GA-EP45-UD3R, UD3P, or ASUS P5Q-XXX?

I am having a heck of a time here and hope some of you can help. I have built Soyo and ASUS OC systems and have had no issues. Now my wife wants a faster system and I thought I would get an E8500 and OC it a bit. Not sure just how much I can do with stock Intel cooling, but that is another question.

I was looking at the ASUS again and am struck by all the DOA reports and how it seems to be very sensitive to memory vendors. Also I see that some will not post with non version 2 16x video. No problem for me as I want to get a 4850 for her. I also want 2 2gb sticks of memory, even though we use a 32 bit OS.

That said, I believe that the UD3R is the SAME as the UD3P, except that it has room for 2 video cards (that she will NEVER use) and Dolby sound that we will also never use on a PC. I sure have no use for 2 LAN ports either. However, the UD3P seems to only be about $12 more now. However, if the UD3R will perform the same, I may as well skip the extras.

Is there a performance reason that the UD3P has a F5 BIOS and the UD3R is still at F4 or does it not matter?

Finally, I looked at the manual and I admit that the ASUS OC screens seem a lot simpler!

TIA and I hope this is not too much for my first post. However I have been a lurker here for YEARS.

The higher end model may have slightly better components/power regulation. Some pf the caps look different, and in some areas there are more/bigger caps on the P model (when I compare the pics on the Egg). Also, on NewEgg, there is only a $5 difference AR. I'd go for the higher model.

Edit: Actually, I'd go for an Asus, but that's my preference.

jason4207 said:

The higher end model may have slightly better components/power regulation. Some pf the caps look different, and in some areas there are more/bigger caps on the P model (when I compare the pics on the Egg). Also, on NewEgg, there is only a $5 difference AR. I'd go for the higher model.

Edit: Actually, I'd go for an Asus, but that's my preference.

Click to expand...

Thank you Jason. I had wondered why people seem to ignore this question. Even on Xtremesystems (who, BTW, don't seem to have registration working for me) the UD3R vs. UD3P seems to be ignored.

I also find far less support for the Gigabyte boards. At least ASUS has a very active forum.

OH, I was looking at a P5Q Pro or P5Q-E. I was a little disturbed at the fact that if I got an E8500 E0 one of those needs a minimum level of BIOS or it can not be used at all! Was getting a 4850 Board so the PCI-E ver 2 issue should be OK.

Thank you again for your response. Which ASUS I get may be decided on the fact that I do not need 2 LAN's and I would like eSATA...but I believe they all have that...if I can get 32 bit XP Pro SP3 to work in AHCI. Still others say to just get the P5Q Deluxe. It does cost a lot more, however.