[gcardinal]

Hi ppl,
I am so confused... I am stuck! I have tried to read and read again all kinds of reviews, but I just can't decide: X48 or 790i Ultra.

In Norway at this momment I can get following boards:

X48 boards:

• Asus P5E3 Premium/WIFI-AP@N
• Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6
• MSI X48 Platinum

790i ultra boards:

• XFX nForce 790i Ultra
• EVGA nForce 790i Ultra
• Asus Striker II Extreme nForce-790i Ultra

Price are more or less the same on all of them.

I want to have a motherboard that will stable and easy clock E8500 @ 4ghz. I will go with CORSAIR TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 2GB, DHX, XMS3 modules, CL7-7-7-20. I have yeat to decide on the GFX side, but overall CPU/RAM performance are more important then GFX as I mainly work in Photoshop and with all kinds of file encoding/decoding.

At the same time I wont this system to last for at least a year without any upgrade on motherboarb. Maybe new cpu or more ram, but not motherboard.

Please help me - I am as stuck as I can be...

[zollen]

Are you planning on SLI or Crossfire?

[gcardinal]

Originally Posted by zollen

Are you planning on SLI or Crossfire?

At this momment I only care about CPU/RAM/Mobo. I want the most kick from CPU since I use it a lot. I will take SLI or Crossfire based on the mobo pick

[Anubis_386]

If your planning on SLI then go with the 790i .. If not then X48 .. However if you want a slightly easier OCing experience then I'd get 790i, being able to unlink your FSB and RAM makes stuff pretty dam easy

[gcardinal]

Originally Posted by Anubis_386

If your planning on SLI then go with the 790i .. If not then X48 .. However if you want a slightly easier OCing experience then I'd get 790i, being able to unlink your FSB and RAM makes stuff pretty dam easy

thx! But witch brand/version to pick?

[TombKeeper]

Have they fixed the corruption issued yet though on 790i?

Make sure you read up on 790i before jumping for that.... I removed the 790i chipset from my available options due to corruption issues and also based on nVidia not being as stable as Intel chipset....

Trying to decide between P35 or X48.

From your list though... I'd pick Asus P5e3 Prem or the Gigabyte from X48 list (don't bother with MSI - supposedly not that great of quality...??). From the 790i list: eVga first, then Asus, and lastly XFX.

[Nebulous]

Originally Posted by gcardinal

thx! But witch brand/version to pick?

All depends on price. All the 790i's all use the same reference design/board and the bioses are pretty much identical.

[Brolloks]

If you can wait a few days until myself and Anubis_386 have done some more testing we would be able to advise you better on the 790i.

I had the 780i before the 790i and I must say that board clocked the best of all nvidia boards I had, it even clocks better than the IP35-Pro I have. With the simple v-droop pencil mod the v-droop on my 780i board was 0.001 v, unfortunately there is no simple v-droop mod for the 790i and it has the DDR3 OC corruption issue which is reported by some.

I can say that the 790i clocks my QX9650 with lower voltage to the same OC i.e 4 Hhz at 1.36 v vs 1.41 v with the Abit IP35-Pro.

[gcardinal]

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/n...i=&p_topview=1
looks thy admit the problem

[Anubis_386]

Yeh they admitted to the problem and say they're working on it .. Its only a small minority of people who are having problems so I wouldn't really worry .. As for which brand .. it doesn't matter, Evga's and XFX's boards are identical because they follow the reference design. Evga seems to get new BIOS updates out quicker the XFX but that doesn't matter either because you can still flash an Evga one if you have an XFX board, that's what I did ..

As for nVidia chipsets not clocking as good as Intel .. That isn't really the case with the 790i I don't think .. My board clocked extreamly well with the E8400 I had in it before my quad arrived .. All the problems people are having getting the new quads to clock isn't because of the motherboard, its the chips themselves .. They simply don't like high FSBs (apart from a few goldern ones), fine won't post after ~475 (although I'm still testing this). Also I've found overclocking on my 790i much easier then I did on my X38 board, and the X48 is simply a higher binned X38.

