Difference between 965 and 975X

Mr. Brightside · 8 Aug 2006 at 12:16

I had a search but couldn't find anything. Been wondering this for a while now. I'm toying with the idea of a Conroe rig and want to know the differences between 965 and 975X chipsets.

Can anyone shed some light on it?

Thanks, null

Tetras · 8 Aug 2006 at 13:48

Afaik (could be wrong) the 975 is older and the previous enthusiast / high end chipset of which boards have been updated for Conroe support, while the 965 was built for Conroe as a mainstream chipset. I think officially the 975 doesn't support above DDR2 800 and the 965, dual x8 PCI-Express (only 16x/4x).

Phunky Phish · 8 Aug 2006 at 14:15

Also...
975x supports crossfire/ dual graphics cards
965 does not!!! Only 1 graphics card supported

Pulsedriver · 8 Aug 2006 at 14:28

Im sure I read the 975x is a better performing chipset than the 965.

Pug · 8 Aug 2006 at 14:39

SeanyK said:
Im sure I read the 975x is a better performing chipset than the 965.

with thye high end conroes this may be true. Apparently with lower end conroe, the lower boards seem better for OCs

Phunky Phish · 8 Aug 2006 at 14:41

Thought I read somewhere on another thread...
965 best for E6300/6400
975x best for E6600/6700/6800

stoofa · 8 Aug 2006 at 15:57

I would very much take all of this "965 better with this Coroe than 975" and vice versa and things like that with a pinch of salt.
Seriously - it is the features of the board you should be looking at.

Currently if you want X-Fire then 975x is the only way to go - as has been correctly pointed out the 965 boards do not support this configuration.
Some boards have two PCI-e slots on a 965 and we await to see if hacked drivers appear or not, but certainly no guarantee at all.

The 975x chipset uses the older ICH7/R controllers as opposed to the 965 which uses the ICH8/R.
There are a few differences - there is no longer any PATA support with the ICH8/R however every single 965 board I've seen has had an add-in PATA controller for two devices.
I've seen plenty of people that can make either one of the chipsets out-perform the other, so it is mainly down to X-Fire support and cost....

Sem · 8 Aug 2006 at 17:02

apparently the memory controller on the P965 has slightly higher latencies than the 975X so there is a slight performance drop in benchmarks
if you notice the 1 or 2 fps while gaming is another thing