Intel DP55KG (Kingsberg)

[Gareth_WNW]

Originally Posted by JimTram

Welcome Gareth...

Pls let us know how things work out. I preordered Win7 - step one!!!

My 1st step was to order Windows 7 as well. I don't anticipate having all of the bits to be up and running until about Christmas, but I will be keeping an eye on this thread.
Will you be beating me to it then ?

Gareth

[CrowdAds]

[JimTram]

Perhaps - not sure yet. The wisest thing is to do a dry run of Win7 first on my existing board (DP43TF) and see how it goes. Then, after some more price reductions and the availability of affordable DX11 cards - swap boards.

Reality, I don't know how activation is going to be with the OEM versions of the new OS. It may be easier to swap boards and mobo at the same time. Saves me a possible telephone call to MS.

DX11 is not needed as most games I understand are coded for DX9, as that is what most consoles use. A new GPU is not a show stopper now.

So to answer your question - my upgrade timetable changes day by day. In any case I'll report the findings on this thread whenever.

Your thoughts?

Originally Posted by Gareth_WNW

My 1st step was to order Windows 7 as well. I don't anticipate having all of the bits to be up and running until about Christmas, but I will be keeping an eye on this thread.
Will you be beating me to it then ?

Gareth

[Gareth_WNW]

Originally Posted by JimTram

Perhaps - not sure yet. The wisest thing is to do a dry run of Win7 first on my existing board (DP43TF) and see how it goes. Then, after some more price reductions and the availability of affordable DX11 cards - swap boards.

Reality, I don't know how activation is going to be with the OEM versions of the new OS. It may be easier to swap boards and mobo at the same time. Saves me a possible telephone call to MS.

DX11 is not needed as most games I understand are coded for DX9, as that is what most consoles use. A new GPU is not a show stopper now.

So to answer your question - my upgrade timetable changes day by day. In any case I'll report the findings on this thread whenever.

Your thoughts?

I'm approaching it from a different angle. Rather than upgrading my existing box (DP35DPM) + Q6600 with Vista Bussiness. I'm building a replacement. I only use my computer for Office & Photoshop CS4. No overclocking & no need for a high end GPU. My wife will take over my existing box & pension off the D875PBZ.
My plan at the moment is i5-750, Antec 300, Sappire ATI Raedon HD4670 passive 512m GDDR3, 8 Gig Crucial PC10660 at 1333, a modular PSU at about 550w, an optical drive & a new hard drive.
Not the most exciting of specs I know, but for what I do it should be very responsive.

The windows 7 saga has beem quite confusing here in Europe. MS were going to release a European variant without Windows Explorer. (Windows 7 E). This was to try to address the European Unions objections to MS dominating the browser market.
There was not going to be an upgrade version available in Europe, just the full retail version. I pre ordered in July Win 7E Pro for £90 which is about $145 USD.
Microsoft then had a change of mind and decided to roll out Win 7 with part of the installation process giving the user a choice of various browsers, not just IE8. This meant they could now offer an upgrade version as well as Retail. We haven't seen any pricing for OEM versions in the UK yet.
Those of us who pre ordered will still get the full retail version at the orriginal price.
The beauty of the retail version of course is that it is not tied to the motherboard. In the past I have always used OEM.
Sorry for the long answer to a short question .
Gareth

[JimTram]

It makes it much easier when your doing a completely new build as you indicated. Kinda takes the pressure off. Solid specs for your next build. You'll like the Antec 300 and a modular PS is the way to go. With the Antec case and a non-modular PS, the bottom of my case looks like a birds nest! Runs cool though!

I too have always used the OEM OS. In fact, at least three times I had to reinstalled XPPro because of a mobo change. Only once did I ever have to call MS (took more than an hour). Of course who knows how their activation scheme will work this time.

Ahhh the 875PBZ - a true classic. Pensioned mine off a few years ago. It wound up getting out of retirement through eBay and in the hands of some young kid. Great mobo.

Good luck on your build and let us know how it goes.

