In need of a motherboard for my Q6600

[powergi]

Yesterday I went to buy all my new pieces, but unfortunatelly, nobody here has Gigabytes in stock, and I wanted the GA-P35C-DS3R which I heard a lot of good things from.

Basicly I got a q6600, ocz 2x2gb ddr2-800 reaper, bfg 8800gts 512, corsair hx620w and vista home premium 64. Got the thermalright ultra 120 xtreme for the cpu.

I'd like to have a strong motherboard that could last me for 3-4 years, SLI is not so important (can I even SLI with a HX620 PSU anyway?) and that is very overclocking friendly (like the p35c-ds3r). For 24/7 I'd like to make the cpu run between 3.2 and 3.6ghz. For the very long term (planing to keep this build for 3-4 years, during all my university studies for the curious ones), would it safer to run the cpu at a lower speed or could it possibly last that long even at those speeds? My athlon xp-m 2500 did survive 4 years at 220x11 lol...

My available choices are especially in the Asus and Intel motherboards, even though everything there
http://www.microbytes.com/computer/o...?cPath=2012004
might be possible to get. I'd have to wait 1.5 to 4 weeks for the gigabyte... Dont feel like it so much, but its not impossible to do either i guess.

 

[ou_phidelt]

Go with the this Asus. Great performance and the same price range. Also I would not suggest getting that Gigabyte. Go with one without the DDR3. Just stick DDR2 on this build, you will thank yourself later. The difference in performance isn't much. The additional circuitry on the board cannot be helping things.

On a side note the 620HX can handle SLI just fine depending on the cards used. 8800GT's would be fine, 9800GTX2's not so much.

 

[powergi]

Can the P5K-E do SLI? I think i should get a motherboard that I could have the possibility to go SLI one day if id like. From what i could understand, it can only do crossfire and the second pci-e slot is only 4x. I dont mind so much about the price too, im willing to pay what it takes for a good motherboard. I will only use DDR2 ram, so I dont need a card that alloys DDR3. A card with onboard wireless internet is a plus (like this card can do), but not absolutely needed. Do you guys have another idea?

And for the PSU, I'm gonna get a 8800gts 512. Iwondering if the 620HX is enough for 2 8800gts 512 oc and q6600 oced, plus the rest of the components... Is there another stronger very silent PSU I could get? (like 750w i guess)

 

[masakabassist]

Do you really need to go SLI? I read somewhere that there is only a 30% performance increase. The reason I bought my board is because it did SLI. But A year later I'm still waiting for somebody to come up an argument that the pros outweigh the cons for SLI. I would stick with a single card or if you really have money to blow go for one of the newer cards out for example the 9800GTX (I don't know if its out yet, give me two minutes and I'll find out). Just my beef.

*Edit* I return, Newegg has them. You may want to check those out.

 

[ou_phidelt]

If you are not going to go SLI of the bat don't worry about it. By the time most people get around to getting a second card you are better off getting a newer generation, single card solution. The nVidea board have a heck of lot more trouble OCing quads than Intel motherboards.

My suggestion is get an 8800GTS or 9800GTX and call it a day. Down the road when you want to add a second card sell it and upgrade to the newer generation stuff. If you still want a dual GPU solution both ATI and Nvidea produce a card with two GPU's on a single PCB. Right now unless you want Tri-SLI I am not seeing much point in going with a Nvidea board at all.

 

[Hookem]

Probably one of the most popular boards around here is the Abit IP35-Pro.

http://www.directron.com/ip35pro.html

If you do not need RAID, FireWire then the Abit IP35-E is also very popular and highly recommended.

http://www.directron.com/ip35e.html

I like the Asus P5K Premium WiFi/AP...8 layer PCB board, very high build quality...IMHO of course.

http://www.directron.com/p5kpremiumwifi.html

Boards that have the Intel P35/ICH9 or ICH9R chipset seem to be some of the easier overclocking boards out there.

 

[freeagent]

p5k deluxe is great too if you can find it cheaper then a premium. its acctually the best board ive ever owned.

