Best bang for the buck 775 mobo?

[SmCaudata]

I have a 775 system that can still play games quite well. I'm planning on upgrading my GPU this holiday season. I figure my q9550 can last me a good while longer.

I currently have an Asus p5k Pro that is majorly buggy. It cannot restart, only shutdown (freezes with restart.) On top of that, it can't overclock for crap because it seems to have issues with the power on process and fails half the time, thus reverting to previous settings and presenting the inability to restart problem.

I'm thinking I want to upgrade my motherboard. I have 4x1Gb 800MHz DDR CAS-4 sticks so DDR3 motherboards are not good.

Anyone have any recs on an overclockable motherboard? EVGA is selling the 750i SLI boards for $49 and $60 for the FTW version from their B-stock line. Alternatively I do have a local Microcenter or NewEgg.

Advice is appreciated.

Edit: Do the B-stock parts come with an I/O shield? They say no accessories, but I would hope they mean except this.

 

[I4AT]

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P and I like it a lot. It was one of the best value 775 boards when it came out, but they don't make them anymore. It's been replaced by the EP45T-USB3P, which uses DDR3 and has USB 3.0 support.

If you don't need any of the extra fluff like mosfet cooling, dual gigabit LAN, RAID, and xfire support the GA-EP43-UD3L might be a good alternative, and Newegg still carries it.

 

[SmCaudata]

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P and I like it a lot. It was one of the best value 775 boards when it came out, but they don't make them anymore. It's been replaced by the EP45T-USB3P, which uses DDR3 and has USB 3.0 support.

If you don't need any of the extra fluff like mosfet cooling, dual gigabit LAN, RAID, and xfire support the GA-EP43-UD3L might be a good alternative, and Newegg still carries it.

Do the P43 chips overclock well? My P35 isn't so stellar. I feel like my CPU has a lot of room to push.

 

[I4AT]

It's more the board's components than the chipset. I believe the EP45-UD3 series of Gigabyte boards have six phase power regulators while the EP43-UD3 is a four phase design (but each phase can deliver a different number of amps, so total amps is more important than the number of phases). The P45 board will be more stable at very high clocks, but that doesn't necessarily mean the P43 board won't be enough for you. You'll need to be able to reach high FSB speeds since you have a 1333mhz chip. I've seen some Newegg reviewers say they got to 450mhz FSB on the EP43-UD3L, and others say they topped out at around 420mhz, but a lot of factors come into play so YMMV.

I wouldn't recommend the vanilla Evga 750i SLI, you can tell by the fact that it has liquid caps that it isn't comparable in quality to similar boards, and the chipsets have tiny heatsinks with noisy fans. When a manufacturer uses all solid caps and larger heatsinks it means they spent a little more money to make a better product. The FTW version looks like a better board, but I'm a little biased against Nvidia's chipsets because they're 90nm while the Intel 40 series is 65nm, I'm a sucker for cool and quiet.

 

[jimofnyc]

You could always go with an ASUS P5Q variant. They're P45 chipset boards. I have two of them, a P5Q and a P5Q Pro from NewEgg. Both are lumbering along OK. One has a Q9450 and the other has a Q9650. Both are running with 8gb of DDR2 ram and Win7 x64 Pro. No problems...yet.

 

[artvscommerce]

I definitely recommend buying one of the boards from the EVGA B stock store. I recently purchased one and it is working perfectly. It did include the I/O shield. I heard of a few cases where people did not receive the I/O shield but when they contacted EVGA, EVGA gladly shipped them the I/O shield for free. Also, if you have the ability to participate in Folding @home, and you fold under Team EVGA, you will get a 10% off coupon code and up to $10 a month store credit.

 

[SmCaudata]

I definitely recommend buying one of the boards from the EVGA B stock store. I recently purchased one and it is working perfectly. It did include the I/O shield. I heard of a few cases where people did not receive the I/O shield but when they contacted EVGA, EVGA gladly shipped them the I/O shield for free. Also, if you have the ability to participate in Folding @home, and you fold under Team EVGA, you will get a 10% off coupon code and up to $10 a month store credit.

Thanks for the folding tip. I have an EVGA 9800 Gx2 right now so I'll get that going.

As to the ASUS boards. I know most people have had really good luck but I've had one randomly fail and my current one is really buggy. Other than an old AMD processor that had the ceramic crack, they are the only two hardware failures I've ever had. I'm probably gonna stick with another vendor for now.

The front-side bus was what I was concerned with with the P43. My p35 seems to hit a wall and I don't have thermal issues with my chip.

Thanks for the tips everyone.

