Most stable gaming mobo for E8400?

Hello everyone,

I am running into issues with my am2 setup, and due to me being paranoid about updating my bios without dual bios on my board I thinking of just going with intel this round.

I am not a oc'er. However I might dab alittle in it. Moderate at best.
I am a single graphic card user. Going with a nvidia 8800 GT 512.
I use a PSU, so I dont want to stress it out.
I have a Cooler Master Centurion 5, thinking of going Antec nine-hundred

I am looking for a stable gaming board. In the past i have went for the 80 dollar motherboards, and while I have been happy, this time I am fine with going in the 200 range if need be. I am a gigabyte fan personally, but open to all options right now.

Would like a mobo with good gaming performance.
Has high quality parts, and designed to handle long gaming sessions {heat}
Would like it to accept a e8400 out of box, if possible
Would like a pci-e 2.0 solution

I dont edit. I dont multi-task for crap. My idea of multi tasking is listening to my music while I forum surf like right now. I rarely tab out of my games. I dont rip or burn CD-R, and dont even own a DVD burner, but only a dvd drive. I like eye-candy in my games. I have completed 3 builds, all of which successful and still working to this day, first one being a amd Thunderbird. So I can work, and understand, complications.


I would greatly appreciate all of your possible solutions. I hope i gave enough information to make it easier, and stated my computer "habits" enough to help find a board right for me. I was looking at the gigabyte x38 board, DQ6 I believe, but I wanted to ask around first.

Thank you,
Creasian

Judging from your profile, you could very well live with an 80$ board. Which is not to say you shouldn't spend more, but a GA-P35-DS3(+-R/L) might be more than enough. They deliver very good performance that is very similiar to the X38 chipset. A DQ6 might be overkill for you.

Native E8400 support however, that's a different matter. In theory they will boot up and live happily, but BIOS flash seems mandatory to me.

Updating a BIOS is not a very complex process anymore. There a Windows utilities that let you flash in seconds, and I've not heard of flashing gone wrong in the last... 3, 4 years?

i have been with asus for the last 3 boards and i have been very happy with the quality. i just bought the asus P5N-D for $120 and it worked with the E8400 right out of the box.. I have not had to flash the bios at all.. in fact i NEVER do a bios flash uless there is an issue i need to correct. one thing i have learned in the last 15 years of building and fixing PCs is that "if it aint broke don't fix it" rings 100% true.

Alastayr said:

Judging from your profile, you could very well live with an 80$ board. Which is not to say you shouldn't spend more, but a GA-P35-DS3(+-R/L) might be more than enough. They deliver very good performance that is very similiar to the X38 chipset. A DQ6 might be overkill for you.

Native E8400 support however, that's a different matter. In theory they will boot up and live happily, but BIOS flash seems mandatory to me.

Updating a BIOS is not a very complex process anymore. There a Windows utilities that let you flash in seconds, and I've not heard of flashing gone wrong in the last... 3, 4 years?

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But the thing is is that i would like a board that has enough features that i CAN tweak to my liking, which might include some ocing.

Plus cooling is important to me. Which is why i plan to get a aftermarket cooler for my e8400.

Maybe this best says what i feel.. I have always bought the mobo that is what i need, but not what i want per say. I wish to get a top quality mobo with features that are there if in case later on i want to try/use them.

My system right now is acually what i need to do what i want. This is to go more towards what i "want" and then more so for later on.

there is no way around it right now... you will have to update the bios on pretty much anyboard you buy to get E8400 working correcly. the 45nm parts work fine but the bugs in the bios to work with them is another matter. the only option then is to use something like the E6750/E6850's.


boards that are great for the price with good ocing options.
gigabyte P35-DS3L/P35-DS3/P35-S3/P35-S3L, Abit IP35-E/IP35,

the only PCEI 2.0 solutions right now are the X38 and NV 780I. if you wait till mid next month P45 will be out that bring PCIE 2.0 to what we call P35. no need to spend the money on a $200 board if your not gonna use all its feature. any board in the $100 rang will go long term gaming sessions. the issues will be if your cpu or gpu can stay cool enough, which means your computer case cooling.

Evilsizer said:

there is no way around it right now... you will have to update the bios on pretty much anyboard you buy to get E8400 working correcly. the 45nm parts work fine but the bugs in the bios to work with them is another matter. the only option then is to use something like the E6750/E6850's.


boards that are great for the price with good ocing options.
gigabyte P35-DS3L/P35-DS3/P35-S3/P35-S3L, Abit IP35-E/IP35,

the only PCEI 2.0 solutions right now are the X38 and NV 780I. if you wait till mid next month P45 will be out that bring PCIE 2.0 to what we call P35. no need to spend the money on a $200 board if your not gonna use all its feature. any board in the $100 rang will go long term gaming sessions. the issues will be if your cpu or gpu can stay cool enough, which means your computer case cooling.

Click to expand...

I am either gonna mod another 80mm fan as a side intake on my CM centurion 5 {i have one over the pci-e/pci slots} or just get a antec nine hundred case. Unsure yet. I make it a routine to take a can of air and flow out fans, clean the meshes, and overall keep debris from clogging up the flow.

I acually considered a 120mm side intake fan over the cpu area, with a screen for dust, and seeing if that will keep things cool on that side. along with adding another fan in front.. but seems like alot of work that wont help as much as i hope.

