Nvidia or Intel?

[Fallengod]

Im having issues on deciding which mobo to get. First I was gonna go with the Gigabyte DS3, but ive somewhat ruled that out from all the problems ive been reading.


Anyways, Im considering one of these two. The Asus P5N-E SLI or P5B-E. One is nvidia and other is intel based. Does anyone have any info on which is "better?" Is either more stable or overclock easier than the other. Which is more popular? Thanks.

 

[Vette73]

I have a Gigabyte S3. What problems are you talking about?

I like ninida but am waiting to see what Ati comes out with.

 

[PCTC2]

The P5N has a nVIDIA 680i SLI chipset. Unless you want to run SLI, the P5B should be fine. The 680i chipset is a monster for overclocking RAM and has many fine tuning options. It is also quite apt at overclocking the CPU. Unless you know exactly what voltages, timings, and ratios (FSB and memory are set independently in EXPERT OC mode), get an Intel-Based chipset for more straight forward OCing.

 

[NXIL]

Here are the two compared at Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productco...5&PropertyCodeValue=705%3a9908&bop=And

Both reviewed by about 200+ people.

P5NeSLI P5B-E
5 stars 52 % 55 %
4 stars 28 % 32 %

Hmm, those are not such great scores....

The Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3: same lackluster reviews....

MSI P6 looks good....

Of course the Intel BOXD975XBX2KR is good, but it is pretty expensive; it had some BIOS issues at first that now seem solved--if price is not a factor (?!?) I would go for this Intel board.....

With price a factor: one of the MSI P6s....

Three best scorers compared:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productco...8%2c706%3a22731%2c1256%3a27400&bop=And

Here are reviews of the P6SLI:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/03/28/MSI_P6N_SLI_Platinum/1.html

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2099

Solid capacitors...that is good....

And, of course:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2946

"We believe that the MSI P6N SLI Platinum lives up to and at times exceeds our expectations of an Intel based motherboard in this price category. We also think this motherboard restores faith in the MSI Platinum brand name that seeks to offer the best balance of price and performance for the user. MSI still has some balancing to do with this board and if they do it right, then it will deserve a lot more than just our recommendation. For anyone short of the extreme overclockers and tweakers, the board already offers everything you could want."

Charts in the article compare it directly to the Intel 975BX2....

HTH

NXIL





The ECS board looks like it just came on the market....

 

[imported_Husky55]

Originally posted by: Fallengod
Im having issues on deciding which mobo to get. First I was gonna go with the Gigabyte DS3, but ive somewhat ruled that out from all the problems ive been reading.


Anyways, Im considering one of these two. The Asus P5N-E SLI or P5B-E. One is nvidia and other is intel based. Does anyone have any info on which is "better?" Is either more stable or overclock easier than the other. Which is more popular? Thanks.

I have a couple of P5B-E mbs. The second one ordered from the egg shipped from NJ , a couple weeks ago is still the old version 1.01 G. Both of the mbs only allow VDimm of 2.1V max so if you are into OC like I am RAM selection becomes an issue.

I tried to RMA but the egg has a 15% restocking fee.

The P5B-E also have a very wierd on board audio chipset which does not support 5.1 audio but it claims to support 7.1, but the center channel does not work on both mbs.

Hope this helps.

 

[Fallengod]

Thanks for the info. Well thats great.....*sigh*. It seems like all these C2D mobos have some types of issues.

Yeah I was pretty much narrowing it down to the P5B-E. Im not sure on memory yet, I am only looking to get around 3.2ghz so....

So far for the most part people on 2 different forums have said to stick with intel based chipset. Thats what I will most likely do.

What makes it hard is, the nvidia P5N-SLI I believe it is, has a few more features and such than the Intel P5B-E, and is also $20 cheaper.

It seems like all the really good C2D boards cost like over $200, which is absurd to me. I just want a good stable ocing board for around $100 or so. That would be great.