Abit IP35-Pro VS Gigabyte P35-DS4???

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Have any of you guys had both of these boards to test, was wondering which overclocks better with quad and with e6400. also what are your chipset temps on idle, load and overclocked and are the current bios' good?

not sure which to buy, they are both good boards, the ip35 pro has 3 pci-express x1 slots for tv cards and new gadgets and has 2x esata, the gigabyte has printer port and serial port which i wouldnt be using, so by that means i'd go for the abit, but those arent of huge priority tho, a high stable overclock is more important.

im using watercooling and wont be cooling the chipset with water so space around the cpu for a big heatsink isnt important to me. £115 for abit or £101 for gigabyte?

so what do you guys think?
 
WJA96 should be along shortly ...

iirc the IP35 Pro gave him a slightly higher overclock but bottom line is that they are both fine boards.
I would imagine that on either mobo you'll probably want to investigate a fan (or block) for the PWM if you aren't air cooling the CPU.
 
BUFF said:
WJA96 should be along shortly ...

iirc the IP35 Pro gave him a slightly higher overclock but bottom line is that they are both fine boards.
I would imagine that on either mobo you'll probably want to investigate a fan (or block) for the PWM if you aren't air cooling the CPU.
I've been trying to find his comparison post too :D Basically he said the Abit overclocked a little bit further, but the DS4 was easier to use.

You don't need any active cooling on the PWM for the Gigabyte board. They don't even have a heatsink on my DS3P. No idea about the Abit tho.
 
Cob said:
You don't need any active cooling on the PWM for the Gigabyte board. They don't even have a heatsink on my DS3P. No idea about the Abit tho.
yes, but they are all in the area that would normally receive airflow from the HSF - remove that airflow & overclock a Quad & they are going to warm up nicely ...
 
BUFF said:
yes, but they are all in the area that would normally receive airflow from the HSF - remove that airflow & overclock a Quad & they are going to warm up nicely ...
Probably. Tho I've had no issues with them running my Q6600 @100% 24/7 without any airflow.
 
The 2 boards i was trying to choose between.

I ended with the DS4 just because the IP35 Pro was out of stock, been very pleased with it though, and i get 2 more sata ports.....

My only niggle is being a bit restricted in the heatsink department (cpu cooling) as not every cooler will fit (noctua for example), but the Thermalright fits (just about).

I don't think you'll be unhappy with either board...... just decide which board offers the most to you.... and do you want to pay more for the Abit?...

Board has never failed to boot since i made this build, though the ram was undervolted on first boot it still worked..... and it's never failed to boot... even with my OC'ing antics..... :D but i do take it slowly....

Either way you'll be happy with either....
 
what max fsb have you managed to get on the ds4? i decided to order the abit, will be here on weds.

i built my friend a ds4 2 months ago, i couldnt do 500*7 for some reason, wasnt stable, 500*6 was, so gave him 480*6 or whatever 3.5ghz is, used e6420.
 
There is no issue on PWM cooling on either board, because the IP35-Pro doesn't use PWM for the voltage regulation mechanism, it uses good old variable voltage instead. Abit really did good stuff with the PWM technology, but even they have had to admit they cannot cool it properly, so the top performing board doesn't use it anymore apparently.

Using the same CPU's I can get;

E4300 DS4 - 3.5GHz IP35-Pro 3.55GHz (Air Cooled)
E6300 DS4 - 3.45GHz IP35-Pro 3.55GHz (Air Cooled)
X3210 DS4 - 3.3GHz IP35-Pro 3.4GHz (Water Cooled)
Q6600 (B3) DS4 - 3.6GHz IP35-Pro 3.6GHz (Water cooled)

So there really is beggar all in it, but the Gigabyte was much easier to clock. For a start there are 3 fewer voltage options, and the voltage options are more linear on the Gigabyte. What I mean by that is that to get an effect on the Gigabyte, you increase a voltage by one increment. The same increment on the Abit does nothing, and you may need 3 or 4 increments to get the same stability you got on the Gigabyte.

In this thread, Scottyboy got 3GHz out of an E2160 on the DS4 just by turning the FSB up to 333MHz and tweaking the voltage a fraction. No chipset adjustment at all. So the chipset cooler would be cool as a cucumber.

