4 Mainboards for 775 - Q6600

[imported_sap]

hello everyone...

narrowed down my mainboard options to 4:
1. Asus P5K WS
2. Asus P5K-E WiFi
3. Abit IP35 Pro
4. Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 rev2.0

Basic features all of the boards offer (if i didnt mix something up):
- FSB up to 1333
- P35 Chipset with ICH9R Southbridge
- 8x sata (internal and external together)

I'm not planning to overclock a lot..didn't plan to overclock at all, but i guess if i go for one of these boards it shouldn't be a big deal.
i usually just don't oc...safety thinking.
sticking to the facts:

• CPU: Intel Q6600 G0 stepping

• little oc

• air cooled:
  either Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme (+ Scythe S-Flex 800rpm) OR Scythe Mugen OR Scythe Ninja Plus Rev. B

• Ram: 4GB - planned using 2x 2GB kits (so all slots are full. heard gigabyte sometimes has problems with that)

Not sure what RAM i'll go for, depends on the mainboard choice. Generally Corsair, OCZ and Geil are my favourites.
Mainboard prices vary about 20-30$ for me (europe), so price doesn't really matter.
I WON'T use the WiFi of the Asus P5K-E...prefer wired and got the LAN up and running already.

New video card is planned, but not sure yet. 8600gt probably, passive cooled.
I prefer a silent system. System is used for work and virtualization, nearly no gaming.

What mainboard you suggest concerning features, performance and stability?
(btw: i DON'T have any problems with the bios. so any hard-to-configure bios is not what stops me buying the board.)

thx for any advice

 

[Heidfirst]

well, they're all good & have many similarities.
If silence is a concern then the abit uGuru is considered by many to be the best hardware monitor/fan control offering from any of the mobo manufacturers.
Other than that it'll come down to personal preferences as to minor design details (e.g. sideways turned SATA ports or not) etc.

 

[imported_sap]

thx for the reply.
I just kept on reading around. sound seems to be quite similar..found another topic here at anandtech where someone claims gigabytes alc889A is a bit better than the adi1988b of asus and both are better than abits alc888..
gonna use the optical output for my hifi receiver.

perhabs i should add some more info:
i'll use linux as my main os anyway, so good tune utility for windows is not the point. bios settings perhabs, but not windows tools

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Get $95 AR Abit IP35 from MWAVE.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: sap

i'll use linux as my main os anyway, so good tune utility for windows is not the point. bios settings perhabs, but not windows tools

uGuru is hardware based & there are controls/settings in BIOS too.

 

[btcomm1]

I'm looking for a good board for a q6600 g0 stepping as well, I would like the best overclocker I can get so let us know what you go with and why.

 

[imported_sap]

for best overclocking you should consider the dfi lanparty ut p35 t2r..but thats a different price category.

will take another 10-14 days till i get to order and set up my system.
I guess I'll go fot the abit..just dunno what memory I'll use: G.Skill or GeiL (GeiL might be free for me. Gift from my boss )

 

[BoboKatt]

I currently use as my second system an Asus P5K-e Wifi, with a G0 q6600 and 4 X 1024 Patriot PC26400- 4-4-4 12 2.1v RAM. It has been a total champ. It was easy as pie to set up. I have no issues (thus far) in regards to running at its rated speed or the current OC'ed speed (3.0Ghz) with little if no increase in voltages.

I actually was going to disable the onboard WIFI as I have my own but honestly it works flawlessly and it's onboard so why not.

The only thing I had issues on were the two types of SATA ports. One of them, the black one on the board was causing some issues. I might have screwed up on the driver installation (Jmicron is that it?) but all I have are 2 drives and a DVDR so really the Intel orange slots were more than enough.

The passive cooling works fine. I have installed in an Antec 182se. I tried a Ninja Rev B., then get the 120 Extreme thinking it was better and then figured out my actual CPU is not flat and no matter what I do the two inner cores were always a good 7-9c lower than the two outer cores. Other than that I had no issues.

I am actually running that board with an ATI X1950XTX crossfire and ATI X1900 XT in crossfire mode and I was SHOCKED to see how well it works... compared to my older AMD crossfire mobo that the CCC drives would crap out on me every so often when playing games in Crossfire mode.

Overall a great board. I a paid around $140 if not less from a local dealer and it was the blue box. I am still not sure what the difference was with the model I had as he had the exact same mode P5K-E WiFi with a black box. The version on my box (the blue box) was newer so I just grabbed that one.

Good luck

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Get $95 AR Abit IP35 from MWAVE.

Seconded. I have the IP35-E (ICH9 instead of ICH9R and no firewire is the only difference) and it's a rock solid board with excellent overclocking performance. The IP35 should give you excellent stability and is considerably cheaper than your other choices.

 

[felang]

OOPS I just started a very similar thread, sorry guys.

In regards to the IP35 (not pro) that you guys recommend, how many onboard fan headers does it have? Will it control fan speed of fans that only have 2 wires? Supposedly IP35 pro with UGURU only varies speed of 3 pin fans and I am stuck with 4 Antec Tri-cool molex fans that came with my case.

Does overclocking capability change between IP35 and ip35 pro?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Four headers, with two controlled by the MB. And yes, IP35 will work with 2 wire fan. Both should hit 500MHz FSB with a great chip.

 

[btcomm1]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Get $95 AR Abit IP35 from MWAVE.

Seconded. I have the IP35-E (ICH9 instead of ICH9R and no firewire is the only difference) and it's a rock solid board with excellent overclocking performance. The IP35 should give you excellent stability and is considerably cheaper than your other choices.

So the only diff between ICH9 and ICH9R is the ability to use raid?

Also, do you know what the diff is between the ip35 and the ip35-e? Which one is better?

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: btcomm1

So the only diff between ICH9 and ICH9R is the ability to use raid?

that & the extra 2 SATA ports on ICH9R

Also, do you know what the diff is between the ip35 and the ip35-e? Which one is better?

ICH9R instead of ICH9
addition of firewire
different chipset cooling

Other than the feature set they are identical