<3

 

[JimmyG]

Go with the this Asus. Great performance and the same price range. Also I would not suggest getting that Gigabyte. ....

Why not go with the GA-P35C-DS3R or L? I got an L, put 4 sticks of cheap G.Skill DDR2 and an E6750 in it and took me 3 minutes to OC it to 3.2 gig on stock air rock solid....!! You can get the mobo at Newegg overnight or 3 days at low shipping.

 

[powergi]

thx guys, I've settled on ASUS P5K Deluxe WiFi as well. No SLI for me^^

 

[ou_phidelt]

Why not go with the GA-P35C-DS3R or L? I got an L, put 4 sticks of cheap G.Skill DDR2 and an E6750 in it and took me 3 minutes to OC it to 3.2 gig on stock air rock solid....!! You can get the mobo at Newegg overnight or 3 days at low shipping.

That is just my opinion, I don't like boards that mix DDR2 and DDR3. Pick one and go about your business. The added circuitry is not going to help when going for a high OC.

Plus that board is not available from where he wants it and he asked for a substitute. From what is available in the price range as the board he had picked out that was the best on there.

edit

The deluxe will serve you well, good luck with the build.

 

[aaaaaaaaaa]

I built a similar system recently and I chose the Asus P5K Premium WiFi edition.

Works fine =D

 

[powergi]

Actually I only reserved the p5k deluxe, gonna buy it tomorrow.

What is the difference between the deluxe and premium?
Where I buy my stuff the p5k deluxe wifi is 207$ and the p5k premium wifi is 208$. Should I get the premium instead?

 

[oakstave]

I believe the Premium has improved power circuitry that eliminates power ripples under load. (For more overclocking.) Also, check the supported RAM speeds between the two, there might be a difference. Not sure.

I use an Asus board, and here's my 2 cents: The WiFi Solo AP is crap. It doesn't work, and no one on this forum has been able to help make it work.

Also, I've systematically removed all Asus software from my system due to rampant bugs, crashing, unusual memory usage, improper shutdowns... Asus Probe 2 would not even uninstall properly. I had to rip out all the registry entries by hand.

Here's one bug I dealt with: http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=70937 Nothing like "I AM SERVICE!" randomly popping up and sucking up your clock cycles to do nothing.

However, I think their hardware is fine. Just use extreme caution before installing ANY Asus App.

 

[masakabassist]

@Oak: I only found out yesterday my motherboard came with its own applications (i.e CD/DVD burner)until then I was blissfuly unaware that ot existed. So from your post I'm guessing its a bad ideato install it??

 

[benscoobert]

I agree the asus boards are good but the software isn't great
after windows install I let windows search the asus cd for the drivers rather than running the asus cd driver install utility
this way you should just get drivers without the pish that you don't need

 

[oakstave]

I don't want to threadjack here, but it could be relavent to powergi's choices... especially if he's choosing a board based on the bells and whistles:

Asus Alarm Clock- Your computer goes into hibernate, and turns itself on at the time specified, playing a cd of your choice to wake you up. Problem: It doesn't work. Hibernating the computer makes it go into an unresponsive 'undead' mode that requires you to cut power to the board to even get the PC to start again.

PC Probe 2: Full of either poor programming or malware. Won't uninstall: I had to rip out registry entries by hand. Very Risky. Check out the thread for "I AM SERVICE!" for details. Also google "ACPI Cneter"

Asus WiFi AP Solo: Never got it work. All my pc's can see the AP, but no data is transfered. Asus forums were full of people screaming "THIS DOESN'T WORK". A resounding silence from the company. I threw out a thread here asking if anyone had seen or heard of this working: No response.

Certainly someone will pop up here and state they've been using Asus software for a long time, without problems but it was a nightmare for me.

masakabassist: I'd rather go online and download every freeware screensaver I could find than install another Asus Application. Stick with what works.

However, the hardware itself has given me little problems.

Powergi: If you stick with Asus, I recommend you look for a mobo that has the power circuitry, PCIE lane and RAM speeds that please you, and ignore features that may not work.

 

[mrgoodwords]

ABIT P35-E if you aren't RAID or SLI. Man that board is dope.