Motherboards New motherboard time..

So my Gigabyte X48-ds4 blew up while I was at Glastonbury..
But I've got a refund of 137£ so that's all good.
Trouble is, nowhere sells the X48 ds4 anymore, apparently they stopped making it.

So I've got a budget of about 145£, 150£ at a push, for a 775 socket DDR2 board, P45 or X48 chipset, preferably with Crossfire. I overclock a little bit but I don't real delve right in to the extreme stuff, but the option might be nice

(I've been researching all evening and can't make the decision myself, so I thought I'd throw it out to you guys)

And I looked at the Hardware guide, but the motherboard they recommended (Biostar Tpower I45) has got nasty looking power regulation hardware: I guess I've got too used to the whole Ultra Durable thing Gigabyte has going on.

So what's your best suggestion? Any and all comments appreciated

 

newegg has gigabyte x48-ds5 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128332
or there is your choice of a dozen gigabyte p45 boards

 

I had a good experiance with my P5Q PRO.
Can't go wrong.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...E-20-(x16)-DDR2-1200MHz-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX

 

Well I found a Gigabyte X48-DQ6 for £110, so I've gone for that. Bargain! And it's even an upgrade from my old DS4.
Cheers for your suggestions

 

Hey all
I have a problem! I'd built a pc for my mum a few months back running Windows 7 RC everything was working fine until she needed to use an ancient program called 'Create a Card Gold', now mum uses this program an awful lot to make posters and leaflets about various charity events organized by my mum and Aunt. I have no idea exactly how old this program is it must date back to windows 95! but mum was very reluctant to move to a different program as she knows this one inside out. Fair enough I thought, so rather than reinstall XP I thought it would be a good idea to use the 'windows 7 XP mode' which is where my problems began!

I downloaded all the necesary files to get XP mode running, and went to install it, ZERO! processor does not support Intel VT! Fair enough, and I promptly purchaced a Pentuim Dual Core E6300 which according to Intel's website supports Intel VT
So the Processor arrived the next morning (this morning), installed it no problem at all, booted up fine, everything working nicely, I was quietly pleased with myself as nothing ever seems to go as I plan when tinkering with computers, but for once it was. So I load Windows XP mode and receive a message saying 'there is no Virtualization support' or something to that effect. Slightly confused I downloaded Intel's 'Processor Identification Utility' which confirms that there is no CPU support for Intel VT!!!!!!!

I called the vender that I bought the chip from to see if they had any ideas and was advised to Flash the bios on the XFX motherboard as it was out of date. No problem i thought, went to the XFX website, entered the serial number on the back of the mobo and the site found all the downloads for the mobo including the latest bios files and a windows flash utility! Oh I was a happy bunny! So I followed the instructions to the letter on the PDF 'read me' file and the Flashing Utility did its job One quick restart later and it was game over! Nothing, Zero the big F.A.! all the comp will do now is show the manufacturers welcome screen before crashing and freezing or simply restarting!

So now I owe mum a new mobo. Not the biggest problem in the world but she's left without a comp and I'm left needing to rebuild her pc onto a new mobo!

 

Try flashing the motherboard back to the old BIOS

Also, try the full version of Win7 when it comes out, XP Mode might be a bit more polished by then.