 

[justinm]

I have a Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P and I like it a lot. It was one of the best value 775 boards when it came out, but they don't make them anymore. It's been replaced by the EP45T-USB3P, which uses DDR3 and has USB 3.0 support.

If you don't need any of the extra fluff like mosfet cooling, dual gigabit LAN, RAID, and xfire support the GA-EP43-UD3L might be a good alternative, and Newegg still carries it.

I had two EP45-UD3P mobos that rocked. I had my old Q9550 up to 3.8 in no time. I also had my old E8400 up to 3.8 as well on the other UD3P. I currently have an EP45T-USB3P that has worked flawlessly to that has an E8400 on it. Not overclocked so far since it is a secondary system. If you do not need X-fire and dual LAN, the UD3R is a good choice since it still uses DDR2.

 

[SmCaudata]

I had two EP45-UD3P mobos that rocked. I had my old Q9550 up to 3.8 in no time. I also had my old E8400 up to 3.8 as well on the other UD3P. I currently have an EP45T-USB3P that has worked flawlessly to that has an E8400 on it. Not overclocked so far since it is a secondary system. If you do not need X-fire and dual LAN, the UD3R is a good choice since it still uses DDR2.

Thanks for the info. It looks like Newegg only has the UDP3L boards. Two different verions the EP43 and EP43T. Not sure what the difference other than style/color. Edit: looks like the T version has DDR3 memory.

Provantage has the EP45-UD3L. I'll keep that one in mind as well.

Being that the B-stock board will likely not come with the fan for the northbridge heatsink... is the larger process going to make a difference in overclocking that board? Obviously every board is going to have a different performance, but just looking to set myself up well to start off with.

 

[Face2Face]

Look on craigslist for a used one. I should hold you over for awhile.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Thanks for the info. It looks like Newegg only has the UDP3L boards. Two different verions the EP43 and EP43T. Not sure what the difference other than style/color. Edit: looks like the T version has DDR3 memory.

Provantage has the EP45-UD3L. I'll keep that one in mind as well.

Being that the B-stock board will likely not come with the fan for the northbridge heatsink... is the larger process going to make a difference in overclocking that board? Obviously every board is going to have a different performance, but just looking to set myself up well to start off with.

L is lite. no RAID, no dual graphics (x8/x8 IIRC).

 

[TungFree]

So can anyone tell me if I were to use the CPU duo 8500-e chip or I have also a duo quad Q6600 I usd both in Abit p35-e board I think it is socket 775 correct me if it is not THAT socket.

Abit board has eaten 2 hard drives a set of ram and has done nothing but crash freeze and refuse to boot unless I take the battery out and dance with it. then it runs for a week or less and I need the battery out again. Computer also also has a speeding fan and will not start unless I turn it off and restart over and over till it starts with a slow fan sound then it will beep and start. that is true with XP and true with win 7 both.

If I were to get 2 boards one for the quad Q6600 2.4 speed and the other for the duo 8500-E (3.15 speed)

what would you recommend? And is this a 775 board which will match my 2 CPUs?

My system below needs editing now, I use the 8500-E now and a 40 gig Sata drive, and 8 gigs of Kingston Ram.

 

[TungFree]

You could always go with an ASUS P5Q variant. They're P45 chipset boards. I have two of them, a P5Q and a P5Q Pro from NewEgg. Both are lumbering along OK. One has a Q9450 and the other has a Q9650. Both are running with 8gb of DDR2 ram and Win7 x64 Pro. No problems...yet.

Does this board have a 775 socket? I want to replace my abit 35P-e with the best option I have used Asus Never use Ga MOBO only have their Tower. if I got the GA for one CPU and the Asus for the other which CPU for which board of Q6600 Quad duo or the 8500-e duo?

 

[TBSN]

I have a Asus P5K Deluxe and it's been rock solid. I'm not sure how that differs from the one you have. I overclocked it a little bit and it did pretty well, but I put it back to the stock speed so I can't comment on that very much. I got it a few years ago, perhaps there are newer boards out now with more bells and whistles like DDR3 and USB3, etc.

 

[john3850]

I wouldn't recommend the vanilla Evga 750i SLI I second that.
On my old 680i on a 8400-C0 does 3900 stable while the newer 8400-E0
is hardly useable above 3600.
Put that 8400-E0 in asus p5e and it runs 4300mhz.
Evga 680i may have set the most socket 775 3dmard records due to sli.
All Evga 775 mb are useless with quads.

 

[TungFree]

I wouldn't recommend the vanilla Evga 750i SLI I second that.
On my old 680i on a 8400-C0 does 3900 stable while the newer 8400-E0
is hardly useable above 3600.
Put that 8400-E0 in asus p5e and it runs 4300mhz.
Evga 680i may have set the most socket 775 3dmard records due to sli.
All Evga 775 mb are useless with quads.