Originally Posted by Gareth_WNW

I'm approaching it from a different angle. Rather than upgrading my existing box (DP35DPM) + Q6600 with Vista Bussiness. I'm building a replacement. I only use my computer for Office & Photoshop CS4. No overclocking & no need for a high end GPU. My wife will take over my existing box & pension off the D875PBZ.
My plan at the moment is i5-750, Antec 300, Sappire ATI Raedon HD4670 passive 512m GDDR3, 8 Gig Crucial PC10660 at 1333, a modular PSU at about 550w, an optical drive & a new hard drive.
Not the most exciting of specs I know, but for what I do it should be very responsive.

The windows 7 saga has beem quite confusing here in Europe. MS were going to release a European variant without Windows Explorer. (Windows 7 E). This was to try to address the European Unions objections to MS dominating the browser market.
There was not going to be an upgrade version available in Europe, just the full retail version. I pre ordered in July Win 7E Pro for £90 which is about $145 USD.
Microsoft then had a change of mind and decided to roll out Win 7 with part of the installation process giving the user a choice of various browsers, not just IE8. This meant they could now offer an upgrade version as well as Retail. We haven't seen any pricing for OEM versions in the UK yet.
Those of us who pre ordered will still get the full retail version at the orriginal price.
The beauty of the retail version of course is that it is not tied to the motherboard. In the past I have always used OEM.
Sorry for the long answer to a short question .
Gareth

[emgarf]

Any fit problems with four RAM slots populated with medium-tall heat spreaders combined with the stock Intel CPU cooler on this MB?

Cheers,
emgarf

[JimTram]

From a 2d visual approach - I would say no problems. Since I, or anyone I knows has this board yet, I cannot be sure.

Originally Posted by emgarf

Any fit problems with four RAM slots populated with medium-tall heat spreaders combined with the stock Intel CPU cooler on this MB?

Cheers,
emgarf

[Gareth_WNW]

It's arrived

[Sandog]

Nice! You will love that board

[preyingrazor]

pop it in and show us the skull light up

[JimTram]

Great luck with your build - give us the details.

[Eagle Rock]

Hello,

This does look like a good board for my next build.

Have noticed that it does not have a floppy drive connector and wonder if that is a problem when troubleshooting? So far, all of my computers have had a floppy drive and I have never used a USB floppy.

Also noticed that there are no PS/2 connectors for a mouse or a motherboard. Do you not need those type of connectors when you are doing troubleshooting anymore?

It is good to see this forum again. It was extremely helpful when I built my last system a few years ago.

[JimTram]

I have replaced the use of a floppy drive with a USB stick. It's bootable so I have no problems with BIOS installs, Memtest, etc.. Darn floppy would never work right when I needed it, i.e. no reading, and bad media.

Minor rub with this board - no PS/2 ports. The future is USB. Most of the troubles with mobos and PS/2 ports is the way the BIOS is initially set from the factory. Need to ensure the settings are correct and they differ from mobo to mobo. In the absence of the PS/2 ports, the applicable BIOS settings are almost foolproof and they will detect the USB KB on initial boot thus enabling subsequent BIOS tweaking.

When I install this board I will get an additional USB KB. Save the older PS/2 for whatever comes up.

Originally Posted by Eagle Rock

Hello,

This does look like a good board for my next build.

Have noticed that it does not have a floppy drive connector and wonder if that is a problem when troubleshooting? So far, all of my computers have had a floppy drive and I have never used a USB floppy.

Also noticed that there are no PS/2 connectors for a mouse or a motherboard. Do you not need those type of connectors when you are doing troubleshooting anymore?

It is good to see this forum again. It was extremely helpful when I built my last system a few years ago.

[Gareth_WNW]

I haven't used a floppy drive for years.
My present board, the dp35dpm has no PS2 ports either and that has not been a problem.
In fact one of the things that atracts me to the Intel board is the fact that it does not have legacy support.
The P55 boards from Asus, Gigabyte & MSI all have legacy support & I just didn't see the point of having it.

With regard to "Lighting up the Skull", I can't do that yet because I don't have any of the other components to progress the build yet.
I expect that the initial power up will be around Christmas, unless I get a "financial windfall".

Gareth.

[Gareth_WNW]

This board has a USB socket on the board itself. Bottom left hand corner in the above photo.
So the first question is... why ? what would you use it for ?
The second part of the question is..... is it worth using it with a memory stick for "speedboost" and does speedboost really improve performance with 8 Gig RAM installed ?

Gareth

[preyingrazor]

u wouldn't see the difference even with 4GB