What Mobo! HELP! Asus P5Q vs Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P

Roland0

Roland0

Roland0

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Hello there!
Well time has come for me to upgrade, which hasn't happened for quite a while. Hence upgrading from:

Single core AMD San Diego 3700+ @ 2.6GHz
2Gb of Mem @ 260MHz
Which was on a DFI Lanparty SLI-D. But unfortunately I had an accident so I'm on an ASRock with a GeForce 7050 :(

At the moment I'm fairly certain about what I would like, the only unknown is the motherboard, I'm torn between the boards in the title, at the moment I'm looking at getting one of the ASUS boards (not the deluxe). Although not desperate for a massive overclock (I'm sure its fast enough!) I would like to get my E8500 to 4GHz (ish). So I would need it to get to an FSB of circa 422 (x9.5). My main stipulation is that it should be able to take 8Gb of PC-8500 - 1066MHz Because i need a RAM drive (I'm only getting the 4Gb to start with but i would quite like this in the future), but I'm not considering OCing the memory.

What do people here think? I don't really have any "hands on" with any of these boards, and now I'm working I cant read the forums 24/7 so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks peeps!

SS
 
Asus P5Q is a good motherboard and more than capable of clocking your E8500 to 4GHz (and above) without much effort, the DS3P will also do this for you, both take 16GBs of ram.

Be aware that the P5Q has only 1 x 16x PCI-E slot (and 3 PCI slots), so won't do crossfire, whereas the DS3P has 3 (16x PCI-E), but only 1 PCI slot, so if you need more than 1 PCI slot go for the P5Q.

I did have the Gigabyte P35 DS3P and it was a very good board, also have an Asus P5Q Deluxe which is good as well, but of those 2 boards I would probably go for the Asus P5Q...
 
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thanks for the info jbloggs, im not really too worried about multi-GFX card setups ad i think its a bit of a pain / gimmick. With reference to the RAM, I was aware that they could take 8Gb + but im worried that they would underclock to 800MHz or slower, as i have noticed that there is no 8Gb 1066Mhz sets about!

Cheers



SS
 
Note that 8gb of ram is likely to make overclocking more difficult. Namely that it stresses the northbridge more which can introduce instabilities where there were none with 4gb,

The ram will happily run at 1066 on a P45 board whether its 4gb or 8gb, but the maximum fsb you hit on the processor is likely to go down with 8gb. This shouldn't be an issue as you're only aiming for 4ghz and 9.5 is quite a high multiplier.

I've got one of the asus p5q boards and like it very much. It took my e8400 to 4ghz without complaint.
 
On my Gigabyte P35 DS3P I had all 4 slots filled with ram, albeit 1GB sticks, however, I had no problems clocking my E8400 to 4.5GHz (500MHz) with all 4 slots filled and it ran 24/7 @ 4.2GHz like this, so I don't think that having 4 slots filled (8GBs) on a P45 board will stop you getting your E8500 to 4.0GHz and beyond.
 
jbloggs said:
On my Gigabyte P35 DS3P I had all 4 slots filled with ram, albeit 1GB sticks, however, I had no problems clocking my E8400 to 4.5GHz (500MHz) with all 4 slots filled and it ran 24/7 @ 4.2GHz like this, so I don't think that having 4 slots filled (8GBs) on a P45 board will stop you getting your E8500 to 4.0GHz and beyond.
Click to expand...

Crikey 4.5GHz really would be nice! But that does mean getting the FSB to nearly 475 with 8Gb in, although the RAM will be on a divider, even so i would have thought it would be a struggle to get the FSB that high! These boards are very similar performers I take (in the OC stakes)

Thanks!


SS
 
well...having had 4 or 5 boards in last 12 months of both ASUS AND GIGA....i think i prefer the ASUS....both are good but i like the ASUS better....just imho....will be getting an ASUS board next.
 
Griff7520 said:
well...having had 4 or 5 boards in last 12 months of both ASUS AND GIGA....i think i prefer the ASUS....both are good but i like the ASUS better....just imho....will be getting an ASUS board next.
Click to expand...

@ Griff What was it you liked more about the ASUS boards, or was it just a gut feeling? what clocks did you get? thanks Griff


I've just noticed that there is a P5Q "turbo" ive not seen much about it does anyone know much about it ?

Thanks!!
 
I own the p5q deluxe and have been very impressed with it, rock solid and very easy to overclock on, i had a q6600 at 3.8ghz on it (9x422) and currently running a q9550 at 3.6ghz (8.5x425), cant fault the board at all, but the gigabytes also get good reports, tbh both are good boards
 
Well I shal soon be on the overclocking section telling you all how im getting along, I'm going to place the order this afternoon!
 
I've had to RMA 2 P5Q-E boards in the past 2 months due to corrupt BIOS and constant problems

Just switched to EP45-DS3P and love it so far ... both are pretty much the same boards and you'll squeeze very similar performance out of them
 
I've got the EP45-UD3P which is slightly higher end than the DS3P and it's an extremely solid board (q6600 @ 3.7 on air) and my first Gigabyte board for many years.

Doubt you would go wrong with either but remember Gigabyte has a much better RMA service in the UK than Asus do.
 
Can't pass comment on the Asus boards but they are reported to be good.

However, the EP45-UD3P rocks.

500+ fsb with dual core 45nm cpus is a breeze and even 600 is acheivable. Hell I have my quad up to 536 fsb albeit with just 2 ram slots used but I have seen many a person in the forums on xstremsystems get over 500 fsb with all 4 ram slots used.

If your not bothered about xfire get the cheap EP45-UD3R which only has a single pci-e slot and an extra pci slot instead but basically the same board.

I have never had such an easy overclocking board. Hell, just for a laugh I left everything on auto and it booted first time at 9 x 500 = 4.5Ghz albeit with voltages I wouldn't be happy leaving for 24/7 use.
 
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