Mine is an 8500-E
No one recommend what board is best with which of the 2 CPU's

 

[allae]

It's more the board's components than the chipset. I believe the EP45-UD3 series of Gigabyte boards have six phase power regulators while the EP43-UD3 is a four phase design (but each phase can deliver a different number of amps, so total amps is more important than the number of phases). The P45 board will be more stable at very high clocks, but that doesn't necessarily mean the P43 board won't be enough for you. You'll need to be able to reach high FSB speeds since you have a 1333mhz chip. I've seen some Newegg reviewers say they got to 450mhz FSB on the EP43-UD3L, and others say they topped out at around 420mhz, but a lot of factors come into play so YMMV.

I wouldn't recommend the vanilla Evga 750i SLI, you can tell by the fact that it has liquid caps that it isn't comparable in quality to similar boards, and the chipsets have tiny heatsinks with noisy fans. When a manufacturer uses all solid caps and larger heatsinks it means they spent a little more money to make a better product. The FTW version looks like a better board, but I'm a little biased against Nvidia's chipsets because they're 90nm while the Intel 40 series is 65nm, I'm a sucker for cool and quiet.

:thumbsup: i agree with u .

 

[Vette73]

I can;t stand Asus either.

But have you tried to check all the smaller things on your board? i.e. update bios, check heatsinks, etc...

But if you need a new board check out some from Asrock (good boards and cheap) or gigabyte (best maker right now IMO). Those are the 2 I usually check out first when building.

 

[TungFree]

Put that 8400-E0 in asus p5e and it runs 4300mhz.

All Evga 775 mb are useless with quads.[/QUOTE]

Here you recommend not to use any Evga 775 for the quad, but do not recommend which boards to use with the Q6600.

You say nice things about 8400-E0 with the Asus p5e that it overclocks to 4300mhz, but nothing for the Q6600, I stopped overclocking with the Q6600 and still it gave me freezing and crashes so I bought the 8500-E and run it at 3.15 without overclocking on the abit 35p-E board. What I want is just no freezes crashes or reboots needed, by such things as shutting off the computer. Right now I was told to check the heat sinks, what do I check for on a heat sink? I was told to cjeck Asrock's or Gigabyt's boards well everytime I checked for Gigabyt's boards they are unavailable at NewEgg or Amezon one was selling a board on Anandtech but he is not replying to my PM either because he stopped reading his thread or he does not like my offer. which Asrock should I consider which ones have the 775 sockets?
Which Gigabits boards that are available are the best ones to choose from?

So I need more speciffic suggestions of what boards to look for just to do stable services without overclocking even. The abit P35-E was a nightmare to over clock. I had bought all new parts even a new case spent lots of money and got several parts dead on arrival and for several months had problems with unstable running. Now I want 2 systems, one with the Q6600 the other with the the 8500-E that will run reliably and not freeze or crash. Or at the least one motherboard to run with the 8500-E at 3.15mhz without crashes and freezes or overcklocks.

Can a power supply make the fans run extra fast and prevent the beep and so freeze and not boot up? So then I keep shutting it off until I can restart it with the slower fan mode and I hear the beep and it boots up, but now and then when leaving the computer on for several days, it gets no screen when I turn on the monitor in the morning, and on reboot I have to pull out the battery before it is willing to boot up at all without telling me my CPU has a problem and work just fine as if nothing was wrong for about a week and then notifies me I need to boot from CD, where I take out the battery again and it works fine after that. I have been hearing double peep instead of a single short beep which I have not heard in near a year, with neither the Q6600 nor with the 8500-E

That is why I seek a new board. I tried taking out one stick of ram, to see if the memory stick remaining stops the double beep and do a single beep or stops the fast fan speed which is preventing a boot up until I can restart it at the slower fan speed and do hear at least the double beep and it starts fine. but there is no change with either of the 2 gig sticks Kingston memory sticks alone.

I checked in the Bios and nothing offers me to tweak the power on the fan. I always go to optimum default mode and the fast fan speed that prevents the boot up cannot be changed.

That is why I am here. To be rid of the fast fan speed that is telling me It will not reboot. I need to shut it off and hope the next one or the one after it or one after that will start with the slower fan and boot up properly. I have no idea what to check or what to replace to make this present motherboard work right and not make me spend hours to get it to work right every few days. Every hard drive I start with a fresh install within a month is back to crashing, but the double beep does not stop even with a fresh install. I never ever heard a double beep at start on any other motherboard. Never. it has a sound like 'Taaaa Ram' as it boots up, not a short single 'Beep'