P35c-DS3R and P35-DS3R

[Oblivion121]

Im abotu to purchase my new motherboard for my q6600 overclocking setup, and i noticed that these two boards are almost exactly the same except the "C" model has ddr3 in it, is that the only difference between the two or is there more? and Also If anyone has any recommendations on a motherboard to overclock the q6600 let me know, i read quite a few reviews saying these two were pretty good boards but i didnt know which one to choose. Any help would be greatly apprectiated

Q6600 (dont know if B3 or G0 yet)
MSI Geforce 8800gtx
Mobo: ???
Ram: 2g (2x1G wintec ampx ddr2 800)
Tuniq tower or the Zalman CNPS 9500 (thoughts on these would help as well please?)


I hope to just get about 3 ghz out of this and leave it at that. I was gonna set the fsb to 400 and run it at x8 multiplier or at 9x333. Whichever would be better will help.

Let me know ASAP fellas.

 

[5t3v0]

What's the price difference?

I presume you've been following the various forums on these boards? e.g. The Unofficial Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R P35 Board Thread?

Question you need to ask is whether you will really use the DDR3 slots on this board & whether it justifies the extra $, if there is any. Chances are that when DDR3 is mainstream, there'll be much better chipsets supporting 45nm cpus with DDR3 & you'll be onto that.

I have the P35C-DS3R & am very happy with it. Although I'm, unlikely to ever use it with DDR3 it was the same price as the P35-DS3R so it made sense.

Some people are saying that having support for both memory standards will inhibit memory overclocking. I'd like to see the evidence for that. My RAM is overclocked 50MHz without relaxing timings & going over the rated voltage. I've never heard of Wintec memory so don't know how they'll overclock.

I presume you dont need firewire & 2 PCI-E x16 slots if you're looking at these boards? There is also no option to change the memory command rate from 2T on the P35C if that's important to you, probably same for the P35-DS3R - best check that.

 

[Nickel020]

I would not get the C version for overclocking. I have read reports of people saying they had problems with reaching high RAM speeds. But this probably does not apply to you since you'll run your RAM 1:1 at DDR800 with 400 FSB.
Still I'd get a board like the DS4 for quad overclocking since it cools the PWMs and those are stressed quite bit when overlocking a quad.

And get a G0, those overclock way better in general.

The Tuniq Tower is a fine cooler, the Zalman is quite abit worse though, especially for quad overclocking. The Scythe Infinity is also great and comes with a slower and much less noisier fan, and will suffice for 3 GHz but will cool slightly worse sicne the Tuniq has a much faster fan. You can always get a better fan for the Scythe though to match the Tuniqs performance.

 

[Oblivion121]

Yeah, the wintec ram is pretty decent on overclocking, i have the same set overclocked at 880 right now, and its not even that warm. I have had it overclocked about 120mhz a couple times but i had to use way too much voltage and i didnt want to murder my processor so i toned back down to 440x7. I was choosing between these 2 boards. I thought that the only difference was the ddr3 on the C version. So i figured since im probably not going to use them until i get a new board which will probably be when ddr3 is like ddr2 is now. I dont have the extra money to get the ds4 unless you can find another board at 140$ or under. Thats the highest i have left for the computer and i figured that it would do just fine for quad overclocking, i will have plenty of airflow ( a couple 120mm's to be exact) so im sure ill be fine on overclocking. I only want to hit 3ghz and leave it at that. I figured the non C version would be fine for now, i plan to rebuild in about 1-2 years anyway so it wont be useful to have the ddr3 because i wont use them.

 

[5t3v0]

The DS3 boards will be fine for what you're trying to do & more. My board was £70 ($140) & is running at 450MHz without any MCH/FSB voltage increases and is supporting a cpu at 3.6GHz & DDR2-800 at DDR2-900 without loosening timings. Check the forums for lots of other happy punters.