DS3 Rev 1.3 vs AB9 QuadGT

[AMD NUBI]

I have decided on almost everything except MB.

I have narrowed it down to DS3 Rev 1.3 or AB9 QuadGT.

Stability and price is the most important factor for me in choosing the board. I only intend to OC as far as my stock vcore takes me even if it means just 300 X 8 (2.4Mhz) for my E6420. 680i was never in consideration as it's too expensive for me an I won't SLI. Only games I play is WOW and some strategy games that doesn't require high end VC. P35 is new and everything (future proof, OC well and expensive), but I didn't like the fact that it generates more heat and consumes more power than P965. I wnat my PC to be quite as possible (more heat = more cooling required). I want sonething that could run stable with all case fans running at 5V.
Lastly, I do not want ASUS. Please don't ask me why.
That's how I came down to DS3 Rev 1.3 or AB9 QuadGT. Which ever MB I choose I will get this for NB.




I have decided on following parts for my build. ***I have purchased ones in bold***

CPU -- E6420

MB -- I need your comments.

RAM -- Super Talent 2 X (2 X 1gb DDR2 667) total 4gb ram cost me only $113.72 w/ FS

VC -- BFG 7950GT 256MB I don't like ATI.

SC -- will use onboard sound

HD -- 2 X Samsung 500GB SATA

DVD-RW -- Samsung SATA DVD-RW

CASE -- Antec P180 I got it for $55.99 inc. tax after $50 MIR

PS -- Antec NeoHE 500W $44.79 inc. tax w/ FS after $40 MIR

CPU HSF -- Freezer 7 Pro I paid $22 w/ FS from eWiz.com

NB HSF -- Evercool 45mm X 45mm X 10mm VGA Cooler people are using it on DS3 w/ success. not sure it'll fit on AB9 QuadGT. Can some one confirm?

Case Fan -- Yate Loon 120mm

KB & Mouse -- I need wireless KB & Mouse with good battery life.

Monitor -- I might get 37" or 42" Westy 1080P




This is what I am looking for in MB.

*Price
*stability. stability, stability
*able to run trouble free with 4gb ram (4 X 1gb)
*able to run trouble free with sata DVD-RW
*did I mention price and stability

 

[DasFox]

With your requirements get the Gigabyte, the Abit is overkill for your needs, and you're just throwing away your money on it.

Don't get that RAM, cheap ram is going to make problems for you, get some Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, OZC, etc... NAME BRAND RAM!

Corsair Value Ram would be much better, and just as inexpensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

ALOHA

P.S. What made you chose the DS3 Rev 1.3, over the other 965 Gigabyte boards?

 

[AMD NUBI]

I already purchased the ram.

I have decided on following parts for my build. ***I have purchased ones in bold***

DesFox, How bad was your experience with this ram? What kind of troubles did you encounterd?

The reason I am considering AB9 QuadGT is that it's said to be rock stable with newest bios. On the other hand, with DS3 I am prepare to encounter and solve problems with help from owners of DS3. It's about $45 less than AB9 Quad GT at the moment.

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
I already purchased the ram.

I have decided on following parts for my build. ***I have purchased ones in bold***

DesFox, How bad was your experience with this ram? What kind of troubles did you encounterd?

The reason I considering AB9 QuadGT is that is is said to be rock stable with newest bios. On the other hand, with DS3 I am prepare to encounter and solve problems with help from owners for DS3. It's about $45 less than AB9 Quad GT at the moment.

Well why get some cheap no name ram when you can get Corsair for the same price.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: DasFox
With your requirements get the Gigabyte, the Abit is overkill for your needs, and you're just throwing away your money on it.

Don't get that RAM, cheap ram is going to make problems for you, get some Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, OZC, etc... NAME BRAND RAM!

Corsair Value Ram would be much better, and just as inexpensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

ALOHA

P.S. What made you chose the DS3 Rev 1.3, over the other 965 Gigabyte boards?

