Question on X38 and P35

[phillyman36]

Hey can someone tell me what the difference between the P35 and X38. Other than the pci 2.0 what reason would you have to switch if your doing lite videos game playing and media encoding? Right now i have a 975x (asus) and i was thinking about switching to a P35 for more sata ports

 

[Nickel020]

If you take a look at Gry keys' X38 update, there's little difference in performance between X38 and P35 if you're using DDR2 RAM. So the benefits of the X38 are PCI-E 2-0 (not needed yet) two 16x PCI-E slots (may bring better Crossfire performance) and improved DDR3 performance. So if you want a Crossfire system and/or DDR3 RAM, get a X38 board, if not P35 is fine and there's no reason to buy an expensive X38 board.

 

[nrb]

Crossfire performance on 975X is much better than it on most P35 boards, because most P35 boards run one of the video cards in x4 mode, while 975X is x8/x8. X38 will be a full x16/x16, which may be a shade faster even than 975X.

X38 also offers superior over-clocking capabilities to P35, some tricks with DDR3 memory that P35 can't do, and some additional optimisations for Penryn processors (allegedly).

Bascially X38 is for the "enthusiast" sector, where P35 is for the "performance" sector. P35 is for people who buy fast cars; X38 is for people who buy fast cars and then fit them with nitrous oxide rigs. Most people can't be bothered doing that. X38 is for those who can be bothered.