Either board is superb though. Check out the layouts and cooler designs because that's about what the comparison distills down to. Apparently there is also small benefit in LAN speed with the Abit.
 
clocka said:
what max fsb have you managed to get on the ds4?

I can boot into Windows at 3.615GHz (515x7) but it's not stable. The best I can do stable is 515x6 on an E6300ES and the same CPU will do 3.55GHz (507x7) 8-hours Orthos stable on air cooling. This CPU was truly pants with NVidia chipset boards and even with P965 boards it wouldn't do 3GHz, so the P35 Chipset really is able to extract extra performance from CPUs.

clocka said:
i built my friend a ds4 2 months ago, i couldnt do 500*7 for some reason, wasnt stable, 500*6 was, so gave him 480*6 or whatever 3.5ghz is, used e6420.

That must have been a P965-DS4 though, surely?
 
WJA96 said:
There is no issue on PWM cooling on either board, because the IP35-Pro doesn't use PWM for the voltage regulation mechanism, it uses good old variable voltage instead. Abit really did good stuff with the PWM technology, but even they have had to admit they cannot cool it properly, so the top performing board doesn't use it anymore apparently.
I think that you mean analogue PWM as opposed to digital PWM as they both use PWM (doesn't every mobo?)?

& digital PWM is coming back on the IX38 - the next generation though which apparently runs cooler.
 
I've just started with the IP35 Pro tonight, straight in at 3.6GHz 450x8. The droop is quite bad. I could volt mod it, but you should see the size of those resistors, tiny. The other thing is the PWM temps report high, heatsinks are cool with a few fans glued on (could do with better contact me thinks), but the row of caps at the back, mind your fingers.

Droop, 1.53v bios.

Idle
1.46-1.49 uguru
1.50 actual

Load.
1.42-1.46 uguru
1.455 actual

And the vcore is solid as a rock, third digit flickers only 0.004/5. The droop doesn't seem to effect the stability. Just took this chip from an Asus Blitz and Formula (both faulty), they needed 1.49v and 1.47v to get 8hrs prime, although they had very little droop. Early days yet but this board looks like 1.45v will be enough.

 
cant complain with 3.6ghz on your quad first time :P

i wanna know the fsb on e63/6400 cpu's, hoping for 550.
 
clocka said:
cant complain with 3.6ghz on your quad first time :P

i wanna know the fsb on e63/6400 cpu's, hoping for 550.
I'd not dare complain, just what I've noticed. Its a really nice board, at least it all works. Which is more than can be said for two top of the range Asus boards Ive just sent back. Now where's that magnifying glass :)
 
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Oh and by the way the volt droop mod works perfectly. 1Kohm 22 turn pot and really steady hands = no droop at all. Set 1.46 gets 1.455 and it stays there from idle to load. Previously 1.53v in bios = 1.455v

Dont let the scale fool you, its tiny.



 
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WTF are you doing with the rework on that motherboard mate and how the **** did you work that out?

Droop? define please.

PWM? define please

With kind regards,

Steve
 
It's a V(olt)mod & he didn't work it out, someone else (or 2 ) did.

Droop is the amount that the voltage rail sags between idle & under load.

PWM is pulse width modulation - it's used in voltage/power control on the mobo.
 
kirkster said:
WTF are you doing with the rework on that motherboard mate and how the **** did you work that out?

Droop? define please.

PWM? define please

With kind regards,

Steve
On mine the boards cpu voltage drops a lot. Set 1.53v in the bios and Windows reports 1.42v at load. Thats not so bad, but as you push the volts up for higher clocks, say 1.55v, you get silly volts at idle. PWM, there's a set of chips near the socket that power the cpu. First try with out some air and they reached 90C. After a few modifications to improve contact, the PWM are now around 60C at load. Anyway, its happily priming away now.

 
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You did this with a pot ? Whats the max and min resistance of that resistor? Don't you run *** risk of shorting out the 12V rail if you don't get the pot set right ???


Dangerous game if you ask me!!!!

Cheers, Steve

P.S. A long time since my HNC in Electronics mate !! How we move on in life.....
 
You set the 1K VR high. Solder wires to the wiper (middle) and to one end. I like to use clockwise for increased resistance. Anyway, fire it up with the VR high. Connect a multimeter to a vcore point, set a voltage in the bios and wind down the resistance until the vcore increases to match the bios value. No more droop!!
 
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