Best mainboard

PoliticallyCorrect · 22 May 2007 at 23:37

I have bought the following:

8800gts 640mb

and will probably be buying the following:

E6600
2GB Geil Ultra

Which is the best mainboard to go for. a lot of people suggesting the ds3 but this looks old and tacky to me. I will be overclocking. Apparently the nForce 650 is good for that? the p35 chipset is well talked about atm too. But i like the design/simplicity/layout/quality of the Abit AWD9 (975 chipset board) but apparently works best with corsair memory. I'm so confused of which to go for :S

-Jonny

simonnance · 23 May 2007 at 00:44

at the moment, its prob between the new P35's DQ6 and P5K Deluxe, for overclocking and mem performance. Crossfire only though, so no SLI

The X38s will probably beat them on features, but to my eye the P35s arent missing much in SATA ports or USB/Firewire. The big step up will be 16x/16x dual cards (unknown if crossfire only atm though), but that's only if you can afford both the board AND are looking to upgrade to 2x high performance Gfx cards any time soon.

My opinion, unless you are happy with the P35 options, or the top range P965s or i650's (P5B Deluxe is popular, so is the Commando, and the new DFI 965 looks good too), then hold out and see what comes out over the next few months.

Meh, i just bought a P5K, in the end my DFI RD600 was more hassle than it was worth. But that's just me.

masslac · 23 May 2007 at 08:17

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-221-AS tbh

SS-89 · 23 May 2007 at 09:41

P35 has some great overclocking potential.

PoliticallyCorrect · 23 May 2007 at 11:36

masslac said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-221-AS tbh

hi there,

i quite like this board, and i've been using nForce for some time now. Is there more to know about this board ? and what does it offer over the intel chipset based boards other than SLi.

-Jonny

simonnance · 23 May 2007 at 11:54

async memory for more mem variability, Intel uses dividers.

PoliticallyCorrect · 23 May 2007 at 12:46

simonnance said:
async memory for more mem variability, Intel uses dividers.

which is better ?

simonnance · 23 May 2007 at 12:56

async gives greater flexibility, means you arent stuck with 1:1, 2:3 ect, but can chose mem speeds a lot easier.

Means you can keep mem at DDR2-800 or even DDR2-667 and clock the FSB past 333Mhz or 400Mhz. Alows cheaper ram to to hold back CPU overclocks, and also means you can squeze the last few mhz out of your ram.

KaylanCloud · 23 May 2007 at 12:57

Async - Good for ram that doesnt clock well
Ram can run @ default whilst cpu is overclocked.

Divider - Good for ram that does clock well
Ram speed increases in sync with cpu speed until it can no longer run in 1:1 sync then dividers are used to run the ram at a lower speed whilst cpu speed still increases.

I think.

*edit* beaten to it

triggerthat · 23 May 2007 at 13:52

I'd recommend DS3P.

KaylanCloud · 23 May 2007 at 15:27

I'd actually agree with that recommendation if looking for a sub £100 mobo. Even though i've got the P5N-E, it runs stupidly hot and the async memory options dont really add that much as using dividers when necessary isnt really that difficult. It seems to be a feature aimed at noobs to overclocking imo.

If only the DS3P came in black.

However if the budget for the mobo is say £150 i'd recommend either the Asus P5K Deluxe or the Gigabyte P35 DQ6 (Again ugly lol).

Summary - Sub £100 = Gigabyte DS3P - £100+ = Asus P5K Deluxe / Gigabyte P35 DQ6

*NB* I also dont think the nForce 6 series is as good as the 4 series was

lay-z-boy · 23 May 2007 at 15:34

P5K Deluxe, superb range of options and clocks like a god on both dual and quad cores.

The chipset itself is rather cool and its got a nice set of features too, like anti-vdroop and 45nm Support.

Pair it up with some of this and you have a great system.

simonnance · 23 May 2007 at 17:23

P5K 1+

looking foward to pairing it with my 4GB Crucial 10th Aniv, and very sweet clocking E6400. Hopefully 3.6Ghz + on air easily.