Which ASUS DDR2 motherboard for a quad?

[jmmtn4aj]

I'd like to get an ASUS P35 mobo just for variety in another build, so which one will it be?

On the table (and in SGD) are:

Asus Blitz Formula (Special Ed) Intel P35 LGA775 : $509

Asus P5K Deluxe/WIFI Intel P35 LGA775 : $375

Asus P5K Premium/WIFI Intel P35 LGA775 : $425

As you can see, the price differences are big enough to warrant this thread. Right now I'm leaning towards the Premium. How much difference between the Blitz and the Premium?

My main concern is overclockability. 500MHz FSB wall and above with 4 x 1GB Ballistix and a Q6600, good cooling and all-solid caps for longevity (I read somewhere the vanilla models use electrolytic caps, hence they aren't even on the list), and small vdroop (the current 0.1v vdroop on my DS3 is driving me insane. 1.5 in bios, 1.44 idle in Windows, 1.41-1.39 at load). I'm going to assume all come with eSATA. Besides that, I don't really see myself needing much of anything else.

Also, as if these three choices weren't bewildering enough, the X38 DDR2 (DDR3 is too expensive atm) aren't that much more:

Asus Maximus Formula Intel X38 LGA775 : $549

Asus P5E Intel X38 LGA775 : $468

Any real reason to go for either of those? I don't see myself doing 5GHz suicide clocks on LN2.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Bump.. I've sort of narrowed it down to the Premium and Deluxe, but I'm hearing problems about the JMicron controller in the Premium (absent from Deluxe) and LAN drivers (ethernet or wifi I'm not sure) and onboard audio (crackling) on the P5K boards.. Eh?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Well I'm happy enough with my P5K-Deluxe/WiFi @ Q6600-G0.

Actually for my 2nd Q6600 system I decided the P5K Deluxe was more than
I needed and it went with a P5K-E/Wifi.

4GHz CPU = 444x9, and most people need heavy water-cooling to get
24x7 stable 4GHz out of a Q6600-G0 given the voltage bump many of them
need to get there, etc.

It's not unreasonable to want / get 4.0 or 4.1 speed out of a cherry
Q6600 and decent P35 / X38 motherboard. The CPU seems like it's more of
a limit than the motherboard since even a P5K Deluxe or even lower end
P5K-E with some user added chipset cooling / extra fans / good case and/or
water-blocks should be able to do 450MHz range.

You speak of 500+ MHz... so I assume that'd have to be for something like
a Yorkfield or whatever where you have either an x8 locked multi. or
extreme unlocked CPU where you want to get above 4GHz and closer
to 4.5 if possible given your cooling setup.

So anyway I guess me personally I'd go with the P5K-Deluxe for
Kentsfield Q6600 / Yorkfield Q9450 or similar models for either air
(ThermalRight Ultra Extreme 120) or water cooling the CPU.

Would I be happier if I had the P5K-Premium? Sure, the hot mosfets on
the back of the P5K-Deluxe kind of suck, and I'd be happier to run cooler.
I don't think it'd affect the SPEED of my system, though, because even
running hotter with a little more vdroop, etc. the P5K Deluxe seems more
than adequate to clock the Q6600-G0 as high as I want to take it, and
probably as high as I COULD take it on air cooling.

It's not like the P5K Deluxe is UNSTABLE or UNABLE to OC to 440-500MHz kind
of numbers from what I've seen on xtremesystems threads. I just think
the Premium has a few better design aspects to make it a little cooler and little
better at extreme OC levels, but most people could get the same stable
OC out of a P5K Deluxe as a PK5-Premium as a X38 since the CPU is the
limit unless they're running phase change cooling or have an extreme edition
totally unlocked CPU or something.

X38? Nice, sure, but the Yorkfield Quads use even much LOWER TDP power
than the Q6600, they need LOWER Vcore voltages, and they run COOLER,
so it'll be even LESS taxing for a motherboare to O/C a Penryn/Yorkfield
than a Kentsfield Q6600. So you need a LESS extreme motherboard
and cooler for a good OC on the 45nm CPUs if you got one of those.

Thus I'd again say that for most practical purposes P5K-Deluxe or even
P5K-E with some added fans or heatsinks would get a good OC.

Got an extreme unlocked CPU and water cooling or phase change? Yeah,
get the X38 and go for 4.X GHz if you want to spend the bucks.

I don't see that 3.6, 3.8, 4.0 GHz is that much worse than 4.1, 4.2 or whatever
that it's worth $200 more on a motherboard and $300 more for water cooling
and all what though and $600 more for the unlocked / extreme CPU or whatever.

PS I guess you must be paying heavy taxes where you are or something, the
P5K Deluxe in the US was like $235 when it first came out and I bought mine.
I didn't think it had gone up more than like $50 bucks over that at most
retailers here.

I'd question spending way over $375 for a motherboard even better
than the P5K Deluxe which is already very costly where you are;
what extra speed is that really going to buy you given the CPU and cooler
you'll get?

Look around Xtremesystems OC database and see what OC people get
with P5K Deluxe or P5K Premium and see if there's any big difference.

There ARE nicer boards as you go up in price, but do they really get you
anywhere much better in performance? Invest the extra saved cash
in a case with better cooling / cooling mods or a water loop or something.

 

[QuixoticOne]

JMicron, etc.

Well how many drives do you really need?

I've never had a problem on my P5K-Deluxe or P5K-E with the IDE or SATA
ports, and I'm not even using anywhere near the maximum number of
the SATA ports at once anyway.

I guess if you want a RAID-5 of 5 SATA drives I'd be more concerned about
the added SATA controller etc. But to me it'd be insane to RAID numerous
drives with a lot of critical data on them on a HEAVILY overclocked system
that you're maybe going to be doing heavy gaming / whatever on etc.
that's just ASKING for massive data loss.

I doubt you'd have a motherboard related problem with a 2-3 individual
SATA drives or even 2 drives in a RAID-0 or RAID-1 striped or mirrored pair
on any of those motherboards.

Onboard audio? Works for me.

If you want total freedom from noise / crackle / distortion for super quality
audio I think the solution isn't to spend $100 more on a motherboard with
better onboard audio, spend under $100 on a high quality music quality add-in
PCI sound card with good DACs and OP-AMPS and so on.
Onboard audio can basically almost never touch the quality you'd get from
a good mid-end audio card intended for musical use.

LAN? No problems here on either Gb ethernet or 100 MB ethernet
with either my P5K-E or P5K-Deluxe.

The drivers for the chipsets / LANs almost always suck with ANY motherboard
when you get them off the CD that comes with the motherboard. Throw that
CD back in the closet and download the latest SATA/ LAN / Sound / Chipset
drivers straight from Microsoft and/or Realtek, Marvell, SI-Image, Intel,
etc. etc. etc. and I doubt you'd have any horrible LAN / SATA / etc. problems.

Best thing I did for my systems is to buy cases with good airflow like the
P180 or better.