Thread: which motherboard and processor i should buy?

hello!! i am about to upgrade my pc so i got my list ready according to a budget. but i cant decide which motherboard i should consider taking please help!

1. Intel DH55TC
2. Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H
3. MSI H55M-ED55
4. ASUS P7H55-M PRO

the gigabyte one is for about 160$ and rest are about 120$.

about the processors.. i have shortlisted two of em
1. intel core i5-661
2. intel core i5-760
they both are approximately of the same price with 661 slightly higher, and both of em are compatible with all 4 of the above mentioned motherboards.

please help me find a perfect combination considering price, performance, reliability and features but ofc performance first.

To find a perfect combination you need to list here all your hardware first..knowning about cpu and mb isn't enought..
Check also the popular hardware sites Intel Core i5-661: Clarkdale Rings The Death Knell Of Core 2 : Introduction

here it is:
Case: CoolerMaster Elite 334 ATX Mid Tower
PSU: Corsair VX450W
RAM: 2gb DDR3-1600 (XMS3-12800C9*XMP)
HDD: 1TB WD
LCD: Samsung SyncMaster 2333HD
Graphic Card: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5670
Speakers: Altec Lansing Expressionist Ultra MX6021

I'm not very familiar with recent hardware,but it looks as a decent mid range config..what will you do with the pc? encoding,playing,something else?

The i5-760 with a big cache (8mb) may be slightly better when encoding but should require more power.
The gygabyte motherboard looks very good Review - Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Review | bit-tech.net

Performance Charts - Tom's Hardware

i want a pc for general purposes like running 1080p movies smoothly, win7, playing games like cod mw2 or batman arkham asylum.. and also for surfing the internet fast nd like editing some pics in adobe photoshop cs5

Originally Posted by poti

i want a pc for general purposes like running 1080p movies smoothly, win7, playing games like cod mw2 or batman arkham asylum.. and also for surfing the internet fast nd like editing some pics in adobe photoshop cs5

When videogaming the video card is the most important piece of hardware not the cpu or mb,while to use photoshop and video player matters the cpu and ram.
I suggest Intel i5-760 (the i5-661 has only two cores!) it's better with multimedia app and photoshop that support multithreading.
with regard to motherboards each one of them should be good according to your pc usage,I'd stick with the less expensive.

You'll probably want 3GB RAM as a minimum nowadays.

And if you can stretch to it, check out the Radeon 5770 (or even better, a 5850), this will vastly outperform the 5670, and the 5770 can be had for a very decent price if you shop around!

As for CPU's, I agree with the suggestion of an i5-750/760, very good chips for the money, and some great overclocking potential too.

Originally Posted by RAWRferal

You'll probably want 3GB RAM as a minimum nowadays.

And if you can stretch to it, check out the Radeon 5770 (or even better, a 5850), this will vastly outperform the 5670, and the 5770 can be had for a very decent price if you shop around!

As for CPU's, I agree with the suggestion of an i5-750/760, very good chips for the money, and some great overclocking potential too.

I agree,better video card and more ram would make the game experience better,but he was only talking about buying cpu and mb not anything else.

Ah my bad!

All you need CPU wise nowadays is a solid quad core. Mobos aren't going to vary much when it comes to gaming performance, it's more down to your preference of slot layouts/features etc.