Motherboard Help

[GZFant]

I will put it simply.

I have been running an ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe since 2006 flawlessly. I had to RMA the board once due to heating issues and I received a new one within 10 business days no hassle.

Recently I saw the deal for the Gigabyte board and have seen all the awards (Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P). Upon further inspection I find that those boards are not perfect and the imperfections lead to RMA nightmares. Gigabyte is not known for its customer service AFAIK and would rather not deal with them.

There are great options from ASUS in that price range and I don't mind throwing down an extra $20-$40 for better customer service.

Can anyone persuade me into the Gigabyte or will the ASUS work just as well. On top of that I will be upgrading with the Microcenter deal on the $99 Q9300, not that that has anything to do with this =D

Thanks again everyone!

 

[chizow]

Asus P5Q-E

Great board, I just sold mine but it ran flawlessly for the last 10 months or so with a heavy Q6600 OC. Extremely high build quality, its essentially the same board from what I could tell based on reviews/tech specs as the much more expensive P5Q Deluxe. The only major differences I recall were 6 vs. 12 phase power and a heatpipe and beefier SB cooler. Otherwise board and BIOS layout were identical. Reduced power phases didn't hurt stability or voltages either, as I only had ~.02V Vdroop when idle with LLC enabled that would hit BIOS settings under load.

 

[GZFant]

haha Chizow awesome! Thank you! Honestly I have never OC'd a day in my life so this may be the first try. I do build my own but do not delve any further.. Maybe I can ask my Computer Science friend..

Anyhoo, thank you again! I will report back with my experiences!

Good day to you =)

 

[chizow]

Yep np, its a great board so it should serve you well. One thing I picked up though in your OP, that Q9300 looks to be EOL and OOS at MicroCenter, so you may want to secure the CPU before ordering all the parts. As for OC'ing, the P45 has a good bit of headroom on the FSB, should be able to go to 450MHz or so without too much problem. I personally never went above 400MHz with my Q6600's 9x multi for a nice even 9x400 = 3.6GHz OC.

For some good overclocking tips you should check out the CPU section and some of the stickies. Direct input from knowledgeable friends also helps a great deal. I'd say the most important thing is preparation and knowledge, and just make sure everything works as expected before worrying about OC'ing.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

fwiw, i'm using the p5n-d with a q9300. i picked this board based on my positive experience with the a8n32-sli, and my desire to use 2 9600gt's. if i were using a single video card, i would pick a board based on an intel chipset instead. it seems sli is the only thing the 750i does well. thankfully, i haven't had to deal with asus support, which i've heard is terrible.

gzfant,i was considering some of those groovy gigabyte boards, especially the ep45-ud3r and ex58-ud3r. could you go into some detail on the problems you mention?