Building my machine I had problems with TWO kits of corsair ddr2-8500 i eventually just gave up and bought 2 4gb kits of patriot ddr2-800. I have Super-Talent in the PC I built my brother and it works fine and is quite good. Don't listen to this guy it should be fine =)

 

[AMD NUBI]

I only intend to OC as far as my stock vcore takes me even if it means just 300 X 8 (2.4Mhz) for my E6420.

As I said above, I don't think I'll even get to the this rams spec of 677. Not too worry about ram at this point.

Here is some success story with this ram if anyone cares at XS.

 

[AMD NUBI]

You're the man. bfdd

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: bfdd

Originally posted by: DasFox
With your requirements get the Gigabyte, the Abit is overkill for your needs, and you're just throwing away your money on it.

Don't get that RAM, cheap ram is going to make problems for you, get some Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, OZC, etc... NAME BRAND RAM!

Corsair Value Ram would be much better, and just as inexpensive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

ALOHA

P.S. What made you chose the DS3 Rev 1.3, over the other 965 Gigabyte boards?

Building my machine I had problems with TWO kits of corsair ddr2-8500 i eventually just gave up and bought 2 4gb kits of patriot ddr2-800. I have Super-Talent in the PC I built my brother and it works fine and is quite good. Don't listen to this guy it should be fine =)

Well gee, yes don't listen to me, just listen to the industry, yeah I know Corsair sucks, LOL.

Oh by the way bfdd you're talking about ddr2-8500, that's another ball of wax, and not to mention the FACT that with EVERY motherboard with RAM is a different story.

What you don't know about RAM & MOTHERBOARDS?

PLEASE don't come in here telling people not to listen to others, when your replies show no level of experience to what you are talking about. You based your experience on one level of ram to another, and on another motherboard, and you call this good advise?

PLEASE, this is nonsense, and it's also nonsense to say that Super Talent for the MONEY is as good as Corsair is, because it's not.

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
You're the man. bfdd

I apologize, for my comment about bfdd. His comment about his ram experience, has nothing to do with this ram, or motherboard, and to say that his Corsair had problems, and to base it on what I was sharing is just silly, and just goes to show the level of experience in this user.

You can't rate ram that way, and judge one version of ram against another, and on a different motherboard, that is totally foolish.

 

[AMD NUBI]

Can we get back to the MB?

I need your comments on wich MB and Why. Please!

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
Can we get back to the MB?

I need your comments on wich MB and Why. Please!

I didn't notice the rebates on the Abit, most I had seen were for $179ish in price, so since you mentioned price was a consideration I said go for Gigabyte, that's all, but the Abit is probably a better board for the money.

I've not used either board, but the reviews seem to lean towards the Abit...

 

[brencat]

If it were me, I'd take the Abit mobo. Terrific support community in the Abit forums -- cultish actually. And it's only $140 after MIR at the Egg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813127019

Also, if you can wait another 1 - 2 weeks, the Abit IP35 Pro will be coming out and it will price in the $175ish range - significantly less than the Asus P5K Deluxe @ $250. The P35 chipset will futureproof you for the penryn/wolfdale 45nm CPUs due out 4Q07/1Q08. P965 will not be able to run those.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Well I was an abit fanboy and would use nothing but until I bought my an8 fatal1ty and around the same time their best bios engineers jumped ship to dfi. Well needless to say their bios's since that time have been lacking in many ways although their boards continued to shine layout wise. When I made the jump to c2d I left them because there are many problems with their 775 mb's. Go to the abit forums and do a little reading. I'm a member over there as well so I see the posts. I'd suggest that you frequent the forums of any mb that you might consider to see what kinds of issues are there before you buy.

 

[Capt Caveman]

AB9 QuadGT or DFI 965-S or Asus P35K for your price range.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
When I made the jump to c2d I left them because there are many problems with their 775 mb's.

No more than any other - it's not as if the Asus', DFIs, Gigabytes, MSIs etc. are flawless.
Having had both a 965P-DS4 & a QuadGT the QuadGT is the better board but obviously it's more fully featured & hence more expensive than a DS3 - it's down to the op to decide whether those features are worh the extra for him.

 

[Kougar]

I own and use a Rev 1.0 965P-DS3 and love it. I've done 100% overclocks on my E6300 and reached 551FSB's with it both using minor voltages I consider safe for 24/7 use. With the F10 BIOS Micron D9 RAM issues are no longer a major problem. This board is fairly "thin" and not a full ATX size board.

