GA-EP45-*.*

BusError

BusError

BusError

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8 Apr 2008
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Since I bagged that cheap 9650, I think I might want to upgrade the mobo too. One thing which I now miss on this GA board is another gigabyte port, so I can hook one from the MacPro and one from the other machine to use Jumbo Frames (9k frames goodness) for filesharing.

Thew new P45 boards are mighty confusing, there so many of them ! Anyone had a good 'feature matrix' to try to discriminate them ? I obviously don't need 4 gig ports, and I don't need their encryption chipset either, nor any of the custom gizmos that need a Windows app to work, since I don't use windows...

So, DS4 ? But wich one ? R ? L ? T (?); DS5 ? What about the "U" ones, what are they about anyway ?
 
I have the p45 ds5 and would certainly recommend it very fast stable board that has been trouble free since i installed it. I opted for it as i needed the ten sata ports and at the time it was the only one i could find that had that. Also i havn't seen anything major about it on any forum so looks like it is generally a good board to have.
 
I bagged one of the cheap 9650's as well and decided to go down the Gigabyte route. I ended up going for the EP45 Extreme due to the price having dropped so much on OcUK. Other competitors prices are nowhere even close to the price here at the moment. I'm still waiting for a few more bits to set everything up so can;t comment on the board at the moment but it feels like the second bargain of the system so far. Well worth a look for the price and seems to have had good reviews, some of them even change when you consider that it's now cheaper on here than a P5Q Deluxe.
 
Thanks for the tip, that Extreme one looks really mean ! I usualy only go for mild overclocks, so with the amount of cooling onboard it's going to be a very quiet quad setup!
 
I ordered the Extreme this morning. Thanks for the tip about the pricing; it's silly to buy a 110 pounds entry level one when the top of the range is 30 quid more !
 
Nice! It is a really good deal.:D

A couple of things to note that may save you time.

Fit the extra heatpipe assembly before the cpu cooler or you won't be able to reach the screws for it. I guess it depends which cooler you're fitting though. I installed the Noctua on it and I assume the same would the correct for the TRUE.

There's no issue with clearance (fitted vertically with fan blowing to the back of case) however it's best to fit the fan when you install the cooler or you'll have a tricky time getting the fan clips on due to the height of the waterblock.

I used the Noctua thermal compound for the extra heatpipe assembly although this proved to be an absolute nightmare to spread on due to the grooves, holes etc. I wish I had just used the bundled compound as the consistency of it was far more suited to the job at hand.

I hope this helps and saves you some time. Good luck with the new build. :)
 
Thanks, I think I'll get delivery tomorrow, so I'll yank the chassis apart on wednesday ;D

Do you use an aftermarket CPU cooler ? I use the AK-965, I hope it's not a nightmare to fit the lot back into the case !
 
OK received it, and installed it earlier with the q9650. stock for now, I haven't tried anything else for the moment.

I didn't have too many problems fitting stuff in. The only issue is that the card-like bezel of the copper heatsink doesn't fit my case exactly; it's s bit too wide. Still managed to get it working tho.
Since I was replacing another GB board, it was easy.

Oh, the board shipped with a VERY outdated biod : F3. I immediately flashed to F8 using a USB stick.
 
I really need to get that bios flashed as well. I hadn't even checked until you mentioned that there. Noob...I know.Haha! Oh...and, yeah, I do use an aftermarket cpu cooler. I'm using the Noctua NH-U12P and am happy with the noise levels or lack thereof.

This isn't my first build although it's my first time trying to overclock so I'm trying to take things slowly at the moment. So far I'm extremely happy with the board and the chip. :D

I saw in the other thread you've managed to get it to 4ghz with no problems. Nice! I've only got mine at 3.825 at the moment although the vcore is only at 1.184 which I'm pretty happy with for the moment. It will be good to do some more reading on here and start to push it further when I'm sure I'm on the right track and not going to damage anything.
 
Well, seems the board is pretty resilient. I bumped directly to 4.04 Ghz to start with on stock voltage and it didn't like it at all. I did it to see how it would fail.. the answer is that it doesn't post and beep continuously. I then pressed the 'clear CMOS' button at the back and it rebooted in 'failsafe' settings.

I use the Alaska AK 965 cooler, I didn't t have a single problem fitting it in either, there's room to spare.

I'll stick to 3.6 for now, the temps are mid 30s at idle and barely reach 60C at full load, the noise is just barely higher than stock speeds too. I added temp sensors to the PSU (30C stable) and memory (36C stable at 960Mhz) and I'm quite happy with the whole system !

One thing I didn't managed to get to work is the sensors in Linux. seems the usual suspect of board sensor chipset don't work with such a 'fancy' board.. I'll have to try to figure if I can get it working.

Would you think we should create a topic for this board ? seems theres only the two of us so far, but we never know :D
 
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Yeah...I definitely think it's worth an "owners" thread. It was different when this was still £185 here and the P5Q Deluxe was about £130 odd but with this board now being cheaper I think it's good to have a thread about it and let people see the alternatives to the almost immediately recommended P5Q Deluxe. Obviously the p5Q is quality however this board is an absolute beast for the price, not to mention the prospect for watercooling. :D
 
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