Dead mobo - new help to find a new one

[Mantorok]

Hi All,

My old socket 939 motherboard died the other day so I need to replace it and the aging CPU and RAM. Can anyone give me some suggestions.

I don't want to spend more than about $1000 in total but I'm willing to pay a bit extra for good quality hardware.

Here's a list of the relavent hardware that the new motherboard needs to play with:

Case: Origen AE X15e which supports ATX size motherboard (12" x 9.6")
PSU: Antec NeoHE-430 Neo Highly Efficient 2.2 430W ATX Power Supply
Video: Gigabyte GV-NX66T256DE - nVidia 6600GT (uses PCIe x16, occupies 3 slots)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB 7200rpm 16MB Cache SATA II NCQ (x 2)
DVD: Pioneer DVD burner (IDE)
Tuner: Terractec Cinergy 2400i DT (uses PCIe x1)
OS: Windows XP MCE 2005

I'm thinking of jumping over to the Intel camp this time so my minimum requirements for a motherboard are:

1. support for Intel Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs
2. Fanless north/south bridge chips (ie. heatsinks/piping)
3. S3 standby that works
4. on board audio with S/PDIF output (optical or coax)
5. At least 6 internal USB connections
6. Gigabit ethernet port
7. Floppy port
8. IDE port (for DVD)
9. 2 x SATAII 3Gb/s port
10. RAID 0

Also recommendations on which Intel CPU I should look at and what's the quietest way to keep it cool.

Thanks it advance guys

[Mantorok]

I've found a couple of possible motherboards that are suitable to my needs:

1. ASUS P5KR
2. Abit IP35

Can anyone tell me if these are good choices or not? I'm leaning towards the ASUS one.

I also have a question: As mentioned above I have 2 HDDs in a RAID 0 configuration. It has 2 partitions. One for the operating system and one for my videos, music and other data. I'd like to keep the partition with the data on it. Will creating a new RAID 0 config on a new mobo wipe the entire contents of my HDD? Is there are way I can salvage it somehow?

[pantonious]

i'd definetly recommend one of the E8000 CPUs...the 8400/8500 would do you very nicely..
they are the new 45nm core CPUs so are very cool and higher performance then the E6000 series.

out of those 2 boards, i would suggest the ABIT, simply because it has 6 SATA ports instead of the ASUS having 4...thats about the biggest difference

now, if u plug your current drives into the new mobo it is possible (but unlikely) that the raid controller will pickup the existing raid...though i do doubt it.
if you create a new array, you will loose all your data...
the only definet way to get it off is to find someone with working system with SAME motherboard you had, and plug them into there.

there are programs that can get data off failed raid arrays, but are INCREDIBLY slow and they are never 100%.

[p_thorp]

I have been using a Intel DP35DP with a E6750 and Standard Intel Fan, the board is cheap and quiet, performance is supurb.
Am about to build another machine will use the same board but with a E 8400. Suggest you upgrade your Video Card if you run a large screen, I found a 6600 struggled to run a 1920x1080 Sony LCD via a DVI to HDMI cable, I now use a fanless 8600GT.