p35 or x38

[polarbear6]

hey guys i have a wolfdale chip e8400 and i was looking to buy a new board
actually i wanna buy a p35 based board but i can stretch my budget a little(maybe a 30$) to go for a x38 if its worth it

iam basically looking for some nice oc board

it should have atleast 1066 ddr2 capability i might even settle down for 800 ddr2

another pcie slot is my top preference
as i have plans to buy two ati hd4850 cards and i even have plans to take over the world

prefarable below 100$ but i can go loose on the pocket

thnx in advance man

anything but gigabyte plz i dont like anything abt it it might not sound practical but iam biased
plz dont ask me why and dont go on giving me reasons why i shld consider gigabyte

evn if it is the world no.1 board at world's cheapest rate iam not taking it

 

[sgrinavi]

If you want to run those 4850's at full band width you will need the x38 option.

I picked up a recertified ABIT IX38 Quad GT for $137 plus shipping.

I had a small issue with my LAN drivers as I did not re install my OS, but once I got that worked out it has been great. Easy to OC, went to 4.05 ghz in the first try by just adding voltage and loosening up the RAM.

 

[Team42]

lol. I've got a Gigabyte P35 board and, despite the fact that it works, the BIOS revisions were rubbish (one wouldn't work properly), and I wouldn't consider buying another unless someone was able to demonstrate that it was far superior (or a damn sight cheaper) than anything else. That said, I've an old ASUS board for AM2 and I thought ASUS was fine until I started hearing a lot of talk about how poor ASUS could be. And some people swear by ASUS. However, I'm still thinking of upgrading to ASUS.

For less than $100, you're probably looking at an ASUS P5K or an Abit mobo (P35 chipset). I doubt you'll get an X38 mobo within budget (you certainly won't if you live in the UK!)

E8400 with PC2-6400 on P35 should give you 3.6GHz (@400 FSB with memory running synchronously) easily. And a Gigabyte mobo should even allow you that! But if you don't want Gigabyte, go with ASUS for reliability.

As for your plans to take over the world... Please form an orderly queue. I'm about 357,296th in line at the minute...

 

[polarbear6]

hhaaa thnx man for the quick replies
but hey i just found out that a p45 based board is usual around 120$ to 150$ so its hardly 50 $ so i decided to go wid it between x38 and p45 which would be better and what does this x mean any way !!
like in g33 g means graphics and blah blah
and another thing what does p in p35 mean

 

[Sylvanas]

I'd recommend the MSI P45 Neo2 FR or Biostar TForce TP45HP

but hey i just found out that a p45 based board is usual around 120$ to 150$ so its hardly 50 $ so i decided to go wid it between x38 and p45 which would be better and what does this x mean any way !!

The are some minor differences between the two, most notably the X38 runs both PCI-E 16x 2.0 slots at 16x16 when you have two cards in Crossfire, the P45 runs them at 8x8 2.0 Crossfire. Ideally you would want 16x16 slots but due to recent results it appears that there is little difference between the two, we are talking 2fps. The P45 also runs cooler and is obviously cheaper so it is definitely a good buy.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: ganesh1
this x mean any way !!
like in g33 g means graphics and blah blah
and another thing what does p in p35 mean

Desktop Chipsets

The P are mainstream boards, the X are Performance boards. in my experience they are easier to OC, run a little cooler and, in this case, have a good deal more bandwidth.

 

[DSF]

If you plan to keep the motherboard for at least one graphics card upgrade, I'd probably go with X38. As Sylvanas said, the performance loss in Crossfire isn't substantial now, but I imagine it will be within two years.