I use a SATA DVD-RW drive on mine without any problems. While some users have reported to the contrary, I at least personally can count the number of times I needed to physically reset the CMOS on one hand, and I bought this board last August! It will auto-recover from anything except RAM timings that are to tight, it does not like super-tight RAM settings (Nor does it offer much in the way of RAM settings to begin with). The board is a little finicky with D9 based RAM but otherwise still works great and still auto-recovers fine.

I would strongly suggest skipping the Rev 1.3 and just buying the Rev 3.3 version here: http://www.clubit.com/product_...il.cfm?itemno=A4830994 for $116

Keep in mind the DS3 uses a 2x mulitplier as the lowest setting, therefore once you hit an FSB of 333 your RAM is going to quickly become your bottleneck. I never used 4 sticks of RAM in mine, but I suspect because of this you will not overclock very far beyond an FSB of 333 unless that is some exceptional RAM you have there.

 

[TSCrv]

well... the quad gt flys running 03 server (dont ask)

but as for the headaches with the immature shipping bios... well its a real turnoff... ive flashed it roughly 6 times, latest from their site works fine.

as for problems ive had, ive had some bluescreens, both were able to dump memory, so it wasnt too critical. (as a repair tech i normally see bluescreens with instant restarts, this memory dump is a new occurance to me) one was solved by completly removing uguru software.

raid firmware is nice, but not same version im used to on serverboards.

 

[DasFox]

Oh your assumptions about ALL P35 boards generating more heat and consuming more watts isn't 100% correct. Also the extra heat some will produce, and I STRESS the word some, isn't going to be that much that you need to worry about extra cooling.

One board in particular the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R seems to not produce a lot, and seems to run as good, and even lower watts then some 965 boards.

Honestly if you don't have a system built, and you're looking to build, a P35 is a smarter choice then a 965 right now. Also Intel is cutting prices in July, so buying a E6420 right now isn't a wise choice either.

ALOHA

 

[AMD NUBI]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

As far as P35 goes,

Pros -- Better OC than P965, future proof with DDR3 support etc... None of these applies to me as I won't OC much and once I built system it will be used for about 5years before I build another system. I absolutely never upgrade anything in between other than OS if needed. I just set it and forget it till it doesn't let me do what I need to do.

Cons -- Expensive, New isn't entirely good in MB as it usually takes couple months for BIOS to mature. What you see in reviews aren't 100% what you'll get in real life as far as stability goes. For me cons far out weight Pros.

My system usage is 50% web surfing and downloading, 40% MS Office for work and 10% WOW and other strategy games. NO video editing, No audio encoding or playing games like BF 2142. My current system is 5yr old P4 2.4Ghz B stepping w/ Ti4200. I absolutely have no problem using this system except playing WOW smoothly. I can play WOW on my wife's A64 3200+ w/ 6600GT or my Lenovo T7200 w/ Ati X1400, but I rather play it on my own system. Don't say upgrade VC as I don't upgrade!:Q I just build new one from ground up.

As for price cut, I want new system now, not in July.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll order rest of the parts tomorrow less MB, so keep the comments flow.

P.S. I am heavily tilted toward QuadGT at this point based on your comments and readings I have done in other forums. I don't need any added features in QuadGt over DS3, but stability is worth $46 more in price tag.

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
Thanks everyone for your comments.

As far as P35 goes,

Pros -- Better OC than P965, future proof with DDR3 support etc... None of these applies to me as I won't OC much and once I built system it will be used for about 5years before I build another system. I absolutely never upgrade anything in between other than OS if needed. I just set it and forget it till it doesn't let me do what I need to do.

Pros -- Sorry you're missing the REAL PRO here, faster CPUS for the next generation. 1333Mhz and 45nm. Also there are a lot of P35 that aren't DDR3 too.

Cons -- Expensive, New isn't entirely good in MB as it usually takes couple months for BIOS to mature. What you see in reviews aren't 100% what you'll get in real life as far as stability goes. For me cons far out weight Pros.

