Which of these MBs should I buy?

[TheNiceGuy]

I've narrowed my choice down to one of these:


GA-EP43-DS3R Rev.1.0 (about $137, where I live)

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ew.aspx?ProductID=2845

GA-EP45-DS3R Rev.1.0 (about $160, where I live)

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Pro...ew.aspx?ProductID=2842

My system build and priorities are here, btw:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=27&threadid=2201958

It looks like the only difference is the "4 gear" on the 43 vs "6 gear" thing on the 45, and Bluray and Dolby on the 45. I heard the 43 has only 1 PCI-E port, but the Gigabyte site image shows 2, unless I am mistaken.
Anyway, I'm leaning towards the 43, as it seems to have everything I need. I don't know the difference in the "gear" stuff, or Dolby, but I'm guessing they are not a big deal to the average user? And I can't see myself using Bluray. So the 43 is a decent board for me?

 

[Foxery]

The P45 boards have better support for overclocking than P43s. If you never plan to overclock your system, don't worry about it. As for the PCIE slots, hmm... you're right, there are clearly 2 in the picture. Perhaps they mean that the 2nd one runs at a slower rate, and thus you should not use more than 1 video card in the board. Judging by your requirements in the other thread, this probably doesn't matter to you, either.

 

[DaveSimmons]

My Gigabyte P43 has been flawless for about 30 hours of Mass Effect, with an E8400 and ATI 4870.

I run at stock speed, but the P43 does support a 400 fsb OC to move an E8400 up to 3.6 GHz.

It does have optical and coax digital outs for passing through pre-encoded dolby & DTS from movies, it just doesn't do Dolby Digital Live 5.1 encoding of game audio. The 5.1 analog out for games sounds fine to me though.

It is missing RAID and the gimped 8x/8x crossfire of P45 boards if you care about that,. Otherwise it's a solid, well-built board.

 

[GundamF91]

Get P45 chipset, there's little savings. You also get better quality components typically on higher end board.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: GundamF91
Get P45 chipset, there's little savings. You also get better quality components typically on higher end board.

The Gigabyte P43 has all solid caps and the other quality featurespeak of the $150 boards, it's built quite well. They just pay intel less for the P43 chipset and leave off some features like RAID, then "pass the savings on to you!!"

 

[TheNiceGuy]

Thanks for the input. I don't want RAID or Crossfire, and that 'gear' and Dolby stuff looks like a gimmick. And since the main hardware seems to be of the same quality of the 45, then I have no interest in paying for licensing fees I don't need. I'll get the 43. Thanks again, as I can now order my build parts!