS2. I plan to use an even more memory intensive program in the future Adobe Lightroom with Vista 64 BIT. It will NOT be used for gaming, Internet or MP3 burning/ripping. I state this because I think digital photo buffs have much different needs from gamers. I do NOT overclock right now. I think I MAY get in to oc’ing as this system gets older and I need to squeeze everything out of it but that is maybe 4 years down the road when I decide to learn more about oc’ing. I may add another hard drive and set up a RAID configuration in the future when I learn more about this. My passion is photography not computers – but now that photography is digital I am going to commit myself to learning this stuff since it will improve my photography.

I decided to stay away from RAID at this time. My passion is photography not configuring hard drives and worrying about redundancy or data loss. I have a Maxtor OneTouch external HD for backup.

Any advice? I really am stumped as to what motherboard to get. I am not too concerned about the cost – I’d like to get the best possible mobo for my needs. However, I don’t want to spend money on a mobo that has bells and whistles that I will never use like remote on-off switch, ability to play MP3s while it is powered off, or dual video card ports, crossfire ready, HighDef. But, I don’t mind spending more if it means I can safely not worry about upgrading for an even longer period of time in the future. I want a mobo I can grow in to. The mobo must be good for an overclocking novice.

Can anyone suggest the best motherboard for 2 GB RAM and an Intel E6600 2.4 Ghz processor? It seems to me the Intel D975XBX2 and ASUS P5B deluxe mobos are high-end boards designed for the Extreme series processors. Am I wrong? Would they really buy better performance over a cheaper mobo with 2GB RAM and a E6600 2.4 Ghz duo core Intel processor? Or am I paying for features I wouldn't use like easier to extreme advanced overclock BIOS, slots I'll never use? Does one of the two perform better at stock while NOT overclocked? Is one more likely to perform at a higher temperature or more likely get my PSU to fry it? Is one easier to be overclocked by a novice? Is the P965 chip better than the 975X for speed and performance when UNclocked?
Mobos bewilder me – their array of slots and features get my head spinning. I can’t seem to grasp them. Thus I seek your help.

I am a photographer, not a techie. So I ask you bigger-brained guys: Which of these motherboards best suit my needs as a digital photographer who may oc in the future and whose future plans include 4 Hard Drives in RAID. I will also increase the RAM to 6 GBs when I go to Adobe Lightroom on Vista 64 bit in the future.

Also what type of 2gb RAM should I use with this E6600 processor and motherboard? DDR2 667 or the DDR2 800?
 
To my opinions, the Bad Axes 2 from Intel (THe board you mentioned) is intended for extreme gaming...apparantly. The OC features lack.

The P5B is more affordable and I love the flexibility on this kid. It's able to do anything with efficiency, and has support for Quad core...which the Bad Axe 2 has also.

I'd get the P5B to save money, that you'll need for the Power Supply. 380W won't do. I'd get at least a 520W+.

For memory speeds, I'd recommend the fastest, being DDRII-800.

At the end, 6GB with all that is overkill, but if you are confident of what you're doing, you can have 6...maybe 8GB.

For RAID, I'm a little sceptic for that. I heard about when a drive fail, you lose all the data on both drives. I'd forget RAID...IMO.

Tell me, how many pics do you process a day?
 
agreed - I've decided to stay away from RAID - this isn't a gaming rig. I'll have important invaluable data on it - my life's photographs. I need to avoid crashes with greater diligence than a gamer would. I choose the Badaxe2 because it is above all a STABLE board. It lacks the overclocking features but I think I best choose stability over oc'ing for this rig. The Badaxe2 has tested extremely well with the E6600 Conroe for processing files in Photoshop.
 
GCR said:
Get 2 identical drives in RAID1, so if one of the drives dies you still have a copy.
Click to expand...


Many are the posts of digital ptotographers that have lost their photos under this set-up. RAID1 is alright if one of the drives fails - but what if the RAID1 controller fries or dies?
From my understanding, if the RAID1 controller fails then there is no way of accessing the info on the drives.

My understanding is that the only failsafe option is RAID5 with a minimum of 5 (or was it 6?) HDs.
 
If the RAID controller dies you just have 2 identical drives, then you can take them out of RAID1 mode and have one as a back-up. RAID0 puts 2 HDD's as one drive in your OS. This one is more likely to cause failure.
 
GCR said:
If the RAID controller dies you just have 2 identical drives, then you can take them out of RAID1 mode and have one as a back-up. RAID0 puts 2 HDD's as one drive in your OS. This one is more likely to cause failure.
Click to expand...

So then the only drawback is that you essentially are halving your storage space - 2 HDs of 320 GB in RAID1 can store only 320 GBs of info....but with HDs so cheap now that is not a big deal.
 
No, it isn't a big deal.

I would take the ASUS over the Intel, because the 975X chipset wasn't made specifically for Core 2 Duo, while the 965P chipset was.
 
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