ASUS P5B Deluxe or GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3

[Dashel]

These are the two I've come down to. Maybe there is another obvious board I'm missing though. I'm mainly going by Anandtechs reviews.

Things I dont care about: SLI or Crossfire. RAID. Extreme overclocking.

Things I do care about: Stock performance. Stability. Gaming performance. Ease of use. Ability to mildly OC.

So I am not setting this rig up for RAID, and doubt I'd ever do it down the line. Would never do SLI/Crossfire unless it somehow became a cheaper more efficient option, which I doubt. As for the WiFi-AP option on the P5B, when would I ever use that? That one confuses me. Anyway...

Newegg has the P5B Deluxe (non WiFi) for 179.99. The Giga is 139.99. I have no problem at all paying an extra 40 bucks for the ASUS as long as I'll get something for it. Seems like the ASUS has IEEE which the Giga does not. Other than that though does anyone have any experience to say the ASUS or Giga is more or less stable, easy or difficult to use in terms of BIOS, overclocking, building etc?

If it matters, this will be the basis for a C2D E6600, CORSAIR XMS2 2GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400), EVGA 8800GTX. Will be used for gaming, light video editing, watching DVDs etc.

 

[yuppiejr]

I'd say save the $40 if you don't need RAID, the Wi-Fi AP option or firewire 400 and go with the Gigabyte - solid board at a great price.

You could also go with the DFI Infinity P965-S board for $150 shipped (in stock now) at eWiz.com (http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-I-P965S) - gets you the RAID/firewire features. For video editing you might find having RAID and access to a firewire port could be handy.

 

[adnoto]

I know it doesn't answer your question but what about this Asus P5B-Plus? I am looking at the DS3 also but ran across this P5B-Plus yesterday and it looks interesting. It has a few more features than the DS3 like for instance an eSATA port. There isn't much info on it - that I could find anyway. My biggest question is will it handle the 1333 FSB PSU's like the DS3 is supposed to. Anyone know anything about the P5B-Plus and how it might compare to the DS3?

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