Motherboard for Q6600 - anything new out there?

Misiowiec

Misiowiec

Misiowiec

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I'll be upgrading from a 7900GT to a 4870 GPU shortly, and though I'd upgrade the CPU to a Q6600 while I'm at it. I know the Nehalem range is out in the not too distant future, but this will be very expensive for a good while and I'll upgrade in 1-2 years from now.

Is there anything new on the motherboard front for the Q6600, or is the Asus P5K or Abit IP35 still the way to go? They seem a little 'old' now. I'll be overclocking the CPU to 3.2-3.6GHz. Also, are these two motherboards PCI Express 2.0 compliant? I cannot find out in the specs or on the manufacturers pages, but it would aid the 4870.

Thanks!
 
You can't go wrong with a P45 Chipset mobo.

Full PCI-e 2.0 support, crossfire 8x8 and the best for overclocking.

An Asus P5Q mobo would be great for your needs.

Deluxe
P5Q-E

Both have 16Phase power and offer superb clocking.

You also have the option of sticking another 4870 in down the line to.
 
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Cant recommend the P5Q Deluxe enough - currently using with a OC'd Q6600 and its very stable. The board makes overclocking really easy - i have left almost all voltages on their lowest settings and havent needed to fiddle with them yet!

[Perhaps a slight aside, but i have found the ASUS express gate thing really useful - it does get online very quickly]
 
easyrider said:
You can't go wrong with a P45 Chipset mobo.

Full PCI-e 2.0 support, crossfire 8x8 and the best for overclocking.

An Asus P5Q mobo would be great for your needs.

Deluxe
P5Q-E

Both have 16Phase power and offer superb clocking.

You also have the option of sticking anothee 4870 in down the line to.
Click to expand...

But at 8x / 8x only on P45 ? X38 or x48 for 16x / 16x PCI-e 2.0 goodness ?
 
Yup, only 8x/8x on a P45

" We find ourselves with two physical PCI Express 2.0 16x connectors for graphics boards. These can either be configured as a single sixteen lane slot (with the secondary slot disabled), or for multi-GPU configurations as two eight lane slots. Considering that every lane of a PCI Express 2.0 slot has double the bandwidth of a PCI Express 1.1 slot, this should be ample for almost any real-world situation. "
Click to expand...

The 4870's/280's seem to be benefiting quite nicely from 16x/16x configs when in SLI/CF
 
Don't get hung up on the 16x 16 xfire.

It seems current cards do not take a hit.

And with the P45 being such a superb clocker I would get a P45 over an x38 if buying a single card solution setup.
 
easy rider what would you recomend for a dual card setup x38 or x48 considering asus maximus formula or the asus rampage (both ddr2)?
 
Depending on budget, and going for a dual card setup from the off I would get a Asus Rampage Formula Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard.

For a single card with the option of xfire open

P5Q deluxe.
 
easyrider said:
You can't go wrong with a P45 Chipset mobo.

Full PCI-e 2.0 support, crossfire 8x8 and the best for overclocking.

An Asus P5Q mobo would be great for your needs.

Deluxe
P5Q-E

Both have 16Phase power and offer superb clocking.

You also have the option of sticking another 4870 in down the line to.
Click to expand...


Hate to be picky, but the P5Q-E has 8 phase power :p

But from what I've read so far, doesn't seem to make much difference. I built a system for a friend using the P5Q and it had rock steady volts under Orthos.
 
how come no one recommend the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3? very reasonable price, full features with P45 chipset. is it a crap clocker or something?:p
 
easyrider said:
You can't go wrong with a P45 Chipset mobo.

Full PCI-e 2.0 support, crossfire 8x8 and the best for overclocking.

An Asus P5Q mobo would be great for your needs.

Deluxe
P5Q-E

Both have 16Phase power and offer superb clocking.

You also have the option of sticking another 4870 in down the line to.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, been reading about the P5Q Deluxe and it seems like a great solution for me - the price is not too bad either. Online reviews are excellent, well, once the latest BIOS version is applied that is. And since I will only be using a single card GPU solution the one PCI-E 2.0 lane with 16x will do just fine.

Any idea if this board would have issues with aftermarket coolers? It looks tight with all those heatpipes, and I will be wanting to use a Thermalright Ultra-120 and Arctic Cooling Accelero S1.
 
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