[MadMan007]

It's simple imo:
SLI - nVidia
Not SLI - Intel chipset.

Yes, basically the only reason to go with an NV chipset imo is SLI. Unlinked FSB:memory ratio is nice but an e8500 has a 9.5x multiplier and a 'mere' 425MHz FSB is over 4GHz, with that Ram you shouldn't have any problem maxing out the CPU. Given that you aren't bothered about graphics performance much you shouldn't be bothered enough to go SLI so I vote for an Intel chipset. Throw in possible data corruption on NV chipsets and that makes the choice even easier. x48 might be overkill but if you want to spend the money go ahead.

[heliox]

Hi guys,
I'm new to this forum and a newbie to OC.
Can anyone confirm if 790i can let you use dual channel with DDR3 PC3 12800 1600Mhz.
I'm asking this because Gigabyte GA-X48T DQ6 won't let you do that : only single channel . Is it Gigabyte's or X48's fault?
Thanks for your reply.

[jason4207]

Originally Posted by heliox

Hi guys,
I'm new to this forum and a newbie to OC.
Can anyone confirm if 790i can let you use dual channel with DDR3 PC3 12800 1600Mhz.
I'm asking this because Gigabyte GA-X48T DQ6 won't let you do that : only single channel . Is it Gigabyte's or X48's fault?
Thanks for your reply.

What's your source? All X48 boards should be able to do dual-channel. In fact, every enthusiast board I've read about in the past several years runs dual-channel.

[Mr.Guvernment]

isnt the 790 corrupting data now apprently?

all intel boards as said, run dual channel, for the last several years, since socket 478 i recall..

[Ghostleader]

Originally Posted by gcardinal

performance are more important then GFX as I mainly work in Photoshop and with all kinds of file encoding/decoding.

Go with Asus P5E3 Premium but shift that dualcore for a 45nm quad if you mainly work in Photoshop and do encoding/decoding.

I also have a Q6600@3,6 and ASUS P5K Premium just for videoediting, rendering, encoding, decoding and it´s faster then E8400@4,05.

[jason4207]

Foxconn has released the X48 Black OPs, and it should show up in the retail channel any day now. From a performance stand-point it looks to be king, but it is also very pricey!

[heliox]

Originally Posted by jason4207

What's your source? All X48 boards should be able to do dual-channel. In fact, every enthusiast board I've read about in the past several years runs dual-channel.

Thanks jason4207,
Of course they do dual channel, but check the bottom note on page 17:
"Each channel can only fit one memory module when using DD3 1900/1600 Mhz memory module"
http://Europe.giga-byte.com/FileList...x48t-dq6_e.pdf

[stdu007]

Originally Posted by jason4207

Foxconn has released the X48 Black OPs, and it should show up in the retail channel any day now. From a performance stand-point it looks to be king, but it is also very pricey!

and very hard to find ... remember the p35 mars ...

[jason4207]

Originally Posted by heliox

Thanks jason4207,
Of course they do dual channel, but check the bottom note on page 17:
"Each channel can only fit one memory module when using DD3 1900/1600 Mhz memory module"
http://Europe.giga-byte.com/FileList...x48t-dq6_e.pdf

I can't get the PDF to load...it keeps trying, though. At any rate i just can't see Gigabyte crippling their flagship MoBo like that. To not include dual-channel support on their DDR3 X48 board is suicide.

Originally Posted by stdu007

and very hard to find ... remember the p35 mars ...

The MARS was available on Newegg for a while, and I even saw the price get down to $170 at one point. Then it disappeared, and the price shot up to $250+...if you can even find it!

Hopefully, the Black OPs will show up on Newegg soon...at least for a while!

Throw a quad on the Black OPs w/ a couple of ATI 4870's in crossfire...

[Mr.Guvernment]

"Each channel can only fit one memory module when using DD3 1900/1600 Mhz memory module"

What i beleive that means, most board's have 4 slots, each 2 being a channel so you have channel 1 and channel 2 (one is one color the other another on many boards)

you can run dual channel, you just can not populate all 4 memory slots with ram when using ddr3 1900/1600 ram, you can likely only use 2 sticks at a time.