Ok, before core 2 came out, i had a skt 939 amd 3200, 2gb of corsair, and a 6800ultra. then core 2 comes out, everywhere people are raving about how amazing it is, and that it kicks the sh*t out of anything amd can throw at it. so i decide its time to upgrade to dual core. i only have 180$. Frys Electronics has a combo deal for the E6300 and an ECS P4M800PRO-M (ddr2, ddr1, agp, core2 ready). so i grab it, and think, hey, core 2 IS ownage. then i buy my friends PCIE x850xt pe, and now i need a new mobo, picked up the P4M890T-M2 (same as 800pro, but with a PCIE slot instead of agp). now, i just needed to upgrade my memory, i got some ddr2 ocz 2gb kit of pc-6400. awsome, new mobo and im set for life! however, this is what happened between those purchases/upgrades. With the M800PRO mobo, nothing was stable. almost constant crashing/BSOD, even after installing a new copy of windows! over clocking was hell with ddr1. it would seriously mess with ur ram, my timing got messed up after trying to increase the fsb +1mhz, and windows now needs to be reinstalled because config.sys got corrupted (or some file like that). finally i get the newer p4m890t, with a pci-e slot. same problems, NEVER OC WITH THESE 2 BOARDS IF UR USING DDR1! now i also get ddr2 pc-6400! im thinking, yay now i can oc my 6300 mad like everyone else is. guess what.... there are sooo few options in this motherboard's bios to overclock that i cannot set the fsb higher than 295 mhz. going any higher, again, messes with windows and the ram. there are no ratio adjustment settings, or anythign else that a decent OCing board might have... all it has is, memory timings, fsb speed, and voltages. nothing else. ocing with this board, even tho the box says, "Great for Overclocking!", is just awful. after going through all these upgrades for ram, new mobo, new mobo, cpu, vidcard. i would rather have just upgraded farther down the road, after i accumulate more money. if ur a budget buyer, do urself a favor, save up like $500-$600 (instead of spending like 200 on a mobo like this and a cpu) and just get everything at once. ull save urself MANY installs of windows, and ull probably get a MUCH better board than this. those ASUS G965 boards look awsome, might have to get me one... once i save up another $120... would be about $60 if i saved up from the beginning and diddnt bother getting the combo deal from frys). cheers Crazyglue