I mean with how i worked it.. on a 8 hour session in eq2 with grouping, raiding, and graphics set to high quality on a x1900GT, load temps stayed under 60c. Of course it had one front intake fan headed towards it, one side intake fan as well. But overall i got cooling under control.

But dosent the dual bios for the DQ6 help a ton with bios updating? It seems to have alot of features i wont use right away, but might come in very handy in the future.

In the future i do plan to work with raid, I do plan to oc alittle, and I do plan to do much more with my system. I am in school right now for Electronic Engineering and I feel that i will have the chance to learn some things and come home and with that knowledge, start applying it to my system to make it better. Understand why this or what is so, and then start tweaking things and make it overall better.

well as far as ocing the $100 boards can hang with higher priced ones. like i said if you really want PCIE 2.0 then X38 or 780I. other wise i think the best fit for you is a Gigabyte P35-DS4 or Abit IP35-Pro. which has the same features your wanting to mess with minus PCE2.0. PCIE 2.0 isnt need much less any card taking advantage of it.

i have updated many bios's never had any trouble. double bios is one of those extras they just threw on to make more $$ per board. i dont see it being usefull unless your updating bios's every day or something. the best way to update a bios is in dos or burn the rom file to a cd. then use the auto bios update built into the board. on boot up you hit ctrl-F1 to get it started, it finds the file and update. please dont use windows cause if windows gets a error and you restart. there goes your bios and the board will not boot.

I think as far as stability, any of the P35 boards qualify and you can look at the Asus P5K series, Abit IP35 series, or Gigabyte P35 series and pick which one suits you best(RAID, board layout, chipset heatsink design, color,etc). I know the Abit IP35(Pro)will support the E8400 with the current BIOS it ships with and I'm sure others do as well. Most are still optimizing the BIOS' at this point it seems, so I'm sure we'll see new BIOS' for many of these in the next few weeks.

Well I am not buying any of this until March 14th. However I need to budget this into my marriage to keep from getting killed.

CreasianDevaili said:

Well I am not buying any of this until March 14th. However I need to budget this into my marriage to keep from getting killed.

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Hehe, I know all about that. I will add that most of the BIOS issues seem to be torwards correcting voltage output and temp readings, not necessarily stability. Like any new CPU I buy and OC, and I'm sure most other members here, I've tested its limits and I run close to that without a hiccup.

tuskenraider said:

Hehe, I know all about that. I will add that most of the BIOS issues seem to be torwards correcting voltage output and temp readings, not necessarily stability. Like any new CPU I buy and OC, and I'm sure most other members here, I've tested its limits and I run close to that without a hiccup.

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Well, my current system runs eq2 about max and I am happy with it, and sure the new 8800gt 512 will be a huge improvement over my x1900gt rev 2. However I am watching the up and coming market, and I am worried about the cpu requirements taking a drastic jump in the future, and I want to be prepared.

I am just iffy on the bios updating. I am the kind of guy that has bad luck. Always. It is why i am almost spending more for extra precautions. I am sure most of you have no issues with bios, and if i can get ahold of a motherboard that will handle a e8400 out of box i will be utterly fine. But that was why i was looking at the gigabyte x38 dq6. It just has some features that would give me some more ease of mind.

So it wasnt like i want the dq6 board just cause its expensive, but because it does have some features I want personally. But if i could just find them on a cheaper board that is stable and dosent need a bios flash for the e8400, i would be happy as well.

I will keep watching. I am sure in a month and half the bios updating will be shipping so most boards will have the out of box ability to run the processor.

It would be overkill for you to spend $200+ for a mobo but then not multitask (with say, quad core).

You'll be more than happy with the ds3-L, or DS3-R if you want a deluxe quality board for hardly that much more.

Evilsizer said:

there is no way around it right now... you will have to update the bios on pretty much anyboard you buy to get E8400 working correcly. the 45nm parts work fine but the bugs in the bios to work with them is another matter. the only option then is to use something like the E6750/E6850's.

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again, i stress that i did not update the bios on my 750i board and i fail to see any bugs. in fact it has been great for the past week! could you please list a few so i know what to look for? the only bug that has been reported that i know of is that the temps are off but a bios update has not really fixed that.....

Evilsizer said:

the only PCEI 2.0 solutions right now are the X38 and NV 780I. if you wait till mid next month P45 will be out that bring PCIE 2.0 to what we call P35.

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my 750i board is PCIE 2.0

CreasianDevaili said:

So it wasnt like i want the dq6 board just cause its expensive, but because it does have some features I want personally. But if i could just find them on a cheaper board that is stable and dosent need a bios flash for the e8400, i would be happy as well.

I will keep watching. I am sure in a month and half the bios updating will be shipping so most boards will have the out of box ability to run the processor.

Click to expand...

At this point it seems all the IP35 Pro's out are shipping with BIOS 14, which has E8400 support since the previous BIOS, 12. The new BIOS, like any other, will fix minor glitches. I'll emphasize stability hasn't been an issue in any way beyond OC'ing the chip beyond it's capabilities. I'm not pimping the board, there are plenty good ones, just explaining the situation for this one.

I too am looking for one of these. for about 200USD, what board give me the highest CPU clocks and highest RAM timings? Btw, I'm using a single card and a single HDD but having RAID 0 will be good as I may go into that.