Cons -- Sorry there are inexpensive P35 boards coming out as cheap the 965 boards you are now looking at. Also there is stability in these boards to equal the quality of 965 boards.

My system usage is 50% web surfing and downloading, 40% MS Office for work and 10% WOW and other strategy games. NO video editing, No audio encoding or playing games like BF 2142. My current system is 5yr old P4 2.4Ghz B stepping w/ Ti4200. I absolutely have no problem using this system except playing WOW smoothly. I can play WOW on my wife's A64 3200+ w/ 6600GT or my Lenovo T7200 w/ Ati X1400, but I rather play it on my own system. Don't say upgrade VC as I don't upgrade!:Q I just build new one from ground up.

Whatever your system needs are the extra benefits of a newer board and CPU will not be a waste, ESPECIALLY when you can build a newer P35/C2D system as inexpensive as a 965.

As for price cut, I want new system now, not in July.

So stick with the CPU you want now, and later you can upgrade it if you want.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll order rest of the parts tomorrow less MB, so keep the comments flow.

P.S. I am heavily tilted toward QuadGT at this point based on your comments and readings I have done in other forums. I don't need any added features in QuadGt over DS3, but stability is worth $46 more in price tag.

P.S. In all honesty I'm not sure where you were fed the hype about P35 systems, and the newer Intel CPUs, that this was going to be a waste, or more expensive, but your information is not correct. You can build a P35 as cheap as the boards you mentioned, and worse case scenario possibly only $25-$50 more, plus these boards are just as stable.

 

[AMD NUBI]

DesFox

P.S. In all honesty I'm not sure where you were fed the hype about P35 systems, and the newer Intel CPUs, that this was going to be a waste, or more expensive, but your information is not correct. You can build a P35 as cheap as the boards you mentioned, and worse case scenario possibly only $25 more, plus these boards are just as stable.

From your own experience or based on readings which I probably have done. too.

 

[DasFox]

Oh for case fans, didn't know if you knew or not but Yate has a 70CFM at 33DB

This is a better fan, better cooling:

http://www.petrastechshop.com/12yalod1cafa1.html

P.S. Petra is out of stock so maybe you can contact them, and see when they'll be in, by the way I'm using one of these in my case, works nice.

 

[DasFox]

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
DesFox

P.S. In all honesty I'm not sure where you were fed the hype about P35 systems, and the newer Intel CPUs, that this was going to be a waste, or more expensive, but your information is not correct. You can build a P35 as cheap as the boards you mentioned, and worse case scenario possibly only $25 more, plus these boards are just as stable.

From your own experience or based on readings which I probably have done. too.

Not sure what you mean by, "my own experience", since I haven't shared any, other then telling you can get the same thing at about the same price with better performance, so simply put, why not...

Anyhow get what you want, 965 are nice, but a couple of years down the road, possibly the benefits of a more future proof system will help, at least your pocket book, since you'll probably upgrade in a few years anyways...

ALOHA

 

[JimiP]

Originally posted by: DasFox

Originally posted by: AMD NUBI
I already purchased the ram.

I have decided on following parts for my build. ***I have purchased ones in bold***

DesFox, How bad was your experience with this ram? What kind of troubles did you encounterd?

The reason I considering AB9 QuadGT is that is is said to be rock stable with newest bios. On the other hand, with DS3 I am prepare to encounter and solve problems with help from owners for DS3. It's about $45 less than AB9 Quad GT at the moment.

Well why get some cheap no name ram when you can get Corsair for the same price.

To be honest, Super Talent memory is actually pretty darn nice. I haven't had any issues at all with mine. DDR2-800.

Also, one of the marketers from your beloved Corsair went to Super Talent. Not that that really matters. lol

 

[trx]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Oh your assumptions about ALL P35 boards generating more heat and consuming more watts isn't 100% correct. Also the extra heat some will produce, and I STRESS the word some, isn't going to be that much that you need to worry about extra cooling.

One board in particular the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R seems to not produce a lot, and seems to run as good, and even lower watts then some 965 boards.

so, DS3R is not so hot although it doesn't have heat-pipe?