Hi. I am looking to replace my ageing PC with new hardware later year and as such I would like to move the current hardware that I have to a smaller case and use it as a second PC, HTPC or some such, but I have hit a snag. I would prefer to use M-ITX but I can't find (yes, I've checked ebay) LGA775 based M-ITX boards for my Q6600 that include a PCIe slot for a dual slot GPU. Can anyone recommend a solution or am I going to be forced to look for mATX? That is, if I can find a mATX board! Thanks for any help that can be offered. James.
Realistically you are going to run into problems with this. As you have found ITX motherboards to fit your requirement may not exist. And the MATX boards such as the Maximus ii Gene that are of a equivalent standard to your current board will cost a fortune. Could pick up a simple board MATX like the G31 stuff but they will be quite a step down from what you have.
There were hardly any mITX boards produced for 775, and the ones that were didn't sell that well. In fact, it wasn't really til 1156 or even, I would argue, 1155, that the ITX market we have today really kicked off. Cases were generally pretty poor, or pretty expensive. This is why you can't find any 775 boards. As mrbungle suggests, your only real option for a reasonable price will probably be a mATX G31 board, and even then, you may find it better to flog your current Mobo and Q6600 and purchase something like a H61 ITX board for about £35, along with a G530 or something.
There were quite a lot really. I can find dozens of ITX/DTX in a moment (searched for 775 itx) from Zotac, Asus, Intel, Foxconn, and more on US ebay. Majority seem to ship out from China/Hong Kong so if you chose to get those you shouldn't run into issue of seller refuse to ship to you. I do agree on a cost to features basis it probably would be a better idea to grab a used H6* board and a Celeron or Pentium and DDR3. I don't think you will really save that much by recycling the 775 cpu and ddr2.
Thanks for the contributions. I think I will look to see what prices I am likely to get for my hardware on ebay before I decide.
For what it would cost to get one, if you could source one, you would almost be able to buy a G3220 and H81 board which would destroy a Q6600 unless all four threads were needed. Maybe that's something to consider...?
