Need some purchasing help.

[Voyevoda]

So I'm in no way a noob, I've built my own PCs since I was 14. However, I'm in an area I havn't had a chance to research yet and I need to find out some information now before I buy soon for my bday (apr3). I'm not yet in the financial prosperity to upgrade my PC to i7s and a RampageII, so I'm taking it a few steps at a time by upgrading my mobo from my current MSI P6N SLI and 2 gigs of DDR2 667, to an ASRock P43DE3 and 4 gigs of G.skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600. My latent plans after this will be to upgrade my Pent D 2.8ghz dual core to a 3.2 ghz Core2Quad later this year when I start earning money from my paid internship at a computer company, along with another one of those 4gb RAM kits for 8gb DDR3 in total. My GPU is a Gigabyte HD4870, so I don't plan on upgrading for a long while or until the high-end 5k series comes down a lot more in price.

That sounds all fine and dandy, but I honestly don't know a damn about DDR3's compatibility and efficiency with a socket 775. The RAM states in the features "Compatible with Dual Channel Intel Core i5 CPU for P55 chipset motherboard, Dual Channel Core i7 CPU for P55 chipset motherboard, and AMD AM3 Platform."

I'm assuming it'l work out fine despite not saying anything about 775s, but I wanted to get a little bit of insurance before I bought them and the board doesn't read it.

[Kirby]

As long as the mobo takes DDR3 RAM, it'll work just fine.

A piece of advice though, I'd stick with Asus, Gigabyte or MSi for motherboards. Nothing against ASRock, but I prefer to err on the side of caution and stick with a huge name that's been through the paces millions of times over when the component is the heart of the build.

I've owned 2 or 3 MSi mobos, currently using a Gigabyte in this PC and my server has an Asus board in it. Personally I've always been partial to MSi myself, after having them run flawlessly, overclocked, for years on end without issue.

[Voyevoda]

As long as the mobo takes DDR3 RAM, it'll work just fine.

A piece of advice though, I'd stick with Asus, Gigabyte or MSi for motherboards. Nothing against ASRock, but I prefer to err on the side of caution and stick with a huge name that's been through the paces millions of times over when the component is the heart of the build.

I've owned 2 or 3 MSi mobos, currently using a Gigabyte in this PC and my server has an Asus board in it. Personally I've always been partial to MSi myself, after having them run flawlessly, overclocked, for years on end without issue.

Those are no doubt sturdy brands in product (Despite Gigabyte having customer service on the level of an afghani delivery service), but this board is reviewed to be extremely reliable, cheap for its features (what I need most), and it sells like damn hotcakes. Those brands just don't have affordable 775+DDR3 boards for me. ASRock has also been around for a while too. 2 of the 1egg reviews are by the same person anyway talking about a DoA, who probably didn't even buy the product judging by the usernames.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock

I'm obviously not going to avoid it just because the brand name isn't household, but I don't have much of a choice against it. If it's a DoA, then I'll just get a new one since newegg's service has always been FAR, FAR above and beyond any company I've ever dealt with.

[at0m]

in my opinion, you can't go wrong with ASUS products purchased from Newegg. Most reliable manufacturer + best retailer I've come in contact with = win. I haven't used ASRock products, but I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that its an ASUS spinoff (with one of the cofounders of ASUS still taking an active role in the business).

[Versus]

in my opinion, you can't go wrong with ASUS products purchased from Newegg. Most reliable manufacturer + best retailer I've come in contact with = win. I haven't used ASRock products, but I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that its an ASUS spinoff (with one of the cofounders of ASUS still taking an active role in the business).

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[quote author=at0m link=topic=5509.msg199451#msg199451 date=1300187275]
in my opinion, you can't go wrong with ASUS products purchased from Newegg. Most reliable manufacturer + best retailer I've come in contact with = win. I haven't used ASRock products, but I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that its an ASUS spinoff (with one of the cofounders of ASUS still taking an active role in the business).

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Scruffy Seconds, MSi or Gigabyte aren't bad choices though either