Asus P5B deluxe vs. P3W DH

squeakygeek · Feb 21, 2007

I made a thread in general hardware about a system I'll be building. I have a P5B deluxe on the list, but a few people recommended getting a P5W DH instead, but didn't give any reasons. Could anyone give me some reasons to go one way or the other?

I'll be running:
C2D E6600
EVGA 8800 GTX
Buffalo Firestix 2gb kit (maybe D9 chips)

I'll be overclocking of course.

Thanks.

hUMANbEATbOX · Feb 21, 2007

p5w-dh is a bit faster, clock for clock. the advantage of the p5b-dlx is that it can hit much higher fsb.

with a e6600, i would go with the p5w-dh, because it gives you the option of SLI down the line (with hacked drivers, or official ones, should NV ever decide to make that happen).

an e6600 only needs 400fsb to get to 3.6ghz. the p5w-dh should be good up to 410-430fsb before it needs any mods.

you might also look at the Intel Badaxe 2. it has been getting very high praise, it is a 975x board, and it has been seen for around $170.

squeakygeek · Feb 21, 2007

I hear alot that there is no point to having a faster fsb once you max out the cpu, but wouldn't it help performance to decrease the multi to get the fsb higher?

Does the p5b-dlx not support sli?

How does the Badaxe2 compare to the other two boards? I haven't really ruled it out.

bing · Feb 21, 2007

P5B-Dlx and any other 965 based don't support SLI. Even their XF sux compared to 975 based.

Shelnutt2 · Feb 21, 2007

bing said:
P5B-Dlx and any other 965 based don't support SLI. Even their XF sux compared to 975 based.

They have a 8x and 4x PCI-E lanes. The 975x has 8x-8x PCI-E lanes.

Generally people get their max overclock from the default multi. If you can lower the mult and get to the same or high overall clockspeed then its better but generally people can't reach the same speeds with a less multi.

kayson · Feb 21, 2007

hUMANbEATbOX said:
p5w-dh is a bit faster, clock for clock. the advantage of the p5b-dlx is that it can hit much higher fsb.

with a e6600, i would go with the p5w-dh, because it gives you the option of SLI down the line (with hacked drivers, or official ones, should NV ever decide to make that happen).

an e6600 only needs 400fsb to get to 3.6ghz. the p5w-dh should be good up to 410-430fsb before it needs any mods.

you might also look at the Intel Badaxe 2. it has been getting very high praise, it is a 975x board, and it has been seen for around $170.

People have gotten 3.6ghz on a 6600 with a p5b at lower multis. higher fsb + same clock speed = better performance.

squeakygeek · Feb 21, 2007

kayson said:
People have gotten 3.6ghz on a 6600 with a p5b at lower multis. higher fsb + same clock speed = better performance.

That statement by itself isn't particularly relevant to me. If it happens regularly on air, then I am interested.

kayson · Feb 21, 2007

squeakygeek said:
That statement by itself isn't particularly relevant to me. If it happens regularly on air, then I am interested.

It was on air and if I remember correctly, it was stock chipset voltage too.

squeakygeek · Feb 21, 2007

Cool. Are those results fairly typical?

kayson · Feb 21, 2007

I'm not sure. From what I've seen, the results vary. Some people can't OC as much and others get up to 3.7ghz. I'd say just go for it and hope for the best.

jivetrky · Feb 21, 2007

squeakygeek said:
Cool. Are those results fairly typical?

I'd say go with the P5W DH with the E6600. With the higher multi of the E6600 you don't really need a high FSB board like the P5B Deluxe (especially if you are using air cooling)

3.6 seems to be reasonably common and attainable with very good air cooling (read: Tuniq Tower 120). I haven't started OCing my system yet (I'm still literally amazed by the stock speeds so I haven't yet delved into it.) But 3.6 is the # I am shooting for.

Oh, and with the P5W DH and an E6600, you don't have to buy any kind of super dooper memory because at DDR2-800 speeds (400Mhz FSB) you are at 3.6Ghz. So I'd save the money on trying to find Micron D9 chips for your RAM and just go with any decent DDR2-800 (but maybe try to get the lowest timings you can). With that saved money you can further fund another area of the system.

Gautam · Feb 21, 2007

The Bad Axe 2 is also a very good choice. I wouldn't get a P5B for a 6600 as others have said.

kayson · Feb 21, 2007

jivetrky said:
Oh, and with the P5W DH and an E6600, you don't have to buy any kind of super dooper memory because at DDR2-800 speeds (400Mhz FSB) you are at 3.6Ghz. So I'd save the money on trying to find Micron D9 chips for your RAM and just go with any decent DDR2-800 (but maybe try to get the lowest timings you can). With that saved money you can further fund another area of the system.

Man i totally forgot about memory. I was thinking about getting a p5b with an e6600 and OCing to 3.6ghz, but my ocz ddr-667 would get brutally pwned

guess itll have to be a p5w

Gautam · Feb 21, 2007

I might want to point out, at 1:1, the P5W will still be faster than a P5B, even with its multi cranked down. For a given CPU speed, the P5W will almost always be faster.

jivetrky · Feb 21, 2007

kayson said:
Man i totally forgot about memory. I was thinking about getting a p5b with an e6600 and OCing to 3.6ghz, but my ocz ddr-667 would get brutally pwned guess itll have to be a p5w

Well, if your DDR2-667 can do DDR2-800, you'll be OK....but if it can't go that high, then you'll be limited by the RAM.
Although I haven't yet played with things, so I'm not sure if there are memory dividers on this board or not...so you might be able to work it out. But really, either way, with an E6600 I'd go P5W DH.

squeakygeek · Feb 21, 2007

I'm pretty much sold on the P5W DH. If the better performance didn't do it for me, the possible future SLI upgrade sealed the deal. Thanks guys.

core2due · Feb 21, 2007

I would go for the 975x chipset.

Asus P5B deluxe vs. P3W DH

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