Difference between Intel 775 motherboards?

md99

md99

md99

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Hello boys & girls,

on your recommendation I treated myself this weekend to a radeon 4850 and 4 lovely GB of Geil 6400 Ram.

I'm also getting a new cpu (Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz) and a mainboard to house the lot, this one - Asus P5K Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

What I'd like to ask if you folks wouldn't mind, is what is the difference between the boards I see in the shop? Specifically a 775 board with, say, an x48 chipset over one with an x38 chipset or a p35 chipset?

What exactly are these chipsets? Do the higher numbered ones merely represent higher specs?

And supposing I wanted a different cpu than the one mentioned above, but it was still a 775 compatible one. Could I pair that with any mainboard as long as that is 775 compatible?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm not exactly a high earner and I really can't afford to make any mistakes when upgrading.
 
What I'd like to ask if you folks wouldn't mind, is what is the difference between the boards I see in the shop? Specifically a 775 board with, say, an x48 chipset over one with an x38 chipset or a p35 chipset?

What exactly are these chipsets? Do the higher numbered ones merely represent higher specs?

And supposing I wanted a different cpu than the one mentioned above, but it was still a 775 compatible one. Could I pair that with any mainboard as long as that is 775 compatible?
Click to expand...
The P35 and P45 chipsets are both targetted at the "mainstream", while X38 and X48 are both "extreme", targetted at enthusiasts.

The most significant difference between P35 and P45 is that P45 uses 65nm technology (can potentially run cooler and use less power though with the added features it doesn't always work that way) and has PCI-Express 2.0 support (along with more lanes).

The most significant difference between mainstream and enthusiast chipsets are the number of PCI-Express lanes available. P35 can offer Crossfire mode working in a 16X/4X configuration, P45 in 8X/8X (though being PCI-Express 2.0 bandwidth wise this is equivalent to 16X/16X if it were the PCI-E 1.1 slots of P35), X38 16X/16X (PCI-E 2.0 so 32X/32X to the P35 PCI-E 1.1 slots) and X48 the same as X38 (the X38 and X48 chipsets are identical on a technical level).

You'll also find that most P35 and X38 boards are DDR2 but all chipsets (P35/X38/X48/P35 can support DDR3).

Officially there is also a difference in memory and front-side-bus (FSB) support but in practice you'll find the manufacturers that use the chipsets consider them equivalent in this regard (for example, X48 has official 1600 FSB CPU support where X38 does not but Asus advertises and supports their X38 motherboards with 1600 FSB).

You'll also find the new southbridge (10) is only offered on later boards (mostly P45) but it is mainly just a die-shrink so I wouldn't worry about this.

In CPU support all of those chipsets have official support for 45nm CPUs but in practice many P35 and X38 boards require a BIOS update to identify them (but may boot without issue, declaring the CPU as "Unknown"). P45 and X48 chipset boards are modern enough the BIOS can often recognise the CPU straight out of the box.

If you go to the Intel website and click on the block diagram for each chipset you'll get a fuller picture (the specs are publicly available but note that implementation of features in a chipset depends on the manufacturer, just because the chipset can offer 6 SATA ports or 3 PCI-Express slots doesn't mean the board manufacturer will make use of them all):
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/chipsets/x48/x48-overview.htm
 
Really good and concise description of the differences. Has also made me happy to know I am not missing anything really as a single GPU P35 user.
 
I don't think there could possibly have been a thing you missed amongst that :D

Thanks a lot.
 
Great post Tetras,

I kind of read that as if you plan on getting crossfire, then a P45 chipset (and upwards) is the way to go? how do the PCI speeds relate in a performance level?
 
I kind of read that as if you plan on getting crossfire, then a P45 chipset (and upwards) is the way to go? how do the PCI speeds relate in a performance level?
Click to expand...
It doesn't matter as long as the cards are not bottlenecked, even the PCI-E 1.1 16X slot of P35 gives decent performance with a single PCI-E 2.0 card.
 
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