I'm thinking of building a new PC and am considering a pair of Quad core
Intel processors as the starting point (QX9775), but for the motherboard I
don't really want to go along the Skulltrail route, as the reports I've read
of FBDIMMs aren't setting the world on fire when compared to DDR2 and DDR3.

Could someone recommend a brand name alternative motherboard which would do
the job?

Cheers.

"Trent SC" <Trent@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:13unie368vmpu0b@corp.supernews.com...
How long is a piece of string?
What add-in cards and on-board compatibility will you be considering -
North bridge and Southbridge requirements/PCI-Express/IDE, SATA/
intergrated facilities/Intergrated graphics/intergrated audio/upgradability/
BIOS flashing for full compatibility with chipset/Cooling (are you a
gamer?)/
FormFactor-case size/ATX/Mini or micro ATX/etc etc etc.

Have you heard of search engines? Try some obvious search terms:
"how to build a PC"
"considerations needed when building a PC"
"motherboard reviews"

Good point and thanks for posing some useful questions. OK, it's a
general-purpose machine, likely to do a mixture of fairly hungry graphics
applications such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash, Acrobat, etc, some
DreamWeaver at the same time and the usual Office applications, plus
occasional gaming. My plan is simply to aim to get a powerful machine which
will cover as many of the bases as possible.

In terms of the motherboard's capabilities, PCI-E, SATA and integrated
Ethernet is a yes, while graphics and sound will be handled by daughter
boards. Cooling will be fan-based rather than water, and I don't have
particularly strong opinions on the subject of cases - it isn't a work of
art, rather a tool.

In terms of building it, I'm confident that I have the necessary skills so
to do (I've done it several times in the past) but I'm a little out of date
in terms of what's currently seen as sitting at the top of the pile. So,
does this give more context for recommendations? I'm aware that there are a
number of options (Google is indeed very useful for that) but I'm after
recommendations based on experience rather than a list.

Ta muchly.