What CPU can I put on my mobo?

Hello, can you tell me whether I can put an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400/Q9300 on a Gigabyte 965P-S3 Mainboard and if not - what is the best CPU I can put? (And can I put an i5 on it?)

Its a LGA 775 board so any of the newer Core 2 cpus should work. I5 or I7 won't work.

umm I'd check with Gigabyte before getting that processor, and also doing the latest BIOS update.

It may be 775 but the 965 is a rather old chipset. It's from the 200/266Mhz FSB era. New chips (like you listed) are 333Mhz FSB.

If you look up your board on the Gigabyte website and find the CPU support list, it will tell you this, and tell you what BIOS version you will need.

I checked myself out of curiosity.

Yes the Q9550 IS supported but not officially, (it actually says Unofficial Support). This means it should work, but if it does not work, Gigabyte can't help you.

It requires the F14 BIOS. So you MUST make sure you upgrade your BIOS software BEFORE upgrading the CPU. Otherwise the PC probably wont even start up with the new CPU.

CPU Support List: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support [...] uctID=2457


(As previous post says, it should support 333 FSB fine, but I would not expect to be overclocking)
(Also Q6600 is no longer available, but you might be able to get one second hand)

Well basically in my country Q9550 is with like 80$ more expensive than the Q9400 so I want to know if the Q9400 will fit in and run normally without any probles because the sites I read said "Core2 Duo, Core2 Quad, Core2 Extreme".

So can you tell me a good mobo which is not that expensive and will be able to run the Q9400 at 100%

It's very limited so I would like it to be as good as possible and as cheap as possible.

well under 100 if possible if not around 100

I am not speaking about CPU - I have chosen a Q9400, I am speaking about main board.

Asus P5Q Pro (Turbo or Standard)
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R

Both are low cost full featured boards, both overclock very well, both are reputable brands. I'm using the bottom board for my overclock in my sig using a 45nm processor. It only has one PCI-E slot, but with the 5850 and 5870 out now, you don't really need two, and if you did you'd want an overclocked i7 to keep up with them.

(Link above: if the two I've suggested are too high in price, the board listed above is good too)

So you say that
Asus P5Q Pro (Turbo or Standard)
Gigabyte EP45-UD3R Will be able to run Q9400. Good. And also can you please tell me the difference in Q and E series (CPU Quad).

E has two CPU cores.
Q has four CPU cores.
Both are 45nm Core2 architecture.

e.g. E8500 = LGA775 45nm dual core, Q9400 = LGA775 45nm quad core.
If you want more information on how more cores help etc just ask (I'm not sure what you know, or don't know, or want to know).

Both those boards will run the Q9400 no problem at all and be able to overclock its nuts off if you so desired (although you'll want to order a nice custom cooler if you want to).

Same here. Crazy prices on X48. My video card is GeForce gts250 1gb.

Also remember you won't be able to do SLI, so I wouldn't be too fussed if it has one or two PCI-E 16 slots.

Out of those Asus ranges, The P5QPro Turbo was my personal pick. It's the same as the standard pro, but gives you the Turbo Key feature which lets you change overclock profiles by quickly pressing the power button. I don't know if you'd even use that, but means you can overclock only when you need it, rather than all the time (Intel SpeedStep does this by itself, but only at idle, bit nicer being able to force the lower settings).

The Asus P5QPro (Turbo and Non-Turbo) also have slightly better power delivery than the Gigabyte.

I also read people saying the older P5Q Deluxe is a better quality board, so this might be the best pick itself, previous poster linked to it, here it is again: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131297
I beleive the Deluxe has a better audio chip?

Ye I have ddr2