Abit/Asus Midrange Opinion

[dowhopdedodo]

Long story short, RMAing my new P35-DS3R Gigabyte after reading too many reports of similar issues with this board not posting (perpetual reboots, etc) recently.

I read the reviews here and try to inform myself, but I'm no expert. I'm just looking for a stable system at a reasonable price with hope that I won't have to disassemble and rebuild it again following hours of troubleshooting. I'm not planning any OCing, at least until I see the system run stable for some time.

The boards I'm looking at now are:

abit IP35 Pro Rev. 1.1 LGA 775
ASUS P5K-E LGA 775
OPEN BOX
Open Box: ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775
Open Box: ASUS P5K3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775

What I had:

Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 PModel BX80562Q6600 SLACR
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit (5)
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Rev 2
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
SAMSUNG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black PATA Model SH-S202G - OEM
EVGA 256-P2-N615-TX GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W Active Power Supply
COOLER MASTER RC-534-KKN2-GP Centurion 534

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I would not buy an open box item (MB). IP35-E ($71 AR) is almost identical to IP35 Pro...minus alot of bells and whistles. If you need RAID, then go with IP35. My only concern is the RAMs. It's best to stick with quality JEDEC standard 1.8V DDR2 800. 2.0-2.2Vdimm may be difficult to POST. You may need 1.8Vdimm to go into BIOS to change Vdimm to 2.1.

You'll need good air flow at the PWM area if you intend to overclock a quad. The chip will draw a lot of current from the output devices, which may result in +80C PWM temp.