P35 or 680i if you can't afford two Video cards

[yodamon]

I've been searching all the Mobo reviews and I can't figure out which board to buy for my new build.
I want a gaming machine, but I don't plan to run SLI ($$). I plan to use an 8800GTS 640mb video card. I want a top board that I can OC fairly easily with a C2D E6850.

I was looking at the evga 680i boards and the P35 boards.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Greg

 

[chizow]

If you don't plan to SLI, I'd go for a P35 or even a 965/975 board. The 600-series boards aren't the easy OC that early reviews made them out to be and have myriad other problems. Intel boards OC as well or better and seem to be much more stable as well. I'm on my 2nd 650i board now (P6N SLI Platinum), and although its definitely better than the P5N-E, it still has its fair share of problems.

 

[BoboKatt]

The only reason many jumped on the whole 680i SLI boards was specifically for SLI and also T1 settings on RAM and further... to be able to run your RAM at whatever speeds you wanted independently from your CPU. However SLI at 2x16 was the major point. If you don't ever plan on going SLI then there would be little reason to get a 680i mobo.

However 680i SLI boards are great IMHO but... you just have to get lucky which might be a consideration to grab another chipset which might be consistently more stable or easier to OC.

My original 680i SLI AR is a gem of a board (knock on wood) and has worked flawlessly for me. Its OC ability now with my new e6850 is amazing. However I know of a few folks personally that have had many issues with this same board and have had to RMA, tweak, fix, apply paste, swap out cards etc etc to get them to perform well.

I have no experience with the P35 or the 965/975 and I can assure you if you look deep enough you will find issue with them all -- which is perfectly normal.

I also found that once I got used to my bios, and learned much of what it can do using various settings, it really works for me. That took time... however there are good walk troughs out there on this. My 939 DFI board was also great but hell that took time to figure out. Hence there is a learning curve will all boards...

Anyhow long story short seems everything is hinting at the new p35. If I had to get a whole new system today I would get a P35 board...

 

[SerpentRoyal]

No RAID and SLI? Best deal is the Abit IP35-E. The board will double post during cold start (start-stop-start). This will add about 14 seconds to the boot time. No problem overclocking C2D up to 488MHz FSB. Runs cool and quiet. Fan speed control works with 2-pin, 3-pin, and 4-pin fans. Cost is around $110.