Motherboard for Q6600

I was planning on building a new system and was looking at the P5E3 Deluxe WiFi but the board requires DDR3. I was informed elsewhere on this board that it was a waste of money to use DDR3, but then I would need another board, I was wondering if anyone had that particular board and processor, and how stable it is, overclocking with the Q6600 and if there would be any benefit to getting that board for future upgrades, or to switch to a DDR2 board, and if i should which board is recommended. Somebody reccomended the Foxconn P35 MARS. Are there any other good ones, or should I stick with my original thought.

Thanks

Mike

after i got the double boot issue resolved, i really like my ip35-e. cheap board AR, i was able to get my q6600 to 3.6 on air before i stopped, pretty sure i could get a little more though.

TheQman said:

I was planning on building a new system and was looking at the P5E3 Deluxe WiFi but the board requires DDR3. I was informed elsewhere on this board that it was a waste of money to use DDR3, but then I would need another board, I was wondering if anyone had that particular board and processor, and how stable it is, overclocking with the Q6600 and if there would be any benefit to getting that board for future upgrades, or to switch to a DDR2 board, and if i should which board is recommended. Somebody reccomended the Foxconn P35 MARS. Are there any other good ones, or should I stick with my original thought.

Thanks

Mike

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LOL! It was probably me that recommended the MARS board. The MARS will maximize your potential OC on the Q6600, but that max may not be much more than some cheaper boards. For me, at $175, the MARS is an excellent deal, but if your not going for absolute max clocks, and just want a good 3.6GHz on the cheap then almost all of the P35/X38 boards will do. Post up some options, and we can weed through them for you.

There is a P5E Deluxe that is the same as your above mentioned board, but w/ DDR2 support instead of DDR3.

DDR3 just doesn't give any noticeable improvements on the current platform, and if you want to go DDR3 for benchmarks then you'll want something faster than DDR3-1066.

Nehelem will be out in a year, so there will be a whole new platform w/ a new socket. At that time if you wanted to upgrade you'd have to buy a whole new MoBo, new CPU, and you'd want faster than DDR3-1066. No use trying to future-proof too much right now IMO. A good P35/X38 Mobo w/ DDR2 support, and a quad should last you a good long while if you decide not to upgrade for a long time.

I'll second jason4207 suggestion of P35 or X38 boards, strong on the P35 unless you need the features of a X38. A number of motherboard manufacturers including Abit (IP35 Pro), ASUS (P5K DELUXE) and Gigabyte (GA-P35-DS3L) plus others have very good P35 boards.

DDR3 isn't worth the extra $s right now.

Thanx I looked at the Foxconn MARS it looks good , is there much difference beetween the X38 and P35 chipsets ? A few things I want on the board is eSATA, RAID, and gb lan which it has, also the ability to overclock. I looked at the P5E series boards, and the one that had a lot of features I was loooking for was the P5E WS with the exception of overclocking, unless it was a missprint on their website, all the P5E boards list overclocking feattures with the excception of that one, I'll look at other manufacturers tomorrow, if you can think of any off hand list them, another question, If I'm gooing to put 4gb should I use 2x2gb or 4x1 sticks I assume 800 mhz what brand should I get?

thanx
Mike

There are comparison threads between the X38 and P35 chipsets floating around the forum, you might search for them. As I remember one of the "main" differences was that Crossfield on the X38 used 2 fast PCIE2 slots. Since the two chipsets are otherwise prettey similar, many folks recommend the P35 boards unless there is a need for the fast video. Just do a double check on features before you buy, a call to costumer service is fine too if you can't determine your answer on-line.

I'm sure that is a typo for the P5E WS.

Upgrading the heat sink is always a good move. A good resource for heat sink info is available from the Overclockers front page, direct link. My view is that two solid components that you tend to keep for quite a while are the CPU heat sink and the PSU. Purchasing quality components for these two items pays over time.

If you headed for overclocking, I would say 1066 speed RAM. The reason being that on Intel chipsets, 800 memory limits your FSB to ~400 unless you relax the timings. Thus 1000 or above buys you overclocking flexibility and capability.

Good D9 based DDR2-800 can OC to 1100-1200.

These are some D9's.

You only need X38 if you plan on cross-fire. Otherwise P35 has it beat IMO. MARS!

Edit: It looks like people have taken notice of the MARS. It's price has been going up the past few weeks. It was around $160-170 iiirc, and now it's $230!