Time for a new motherboard :-/

When I was looking for motherboards when my IP35 Pro died (and had horrible customer support), it was stated that the 680i motherboard would support the 45nm processors.

According to this thread, it supports the duals AND NOT the quads, I am so pissed.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=536089

If you follow the link provided in the thread above, you will see tech reps just saying "not chipset limitation" over and over and over and over. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM THEN?

At this point, I'm fairly frustrated with this motherboard, I have (yes, seriously) use a pci -> converter for my headset and printer. Otherwise I get complete garbage coming into and out of the headset, and the printer causes Windows (XP and Vista) to cause an auto restart. No bluescreen, nothing, instant restart. This is a known issue with the usb ports. There are a couple of things that piss me off about it, but I just don't care at this point.

SO, the point of this thread:

I'm looking for a NON nVidia chipset board (p35/x38, etc) that will overclock awesome and have some of the following features. I am willing to throw around 250 at it since it will last me about a year.

• MUST be lga 775 and completely support a Penryn Quad
• Must have atleast 4 SATA ports, RAID is not important to me at this point
• Must have atleast 2 pci-e slots, three is awesome
• Must have atleast 1 pci slot
• Must take 4 1gig sticks of DDR2 ram, I just got them
• If it can output 5.1 dolby digital/DTS through the motherboard, GREAT, saves me from using my Audigy card since I do passthrough anyway
• If it doesn't have IDE, don't care
• More fans on the motherboard, the better
• Overclock AWESOME

I appreciate all your help, if you have any questions, I'll be bored all day

I'll be looking at boards on NewEgg as of now. I will not buy a nVidia board and I would rather stay away from Abit (customer service issues).

Corey

What price range?

El<(')>Maxi said:

What price range?

Click to expand...

thideras said:

I'm looking for a NON nVidia chipset board (p35/x38, etc) that will overclock awesome and have some of the following features. I am willing to throw around 250 at it since it will last me about a year.

Click to expand...

I am loving this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219

Only question, does it do 5.1 DD/DTS from the motherboard? It doesn't specify.

The 45nm stuff is all because of politics between Intel and nV.

The mobo market is getting pretty cluttered. There seem to be a lot of good choices out there to me.

There's the Asus P5K Premium, P5E, Maximus Formula, DFI LP P35, and the Foxconn Mars seems to be surprisingly good too.

Only the DFI has 3 PCI-E slots. I don't know much about sound, but I think only the Asus P35's have HD audio.

I'm still not 100% sure on how X38 clocks in general versus P35 for DDR2. For DDR3 I've been told that X38 has a harder time pulling off tighter timings at higher speeds, but it ends up performing better anyways clock for clock, much like 975X. For the Asus boards, I think the X38's have better vregs than the P35 P5K. I think the DFI is the best memory/FSB clocker out of the bunch by a hair, but its significantly more difficult to use than the others, and one of my friends tells me its BIOS is a little buggy.

I'd probably lean to the P5E when alls said and done.

Edit- oh goodie, all that writing and you beat me to it, lol.

Thanks for the input!

Keep it coming!!

EDIT: Question about the P5E, will my TR U120E have clearance issues?

Also, x38 only has 1 gigabit ethernet port???



EDIT2: Any recommended p35 board? About what fsb range are these hitting?

OMG, this board is HOT:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136037

No input on the DFI?

Anyone?

As I said, its touchier but clocks better than an Asus.

Gautam said:

As I said, its touchier but clocks better than an Asus.

Click to expand...

So...it likes to be touched?

Not sure exactly what you mean. I did see that it has tons of more BIOS options than the others.

The cooling system is...unique...and won't really work with my case since the power supply is at the bottom

I'm really liking that board...any gaping flaws with it besides it being touchy?

Sometimes if it doesn't like something you set, it'll refuse to POST without a CMOS reset, etc.

Gautam said:

Sometimes if it doesn't like something you set, it'll refuse to POST without a CMOS reset, etc.

Click to expand...

Isn't that what all motherboards do? Or do you mean changing settings that shouldn't affect the process of it POSTing?

If the latter...my AW9D did that...so that won't bother me too much to have to deal with that and have a ripping fast processor

thideras said:

Thanks for the input!

Keep it coming!!

EDIT: Question about the P5E, will my TR U120E have clearance issues?

Also, x38 only has 1 gigabit ethernet port???



EDIT2: Any recommended p35 board? About what fsb range are these hitting?

Click to expand...

I just got P5E and it's working weird ... max fsb I could make was 480MHz while on my last board -Foxconn P35A I could bench on 500-505MHz.
Vdrop is really bad about 0,06-0,08V ( I haven't got time to mod it ) and there is little issue with memory voltage, when I set 2,0V in bios I get 2,3V in windows...
My X3210 is working with lapped TR U120 without problems.
I would get other board than P5E but I got it in service exchange for burned ddr1 which was in the same price 4 years ago, so better P5E than new DDR1

Ouch- scratch that one off the list.

Thanks to the mod that moved it!

I'm not a mobo expert by any means but...

I used DFI back in the S939 days. The boards always clocked higher than other brands but the BIOS was very complicated (different naming scheme and tons of options) and as Guatam said it was very touchy. If you want a challenge in OCing (not that there is much of one these days) the DFI board will probably give it to you.

Anything against the tried and true Asus P5K series?

satandole666 said:

I'm not a mobo expert by any means but...

I used DFI back in the S939 days. The boards always clocked higher than other brands but the BIOS was very complicated (different naming scheme and tons of options) and as Guatam said it was very touchy. If you want a challenge in OCing (not that there is much of one these days) the DFI board will probably give it to you.

Anything against the tried and true Asus P5K series?

Click to expand...

I have no issue with challenge

I am on the benchmarking team

I will look at those now, give me about 3 minutes

EDIT2: I like that board. Anybody else have experience with that board?

EDIT: What kind of clocks are the P5K's getting?

thideras said:

I have no issue with challenge

I am on the benchmarking team

I will look at those now, give me about 3 minutes

EDIT2: I like that board. Anybody else have experience with that board?

EDIT: What kind of clocks are the P5K's getting?

Click to expand...

I Just got the P5K Premium and love it. It's solid as steel and has soo many bios options to make for the ultimate OC. I've seen them do 550 FSB with quads on XS...

Its odd we now know that the 680i cant suport some of the new CPUs...Yet the price hasnt droped. Its like nvida wants to make heaps of money untill 780I comes out.

Mycobacteria said:

Its odd we now know that the 680i cant suport some of the new CPUs...Yet the price hasnt droped. Its like nvida wants to make heaps of money untill 780I comes out.

Click to expand...

Yup yup, that is another reason why I'm switching...

Thanks for the input guys, I think I've decided to go with a p35 chipset.