need a LGA775 motherboard

Anyone have a recommendation? I would love to reuse my P3.2, PCIe card and PC2-6400 RAM and SATA drives, so a motherboard with those specs would be awesome.

Also, the more PCI slots, the better.

much love

OK, here are a few choices that all have HDMI out, SPDIF headers, and can use my current p4, but allow for upgrades to a dual or quad core in the future

Asus P5N-EM 4 SATA, 1 IDE, 8 USB, 1066 mhz ram max, 3 RAM slots,
MSI P6NGM-FIH 4 SATA, 1 IDE, 10 USB, 800mhz ram max, 2 RAM slots

I'm leaning towards the Asus - how does ASUS stack up in motherboard reviews?

ASUS is the Cadillac IMO. Always has been. Some others are good, including MSI, so you couldn't go wrong with either. But I'd say 7 out of the last 8 mobo's I've bought have been ASUS, and the odd one was on sale and I needed something cheap.

Thanks D - ended up buying the Asus first thing this morning - I wanted to get this thing put back together by next weekend, so I took a chance.

Now when you say Cadillac, I take that to be a compliment right? ;) I'd rather you called it a Lexus, then I'd know for sure...

DMO recommended ASUS to me and it works great. I have the P5LD2 board.

[quotef9bc04bca7="doylnea"]Thanks D - ended up buying the Asus first thing this morning - I wanted to get this thing put back together by next weekend, so I took a chance.

Now when you say Cadillac, I take that to be a compliment right? ;) I'd rather you called it a Lexus, then I'd know for sure...[/quotef9bc04bca7]
Well, if you're going to go all "international" on me, then sure -- make it a Lexus. P

Give me a break I'm old and still in the habit of using "Cadillac" as the old colloquialism to indicate quality. Although I'm no longer a fan of domestic auto brands, I'd rate GM the best of them, and Cadillac still has a pretty good reputation for quality in most areas. So in that context, I would still consider "Cadillac" an appropriate indicator of "best of breed." ;)

But like any other brand, ASUS has occasionally put out a lemon, but overall their track record is quite good, and their end-user support should you have a problem has always exceeded any other mobo maker. In fact not so long ago, mobo makers didn't support end-users AT ALL, they only supported dealers that built systems. ASUS was one of the pioneers in recognizing enthusiast builders and offering them quality support. The few times over the years I've needed to RMA a board for some reason, or order a new CMOS chip, they have treated me very well. There are a few other makers I wouldn't mind owning, it's just that whenever I'm in the market, ASUS always seems to have exactly what I'm looking for. Other brands seem to have a lot more duds sprinkled between them quality models. Like anything else of quality, ASUS mobos are usually a bit more expensive than their competitors, but you usually get what you pay for.

Thanks D - thanks to be close to Newegg, it should arrive today. I bought the SPDIF header yesterday as well, but it may take a couple of days to arrive. I may have this guy back together this evening if all goes well.

Unrelated question how much of a performance increase (and specifically in what tasks/activities) would I see from going from a P4 3.2ghz to a dual or quad core?

Depends on what you're doing. Most apps still aren't optimized for multiple cores, however some notable ones are (Photoshop, media rippers/encoders, modern games). Probably the most noticeable benefit is in multi-tasking. You can run more processes at once without the performance hit of a single core, especially when you have plenty of RAM.

One thing I and my friends who built similar systems have noticed I've run Prime95 tests on my quad core box that peg all 4 cores at 100%, and I scan still mouse around in the OS with reasonable responsiveness and actually do stuff -- it's slow, but it works. In the past, on my prior single-core machines, pegging the CPU in that way would virtually freeze the entire system and render it useless. Sometimes so bad that it was extremely difficult to just click the button and stop the test -- rebooting was often easier/quicker.

[quote19ba51ab86="doylnea"]Thanks D - ended up buying the Asus first thing this morning - I wanted to get this thing put back together by next weekend, so I took a chance.

Now when you say Cadillac, I take that to be a compliment right? ;) I'd rather you called it a Lexus, then I'd know for sure...[/quote19ba51ab86]

A Lexus is just a toyota with leather. Cadillacs are real quality.

Thanks again D. I got everything together last night, except, as is the complaint consistently levied against that board, the CPU power plug is in an absolutely asinine place, and I need to buy an extension cable before I can fire it up.

Alternatively, I suppose I could have anticipated that, and bought the cable ahead of time...