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Best <$120 motherboard for Q9450?

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seanboltman

New Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2008
Just picked up a Q9450. Planning on a mild overclock.

All along I had planned on getting the Gigabyte EP35 DSL3, I have read so much about people losing their overclock settings (and some say there is a bios fix, unsure how well the fix works), so now I am reluctant on getting a Gigabyte.

The MSI P45 Neo3-FR is available at N-Egg for $100. But there is *little* information on it. It does look good... P45 chipset, solid state capacitors. Price is good as well. Anyone have pluses or minutes on this board?

Am I really wrong about the Gigabyte? I'd hate to get the DSL3, have a mild overclock, then have to deal with resetting the BIOS values, cold boot, etc.

My budget is small, < $120. I could spend more if there is a super compelling argument.

It looks like another favorite might be the Asus P45 P5Q-E board. Its on the upper end of my budget however.

Is there an obvious decent board in this $$$ price range that I am overlooking?

thanks!!! (seems like there is more activity here than at AT)
 
On that DFI BloodIron, I saw that one the other day.

One poster states that two of the four DIMM slots is for DDR2, and the other two are for DDR3... the guys nuts right? Afaik, DDR3 support is not available on the P35 chipset anyways, let alone a "split" like what he is mentioning.

So like I mention hearing about problems with the Gigabyte EP35 DSL3, what are the common issues with this BloodIron?

thanks!
 
I have the DSL3 and I can tell you that I too had problems keeping my OCed settings at first. Once I flashed the bios to the F5 beta, all problems solved.
 
So on the DSL3, I saw another post (or two) who hypothesized that the issue with losing their overclock bios settings (or some other badness, cold boot?) was related to certain USB devices they had plugged into their machine.

One person went as far as saying "I removed the USB Devices", and the problem went away...

thoughts?

I might just go with the DSL3 if this F5 bios really cures things...

(is this F5 that Beta bios you have to contact Gigabyte to have them mail you?, and is it the latest bios for this DSL3 board)
 
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