X38 or P35 someone choose for me :P

Sider

Sider

Sider

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Abit IP35 Pro

or

Asus P5E Intel X38

Will be using a Q6600

ive heard good things and bad things about both but i cant choose between them. the P35 chipset is getting on abit now but im not sure what the advantages of getting the x38 are. Both are DDR 2, X38 supports pci-2 but ive seen no review that says this is something special.

help :(

Sider
 
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P35 is about 6 months old - is that getting on a bit these days?
& X38 uses the same southbridge as P35 but you could say that it's immature, particularly BIOS.

Basically imo it comes down to whether you see yourself using Crossfire or not.
If you do then X38 if you don't then P35 is fine (& the IP35 Pro is a good mobo).
 
If I was to ask this exact same question right now, would the answer still be IP35 Pro?

I'm currently still running an E6300 but might be upgrading soon.
 
I have also been thinking about this, and i am swaying towards X38 purely for the fact it has PCI-E 2.0, as i plan on getting a 9800GTX when they are released.
 
Is the next gen gfx card confirmed to be PCI-E 2.0 only? They can hardly fill PCI-E 16x yet, can they?
 
Sider said:
X38 or P35 someone choose for me :P
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Its a good question, would be good to talk it out a bit more, I have been looking into the P35 and X38 recently and from what I am reading the P35 looks like a good choice.

I would be interested to hear what other people think on the subject, as we all use our computers in different ways there may be something I have missed or not considered.

Some thoughts:

The Intel® P35 Express Chipset was launched in May 2007 which makes it nearly 6 months old, some time for it to have a few BIOS revisons and driver updates. I do upgrade components in my PC more often than I need to but I do tend to keep a mobo for at least 12 months.

The Intel® X38 Express Chipset was launched in October 2007 (approx?) so its nearly two months old but still 'newer' than the P35.

I've gone through a heap of reviews, white papers, forum posts to try and get a feel for the new chipset but it only seems to have one useful feature, which is full PCI-Express 2.0 support.

I can only see three groups of people that would benefit from this:


- New Hardware Junkies (also known as upgradus addictus)
- Crossfire Gamers who want slightly better frame rates
- Infrequent Upgraders who want as future proof a PC as possible


I personally don't fit into any of those groups.

If I have missed another good feature of the X38 then please let me know.

Now from what I have read, there is very little difference performance wise between the new chipsets, yes Crossfire will be faster on the X38 but for those of us that use a single card I don't think PCI-E 2.0 spec is any good.

The down side of the X38 is cost, it uses almost twice as much power as a similar specced P35 chipset (not very echo friendly), it produces twice as much heat as the P35 chipset (yes the X38 boards feature huge heatsinks for a reason) and its due to have an 'upgrade' soon (ish) and become the X48.

I also have read that the X38/X48 chipset will work better with a DDR3 setup? Any truth in that lol? :D

Anyway this post is getting too big now but I just wanted to empty my mind on the subject. I've just bought a P35 chipset instead of X38 because I didn't see what I was paying the extra money for? and I don't think the P35 chipset will hold me back in any way during 2008 :)

Thoughts?
 
From what I can make out X38 is a slightly faster platform than P35, but only slightly. The Bios on the Asus Maximus has matured to a decent level now. No real difference to X48. X48 has official 1600FSB suppport, where 1600FSB and high overclocking is only gauranteed on some X38 boards. X38 Asus Maximus stock is already starting to dwindle (so I read somewhere).

HTH :)
 
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Personally I see little point in choosing x38 over p35. There are no benifits other than crossfire and even then a crossfire setup on x38 will only beat p35 crossfire by a couple of fps. More often than not x38 dosn't clock to as high levels as P35 (could be due to immature bios revisions). Hype and marketting - do you buy into it? Go with what suits your wallet best.
 
I went for my x38 due to having a nice pci slot layout, one thing i really hate on some motherboard designs you have a pcie x16 next to a pci slot, if your using a dual slot gfx card you waste one slot.
 
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Missed the post by Big.Wayne this morning somehow :eek:

Always a hardware name I respected here, I'll like to keep the mobo for another 18 months at least, whilst I'd probably be able to do that with the P35 I think I'd definately be able to do it with the X38.

What you've said makes perfect sense, same goes for you w3bbo. Aargh! There's 'only' £20 in it!
 
I edited my post: Asus Maximus stock, not X38. But...on the whole yes, it's going to have a very short shelf life.

The Asus Maximus Maximus has come a long way since launch. There are lots of reports of this board being better at overclocking than P35 for quad. Over 600FSB on dual core.

Worth the extra? Maybe.
 
Its from june. If they supported it youd know about it as they would advertise it. Although perhaps they held the P35 back so they could sell the x38s lol.

So you guys recon i should go for a maximus over the quadGT?
 
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