Poll: Best P35 board

[abast]

I've decided on P35 over 680i since I'll never user SLI. Don't need Crossfire either. Like to have the RAID option and I use firewire sometimes. These 3 seem to fit my needs.
Looking at a Q6600 set with a small OC at some point, already have a Tuniq 120.

 

[Miramonti]

All have their strengths and weaknesses. Performance differences between all of them is very small with benchmarks within a few percentage points.

 

[Andrewcc]

I'm going to second what jjsole said. With those three boards, you might as well pick the one that you like the colors on. If its me though, I'd buy the Asus. I bought a P5K-Deluxe back in June, and I haven't had a single problem with it. It overclocks nice and easy (though I'm not ramping things up too high) so I'd assume the -E works about as well. Good luck, and enjoy whatever it is you get.

 

[imported_Eriol]

Originally posted by: Andrewcc
If its me though, I'd buy the Asus. I bought a P5K-Deluxe back in June, and I haven't had a single problem with it.

You know, as someone who's been looking for a mobo, you'd be surprised how few support what I want, without a lot of extras you DON'T want. For example, the following doesn't exist (from what I've seen, though feel free to point out one I've missed):

• Intel Core 2 Quad Support (this is easy of course)
  DDR2 (don't need DDR3 imo)
  Passively-cooled (I want SOME cooling though, as I saw at least one mobo that didn't have a heatsink on the southbridge, with corresponding high-heat. Heatsinks/pipes are fine, just not none!)
  Single PCIe-x16 (not doing crossfire/SLI, but I'll take it if I have to for the other features I want)
  at least two USABLE PCIe-x1 slots (a LOT have only one that would be covered by a dual-width video card)
  IEEE 1394/Firewire (some of the "would be great otherwise" don't have this)
  6+ SATA internally (goodbye 650i)
  2 eSATA (goodbye 680i)

The final 4 points there are the bad ones that you just can't find together on anything BUT the P5K-Deluxe, though I don't want/need to pay for crossfire either. 🙁

 

[rickon66]

I bought a P5K-E and think that it is GREAT!!! What is not to like? It has the layout and construction of the the $200+ ASUS boards and WIFI for about the same price as the plain P5K. i got mine for under $150 shipped at Directron

P.S.
Eriol -I think if fullfills all of your requirements also.

 

[Drexl]

Originally posted by: Eriol
You know, as someone who's been looking for a mobo, you'd be surprised how few support what I want, without a lot of extras you DON'T want. For example, the following doesn't exist (from what I've seen, though feel free to point out one I've missed):

• Intel Core 2 Quad Support (this is easy of course)
  DDR2 (don't need DDR3 imo)
  Passively-cooled (I want SOME cooling though, as I saw at least one mobo that didn't have a heatsink on the southbridge, with corresponding high-heat. Heatsinks/pipes are fine, just not none!)
  Single PCIe-x16 (not doing crossfire/SLI, but I'll take it if I have to for the other features I want)
  at least two USABLE PCIe-x1 slots (a LOT have only one that would be covered by a dual-width video card)
  IEEE 1394/Firewire (some of the "would be great otherwise" don't have this)
  6+ SATA internally (goodbye 650i)
  2 eSATA (goodbye 680i)

The final 4 points there are the bad ones that you just can't find together on anything BUT the P5K-Deluxe, though I don't want/need to pay for crossfire either. 🙁

Those are all on my GA-P35-DS3P. It comes with 8 SATA ports in all, and the bracket to use 2 of them for eSATA.

 

[abast]

GA-P35-DS3P !!! That looks nice too!

 

[imported_Eriol]

Originally posted by: Drexl
Those are all on my GA-P35-DS3P. It comes with 8 SATA ports in all, and the bracket to use 2 of them for eSATA.

The page at gigabyte buries that information on the accessories page, but if it's standard, then that's competitive with the Asus. The tag saying "Accessories (Optional)" always makes me a bit leery though of course.

The main thing that worries me about the Asus P5K-E is something that was said about its SATA connectors in a review on Tom's Hardware. An excerpt is below about it:

From Tom's Hardware
Like the DDR3-equiped P5K3 version, the P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP's has two layout weaknesses. The first is that two of its Serial ATA connectors could potentially be blocked by longer graphics cards;

Now the article is about the "big brother" P5K Deluxe, but the issues should be the same (the layout of that particular piece looks the same to me at least). So that's a concern there too. Does such happen with things like an 8800 GTX? The Gigabyte board doesn't seem like it'd have this problem at all.

Either way, thanks for the advice all. These boards look like the candidates for me, though I'm a bit disappointed it looks like I'll have to take a board with two PCIe-x16 slots, one of which I don't think I'll ever use. Who knows, maybe physics cards will actually become required in the next 3 years, and I'll be able to plunk that in there at least.

 

[Drexl]

Originally posted by: Eriol
The page at gigabyte buries that information on the accessories page, but if it's standard, then that's competitive with the Asus. The tag saying "Accessories (Optional)" always makes me a bit leery though of course.

Hmm, well, the one I bought from Newegg came with it. I don't know if they're all like that or not.

The main thing that worries me about the Asus P5K-E is something that was said about its SATA connectors in a review on Tom's Hardware. An excerpt is below about it:

From Tom's Hardware
Like the DDR3-equiped P5K3 version, the P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP's has two layout weaknesses. The first is that two of its Serial ATA connectors could potentially be blocked by longer graphics cards;

Now the article is about the "big brother" P5K Deluxe, but the issues should be the same (the layout of that particular piece looks the same to me at least). So that's a concern there too. Does such happen with things like an 8800 GTX? The Gigabyte board doesn't seem like it'd have this problem at all.

I really couldn't tell you as I have a cheaper smaller video card.

Actually, the second long PCIe slot is a 4x slot, and if you use it, it will disable the x1 slots. That might be a good place to put the eSATA bracket.

BTW, there is a new 2.0 revision of that board on the way that moves the serial and parallel ports to pin headers inside and adds four USB ports to the back (for 8 in all).

 

[Heidfirst]

abast, afaik the Asus only has RAID via the JMicron which is inferior to the ICH9R RAID on the abit & Gigabyte.
Those are both good boards but if they are the same price then the abit is better featured for the same money & represents better value.
You also want to check that the Tuniq fits the DS4.

Eriol "The final 4 points there are the bad ones that you just can't find together on anything BUT the P5K-Deluxe, though I don't want/need to pay for crossfire either. "
the abit IP35 Pro has what you want as well just that 1 of your x1 PCI-E will actually be the 2nd physical x16 (electrical x4) slot but it's compatible with x1 devices.

 

[abast]

thanks all for the info. I wasn't expecting as much love for the IP35-Pro. I expected the vdroop issues to tilt the voting toward the Asus.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Vdroop is never an issue with IP35 boards. Use C1E and EIST along with default CPU multiplier to drop voltage at no load/light load. If you need 1.40 to overclock, then dial-in 1.45 in BIOS. Board will idle @ 1.29, and prime at 1.40. It will never run at 1.45.

 

[abast]

Thanks All for the votes and comments.

Not the results I was expecting.