Rampage Extreme vs Maximus Formula SE vs P5E Deluxe.. Need to choose 2!

[Fever]

Hi guys,

Recently had some 775 goodness fall into my lap. 3 boards, and 2 CPUs.

CPUs: Q9550 and a Q6600 G0

Motherboards: Rampage Extreme (X48 DDR3), Maximus Formula (X38 DDR2), and a P5E Deluxe (X48 DDR2)

I'll be setting 2 of these up as full time folders, and I can't decide which board to run the Q6600 in. The Q9550 will be installed into the Rampage Extreme as I assume it's the best board of the 3.

I'm kind of leaning towards the P5E Deluxe for the Q6600 as it seems to have a beefier north bridge heatsink compared to the Maximus, which has a water cooled NB heatsink. I won't be water cooling anything, so I feel that the P5E may be better on air.

Maximus Formula:

P5E Deluxe:

Perhaps the Maximus might be better as it's a ROG board? I'm thinking I may be able to swap the motherboard heat sinks between the two as they seem to be basically identical boards, minus the chipset difference.

Both CPUs will be overclocked to their limits. Which board would you go with, and why?

Edit: Forgot to ask about CPU cooling. What I have available to me is an H50, and 2x coolermaster 212+ evos. I was thinking H50 on the Q9550, and a 212 on the Q6600. Would I be better off using the other 212 on the Q9550? I'm not very familiar with the H50. I do love my 3 H100s that I have running, though. I don't want to spend money on better heat sinks for these chips, I'll just use what I already have.

Thanks!

 

[Fever]

Another question, though less important. I've got another Q9650 folding 24/7 on a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R. Would I be better off using whichever of these three boards I have left over? Maybe I could squeeze a few more MHz out of her. It's currently running at 4.1 GHz if memory serves.

 

[Janus67]

Congrats on getting one of the best motherboards of all time to just fall into your lap (Rex). The formula is another solid board (least sold mine and am keeping my Rex for benching). Honestly you could get a lot of money for that Rex -enough to buy 3-4 other boards

 

[freeagent]

Congrats, those are beautiful boards, especially that rex <3

I would probably thow the q6600 on the P5E, and use the black dimms

My 9550 Loves vtt. So I would throw that on the rex.. its a tough call, that extra half multi can really be useful.. Ive got my 9550 running at 4ghz useing more vtt then vcore lol.

 

[Fever]

Congrats on getting one of the best motherboards of all time to just fall into your lap (Rex). The formula is another solid board (least sold mine and am keeping my Rex for benching). Honestly you could get a lot of money for that Rex -enough to buy 3-4 other boards

Thanks. So you'd use the Formula for the Q6600? From what I can tell X48 is the same thing as X38, but cherry picked by Intel and is officially specd to run 1600 FSB. I'd assume Asus also cherry picked the X38 chips to use the best of them on their ROG board. X48 is apparently 65nm vs X38 which is 90nm?

Out of curiosity, how much does the Rex go for used? I paid $20 for mine!!!

Congrats, those are beautiful boards, especially that rex <3

I would probably thow the q6600 on the P5E, and use the black dimms

My 9550 Loves vtt. So I would throw that on the rex.. its a tough call, that extra half multi can really be useful.. Ive got my 9550 running at 4ghz useing more vtt then vcore lol.

They are indeed, wish I had them while I was still running 775 as my main platform! My EP45-UD3R served me well back then, though. So, another vote for the P5E... I'm going to start fiddling with the Rex while I wait for more opinions, but I'm also leaning towards the P5E.

Any opinions of the H50 vs 212+?

Thanks for the replies to far!

 

[Janus67]

The Rex can be found/sold on ebay for probably at least $250, congrats on getting a monster steal, I'm sure some benching team members are salivating at that (I got lucky enough to get a REX + E8400 for $150 shipped from someone on craigslist that didn't know the value)

The major difference between the REX and the Formula is the X48/X38 which is the DDR3 versus DDR2 and the on-motherboard overclocking features.

H50 or 212+ will both be fine I would imagine.

 

[Convicted1]

+1 for selling the REX... Preferably to a benching team member here for a good deal.

I have one already... So I'm not in the running to buy it... BUT... Somebody on the benching team would love to have it.

Not to sound like folding is unimportant or whatever... But thats a SERIOUS amount of MOBO for something as simple as folding.

 

[Fever]

Awesome, I feel like I robbed the guy now!

Does anyone know where I could find the optional heat sinks that originally came with the board? All I got with it was the board, sound card, and back plate. It's got the optionally water cooled NB HS on it right now, and I'd much rather have the larger air cooler.

I've been thinking about joining the benching team for the last few months, just have not had enough spare time. I'm going to hang onto it for a bit, but if I don't use it for benching I will most definitely put it up for sale in the classifieds for a great price for benching/folding members.

 

[JLK03F150]

FYI, you can flash the BIOS on the Maximus Formula to a Rampage Formula. Gives you a lot more memory options.

 

[Fever]

Nice! Thanks for the tip. Is there a special method, or can I just flash it with the board's utility in the bios?

 

[Fever]

I went ahead and flashed the Maximus Formula with the Rampage Formula's BIOS. Very easy to do, and everything seems to be working perfectly! Seems I can also flash the P5E Deluxe with the Rampage's BIOS.

Here are the instructions I followed, should someone find this thread in the future and wish to do the same:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...e-conversion&p=2602669&viewfull=1#post2602669

I didn't use one of the BIOS files in the tutorial, but instead downloaded the lastest version from ASUS.

 

[txus.palacios]

What a sexy pair of boards you have there... And the REX, wow, that's legendary...

 

[Electroneng]

I ran the P5E-Deluxe for a while and enjoyed it immensely. It does have a problem with Vdroop though! Going to have to mod it to get that under control!

 

[Electroneng]

Here is a link to the Vmods required.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?110121-Asus-P5B-Deluxe-506X9-no-mods/page5

 

[JLK03F150]

I went ahead and flashed the Maximus Formula with the Rampage Formula's BIOS. Very easy to do, and everything seems to be working perfectly! Seems I can also flash the P5E Deluxe with the Rampage's BIOS.

Here are the instructions I followed, should someone find this thread in the future and wish to do the same:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...e-conversion&p=2602669&viewfull=1#post2602669

I didn't use one of the BIOS files in the tutorial, but instead downloaded the lastest version from ASUS.

That's the guide I used to flash my board. I'm running a modded BIOS on both my boards (figured they should both be the same). I had use use that version to get my SSDs to run in RAID 0 on the Rampage Formula.

 

[Fever]

Thanks Electroneng. I don't trust my soldering skills enough, though. I also have a general lack of time. Hopefully it won't be too bad stock. LLC doesn't work properly with the board?

 

[txus.palacios]

Then, don't risk it. Those SMD buggers are veeeeeeeeeery hard to solder right the first time.