Suggest a P35 chipset Motherboard for Q6600..

[Xcom1Cheetah]

I am going to buy Core 2 Quad Q6600 but i m a little confused regarding the motherboard.

For me Important things are
1. Low operating temperature... ( i want to buy ASUS P5K.. but its high temperatures keeps me away from it... cuz the system is going to be working in a hot climate)..

2. Reasonable Overclocking... will like to overclock upto 350 Mhz FSB...

3. Good onboard cooling... i have seen MSI Platinum has pretty extra vagent cooling setup but i wander if it works..?

4. High speed LAN... cuz its going to be used in LAN parties.. no need for dual Gigabit..

5. Good onboard Sound... cuz i rarely buy extra sound card.

6. Lastly only DDR2 board.

Remaining extras, are not much of an interest for me but won't mind if they come in the package.

My budgest is around 160...
Currently i have MSI Platium on my list as a top contender... as i said i want ASUS but due to its high operating voltage i m staying away from it... So wot you people recommend..

 

[drakore]

GA-P35-DS3R for single PCIe

GA-P35-DQ6, ASUS P5K Deluxe, or ABIT IP35 PRO for Crossfire

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Xcom1Cheetah
I am going to buy Core 2 Quad Q6600 but i m a little confused regarding the motherboard.

For me Important things are
1. Low operating temperature... ( i want to buy ASUS P5K.. but its high temperatures keeps me away from it... cuz the system is going to be working in a hot climate)..

2. Reasonable Overclocking... will like to overclock upto 350 Mhz FSB...

3. Good onboard cooling... i have seen MSI Platinum has pretty extra vagent cooling setup but i wander if it works..?

4. High speed LAN... cuz its going to be used in LAN parties.. no need for dual Gigabit..

5. Good onboard Sound... cuz i rarely buy extra sound card.

6. Lastly only DDR2 board.

Remaining extras, are not much of an interest for me but won't mind if they come in the package.

My budgest is around 160...
Currently i have MSI Platium on my list as a top contender... as i said i want ASUS but due to its high operating voltage i m staying away from it... So wot you people recommend..

ABIT IP35-E

1. 90 watts idle and 191 watts Othos load (E4300 @ 3.44GHz...1.465Vcore, 2GB DDR2 800 RAM @ 2.0Vdimm). Northbridge is warm under full load. No need for heat pipe cooling.

2. Easy 400MHz FSB speed at default Vnorthbridge and Vsouthbridge. This board should be able to handle 480MHz if you use 6XXX CPUs.

3. The passive southbridge and MOSFET heat sinks run cool under full load. Northbridge is warm. I prefer to add an 80mm low speed Panaflo above the RAM and Northbridge for additional cooling. It's a quiet solution for extreme overclockers.

4. The bottle neck is the write speed of the HDD when transferring data between PCs. Currently, even the best rig is limited to about 50 to 60MB/sec. Therefore, any board with GLAN will do the job.

5. All current onboard 7.1 audio should work okay. If you want more fidelity, then invest in a basic $20 PCI audio card.

I paid $95 for my Abit IP35-E last week after $30 rebate.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2063989&enterthread=y

 

[Xcom1Cheetah]

Originally posted by: drakore
GA-P35-DS3R for single PCIe

GA-P35-DQ6, ASUS P5K Deluxe, or ABIT IP35 PRO for Crossfire

Crossfire is not important for me, moreover i usually stay with Nvidia and i wander when ATI will be back in the game.

 

[firewolfsm]

The GA-P35-DS3R.

 

[Gary Key]

Just about all of the P35 boards are good to very good actually. In the lower price range I like the abit IP35E (LAN is PCI only, not PCIe, but under most conditions you will not know the difference) or the Biostar TP35D2-A7, in the mid-range the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

What happened to ECS? They had the KN1 Lite/NF4 939 that would easily achieve 50% overclock with the AMD K8 platform. These boards came with OST and some Japanese caps at the power section. Really nice value for most users. My only gripe is the lack of a good CPU fan control system and the unrefined BIOS.

There used to be a lot of similarity between some Biostar and ECS boards. Perhaps this TP35D2-A7 wil follow the old TForce tradition of high value/high performance. Have they moved the two power plugs from the middle back of the board to the outside top/front?

I've come across a few P965 boards (like Abit IB9) with 360-400MHz FSB hole. Not sure if this is a BIOS issue or strap issue.

 

[Xcom1Cheetah]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
The GA-P35-DS3R.

Any short comings in this board.? i m looking interested in this board... and what about the gigabyte as a company... i have mostly stayed with MSI or ASUS in the past...

Gigabyte other option also looks interesting..
GA-P35C-DS3R

 

[drakore]

Depending on how long you want to keep your system and how keen you are about speed should determine if you get the GA-P35C-DS3R. If you plan on a complete overhaul in about 2-3 years then don't bother with a combo board. If you demand the best in memory then don't get a combo board.

Gigabyte is now one of the top tier companies. They have a combined warranty system with ASUS. I was in the same boat as you, unsure about gigabyte. I bought the GA-P35-DQ6 and i have been extremely impressed. It is rock solid in terms of stability, great for overclocking, great bios, and runs cool in comparison to the ASUS P5K Deluxe. So don't fear when it comes to buying a Gigabyte board.

 

[Xcom1Cheetah]

Originally posted by: drakore
Depending on how long you want to keep your system and how keen you are about speed should determine if you get the GA-P35C-DS3R. If you plan on a complete overhaul in about 2-3 years then don't bother with a combo board. If you demand the best in memory then don't get a combo board.

Gigabyte is now one of the top tier companies. They have a combined warranty system with ASUS. I was in the same boat as you, unsure about gigabyte. I bought the GA-P35-DQ6 and i have been extremely impressed. It is rock solid in terms of stability, great for overclocking, great bios, and runs cool in comparison to the ASUS P5K Deluxe. So don't fear when it comes to buying a Gigabyte board.

And wot About their BIOS updates.? do they really keep updating and enhancing their Motherboard BIOS over a sizeable timeperiod.?

Yea i think i will not go with combo but will get the simple DDR2 board...
Thanks for the detail response.