All I want is a stable Motherboard

[Cykoth]

Hello,

I could use some knowledge. I had the hopes of building the latest and greatest with a QX9650 and SLI GTS-8800-512's. My thought was to get the new 780i chipset from Nvidia, and the best board at the time seemed to be the Asus Striker II Formula. It's just not working out. Heat issues, compatability issues with the CPU, and now new issues with Vista and network connectivity lead me to think this board is horribly designed and may never work properly. I am desparate. I don't even have to have SLI, I'm thinking an Intel chipset board might be better? I just want a stable system.

Any thoughts?

Cyko

 

[Doclife]

Intel P35 chipsets are light years ahead of the Nvidia chipset in terms of stability. Nvidia is a relatively new player in town in the chipset arena with a new and unproven product. I wouldn't buy a Nvidia based motherboard only to become a beta tester. I suggest that you return your Asus Striker II motherboard to the retailer and request to exchange for a P35 based motherboard, if possible. I suggest that you get the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard. It is stable, highly overclockable, quality built, superb onboard sound, plenty of USB ports (8). The only thing it does not have is Firewire 1394 and SLI (can't get SLI with P35 chipset).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128086

 

[lopri]

If you can return the Stryker, return it. And get an Intel chipset board as Doclife says. If SLI is one of the priorities, get an EVGA branded 780i SLI board.

 

[phexac]

ASUS has been pretty terrible with compatibility recently. Look at some other manufacturers such as Gigabyte.

 

[Cykoth]

Much Thanks All.

My thought was an Intel chipset as well. I've always used Intel based motherboards in the past to greater success. I just wanted to build an SLI rig to take advantage of the benefits. The only thing that gives me pause, is now Nvidia is talking about using the second GPU as a physics accelerator, now that they've acquired Ageia. Ah well, maybe by that time a GOOD Nvidia based board will have come about.

So, is the consensus to get a P35 based board? Or an X38? I do have a Penryn QX9650 CPU.....and a 2nd Video card I need to do something with.....

Thanks Again!

Cyko

 

[Mondoman]

SLI is rarely worthwhile, as typically within a few months a newer round of cards comes out which provides more graphics performance in just a single card.
Go with the P35-based board, as X38 doesn't have much (if any) performance benefit with DDR2, and DDR3 isn't yet really mainstream.
Check out the GA-EP35-DS3P board if you want IEEE1394.

 

[yzedsled]

My Maximus Formula has been pretty good, very stable, easy to OC and about the same price as the StrikerII. I'm with the OP, stay with Intel.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I miss my Supermicro X5DAE. Supermicro with a Intel chipset is wonderful.

 

[braddy752]

780i chipset were said to have pretty lots of unstable issues.. especially for 45nm processors. In addition, for me as a normal usage user I don't see there's any need for SLI.

 

[lopri]

780i is really nothing more than a revised 680i, in preparation for 45nm CPUs and PCIe 2.0 - many issues plagued 680i have been fixed. Granted there is no compelling reason to choose 780i over Intel chipsets unless SLI is a priority, but other non-SLI related issues are not too prominent any more, at least for me. (And I went through 3 RMA's with 680i so I'm very well aware of early issues that ruined 680i's reputation) 780i should be considered a 'matured' 680i. It will never win against Intel chipsets in CPU-Memory throughput or max FSB overclocking, but its 3D performance is excellent. Even an AMD card runs faster on NV chipset than on Intel chipset, albeit very slightly.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I have an asus striker 2 formula which came with the 0902 bios. Updated today to 1001 however it's been rock solid since day one. I also have an evga 780i sli a1 and it's also rock solid with an e6550. It's being fed by an ocz gamexstream 700w ps and I've had no issues with it at all. Vista ultimate 64 even installed all the drivers for it during the initial install so it was completely functional on the first boot however I did install the latest nvidia drivers for it. My pc's are in good cases with strong ps's and lots of air flow and populated by quality components. All are attached to apc battery backups with avr.

 

[mhouck]

790i Fox
790i Asus

If you want to sli still, these look neat.

 

[nerp]

The Nforce4 chipset was a fantastic one and quite compelling for quite some time. It seems the more recent nvidia chipsets are nowhere near that.

 

[Modelworks]

Another vote for the P35 based boards.
I have used them in workstations for quite a bit now and they are crunching numbers non-stop without a single problem.

 

[evident]

me and you both bro, i have an ep35-ds3r and it does everything EXCEPT standby S3 correctly... talk about a bummer im still up in the air whether i am going to RMA it or not

 

[deceptic]

hey guys, I just got the QX9650 and I wondering if you still recomend the Gigabyte mobo in the second post? I like it but I was wondering if I should get one of the newer motherboards with a newer chipset. I'd like to get a Gigabyte board I'm just not sure which one to get.

thanks,
dec