In some months I will be getting a new PC.
I've read various forums and hardware review sites relatively intensively for some months now..
I will be getting the Q9450 and *hopefully* a 9800GT or so, though that one is questionable of course. So it's a waiting game for me now. Some overclocking or tweaking expectable, but nothing overkill.
A P35 based board seems to be the only realistic choise for a non-multi-GPU user. I'd like to have the ability to undervolt to some extent, so (as far as i know) that great abit board and that awesome MSI board are not ideal.
Copper heatpipe over northbridge is desired (quad core CPU overclocking) and 8-pin instead of 4-pin whatever-it-was-called-power-connector is desired (quad core OC + that "FUD" from that xbitlabs review). Mysterious motherboard "crazy cool" backplate is not ideal (anandtech reviewer fears it). Multi-GPU not needed. RAID not needed. Slightly-better-than-worst CPU power system thingy (phases and stuff) ideal.
First I thought that DS3P is the perfect choise for me. But various i-have-problems-with-gigabyte-board posts made me look for alternatives. So I noticed P5K-E (undervolt to 1.1v only though, but it's not a big problem).
Of course I could find i-have-problems-with-asus posts also, but most of those were something like "my onboard sound is broken" or "i had some problems with X but it works now" or "i cannot get RAID to work". I sensed that gigabyte help requests had more "fatal" problems (it went to eternal reboot, cannot change FSB easily, stopped working properly after X time). Perhaps the dual bios is not only a good thing, but also a potential problem maker? Perhaps people get problems if the reserve BIOS will not support CPU/is an older version/is plain broken? Or perhaps more people are getting the gigabyte boards than the asus ones (i'm not so sure about this..).
Well here are a couple of questions, though you don't have to answer them in your reply if you just want to comment my observations/thoughts.
1. IIRC ASUS X38 boards consume more power than for example gigabyte X38 boards.. is this true for the P35 boards too? (DS3P vs P5K-E)
1.1 Do these boards generally consume less power if I turn off various things in the BIOS like USB ports, onboard audio etc?
2. If I remember correctly, DS3P has "dual bios plus" while some lighter boards have just "dual bios". Anyone know if there is any difference between these marketing terms?
3. tRD/Performance Level options. Gigabyte boards have those 3 funny modes, and that's it (I think?). How does the P5K-E compare?
4. What is the deal with those 8-pin connectors that have a black plastic thing over half of the pins? They still work as 8-pin I assume?
4.1. Corsair PSUs have 1x 4-8pin *that kind of* connector. I assume it means that you can divide the 8pin into two 4pins? Will that work fine for these 8-pin-eating boards?
5. Is it easy to change the thermal paste between north bridge and NB-heatsink-heatpipe object?
6. Any other motherboards worth of checking? (maybe I'll have to check if DFI boards fit my criteria, though they are not so common.. so they may come with older BIOSes)
I'll probably go for Corsair RAM or something.. not all RAM seems to behave with these boards.
I've read various forums and hardware review sites relatively intensively for some months now..
I will be getting the Q9450 and *hopefully* a 9800GT or so, though that one is questionable of course. So it's a waiting game for me now. Some overclocking or tweaking expectable, but nothing overkill.
A P35 based board seems to be the only realistic choise for a non-multi-GPU user. I'd like to have the ability to undervolt to some extent, so (as far as i know) that great abit board and that awesome MSI board are not ideal.
Copper heatpipe over northbridge is desired (quad core CPU overclocking) and 8-pin instead of 4-pin whatever-it-was-called-power-connector is desired (quad core OC + that "FUD" from that xbitlabs review). Mysterious motherboard "crazy cool" backplate is not ideal (anandtech reviewer fears it). Multi-GPU not needed. RAID not needed. Slightly-better-than-worst CPU power system thingy (phases and stuff) ideal.
First I thought that DS3P is the perfect choise for me. But various i-have-problems-with-gigabyte-board posts made me look for alternatives. So I noticed P5K-E (undervolt to 1.1v only though, but it's not a big problem).
Of course I could find i-have-problems-with-asus posts also, but most of those were something like "my onboard sound is broken" or "i had some problems with X but it works now" or "i cannot get RAID to work". I sensed that gigabyte help requests had more "fatal" problems (it went to eternal reboot, cannot change FSB easily, stopped working properly after X time). Perhaps the dual bios is not only a good thing, but also a potential problem maker? Perhaps people get problems if the reserve BIOS will not support CPU/is an older version/is plain broken? Or perhaps more people are getting the gigabyte boards than the asus ones (i'm not so sure about this..).
Well here are a couple of questions, though you don't have to answer them in your reply if you just want to comment my observations/thoughts.
1. IIRC ASUS X38 boards consume more power than for example gigabyte X38 boards.. is this true for the P35 boards too? (DS3P vs P5K-E)
1.1 Do these boards generally consume less power if I turn off various things in the BIOS like USB ports, onboard audio etc?
2. If I remember correctly, DS3P has "dual bios plus" while some lighter boards have just "dual bios". Anyone know if there is any difference between these marketing terms?
3. tRD/Performance Level options. Gigabyte boards have those 3 funny modes, and that's it (I think?). How does the P5K-E compare?
4. What is the deal with those 8-pin connectors that have a black plastic thing over half of the pins? They still work as 8-pin I assume?
4.1. Corsair PSUs have 1x 4-8pin *that kind of* connector. I assume it means that you can divide the 8pin into two 4pins? Will that work fine for these 8-pin-eating boards?
5. Is it easy to change the thermal paste between north bridge and NB-heatsink-heatpipe object?
6. Any other motherboards worth of checking? (maybe I'll have to check if DFI boards fit my criteria, though they are not so common.. so they may come with older BIOSes)
I'll probably go for Corsair RAM or something.. not all RAM seems to behave with these boards.
The black cover is so you know what side to place the 4pin if your PSU does not support 8pin
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