Next board - Mid-Range... Suggestions?

FatRakoon · 2 Jul 2008 at 04:11

Ok, my main board for the last couple of years has done me so proud, its a Gigabyte DS3 and quite frankly, while its now a tad long in the tooth, its done me so very proud.

A Few months ago, on my No2 C2D setup, I got an Abit AB9 QuadGT, however, while the specs on this are close, if not better than the DS3, I found it to be a bit of a poor board, so I upped it to a Gigabyte DS4.

Now, the DS3 had recently been hit by a storm. I have since been running the LAN through a PCI card as the onboard jobbie has somehow gone awol... Apart from that, its been a fine board.

Oh, and annoyingly, I have not been able to run Vista64 either for more than a month ( Never figured out why )

Anyway, I think its time to move away from the DS3, but Im looking to a board that has the same functions and features, the same absolutely ludicrous overclocking ability blah blah, needs 6 SATA ports at leats and IDE ( 4 If possible ) but is not a DS3, DS4 or AB9

Price-wose Im looking at under the ton mark, however for *** right board I can stretch just fine... Id just rather not if I can help it.

I also need at least 3 PCI and I dont need SLI or XFIRE

bledd · 2 Jul 2008 at 11:38

i would have suggested P35-DS3R or L

the newer PXX-DSX range too...

FatRakoon · 2 Jul 2008 at 12:05

Isnt the DS3R DDR3?

Ok, I need it to be DDR2

The DS3L is what Im on now isnt it? - Ok, I iwll re-phrase that... The Board im on now is a DS3L.

Buying the same board is certainly a sensible option for more than one reason and its an option that I a mliking a lot, but at the same time, I want to also know that I have bought an upgrade too if you see what I mean?

bledd · 2 Jul 2008 at 14:13

the p35-ds3r is the same as the p35-ds3l, just has raid and a bigger heatsink (and the 2.1 version does away with parallel and serial ports, so has 8x rear usb2 ports!

personally i'm dead happy with the new gigabyte boards, i'd stick with them

what are your 3 pci slots for?

most newer boards tend to have 2 max..

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

^has 4, and has crossfire (i know you don't want that)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

^has 2 and no crossfire

also, if you want to go away from gigabyte, this asus is a decent price http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

FatRakoon · 2 Jul 2008 at 16:06

Its not you know... I just had a peek and the DS3R is DDR3 and the only DS3 that is DDR2 is the DS3L - according to what OCUK list anyway.

But thats by the by...

No, I dont want to move away from Gigabyte just "Because". I am very happy with them at this time, the Abit AB9 QuadGT is a great board too, but a bloody awful BIOS layout... I was just thinking that I fancied an upgrade to newer board.

Im not up os ASUS boards, but that one you suggest certainly looka busy little bugger... I think I like it.

Thanks Mate... I will look into that one a bit more, and that way one of the kids can have this DS3 instead.

FatRakoon · 3 Jul 2008 at 03:47

Ok, I went and got that Asus P5Q.

Been looking a bit more and found a few boards, but this just looks chunky as hell, so its done and dusted now... All I need to do, is get it past Customs ( The wife ).

You also asked about why I wanted 3 PCI slots, and at this time, on the DS3, all 3 are taken up by

1 - SoundCard
Having a LiveDrive is a must for me for a few reasons
a - My speakers dont have a headphone phone socket
b - I need the I/O panels as I do use them all the time
c - looks better than not having them

2 - TV Card
Again, something that I use

3 - LAN Card
Couple of months ago, a storm took my LAN port out on this board, forcing me to
resort to a LAN card. This is in place of the TV Card for the time being.

4 - IDE Card
I have 4 DVDRW Drives, and 8 HDs coupled with a ZIPDrive in my main PC.
9 Devices in both IDE and SATA Flavours.

marc2003 · 3 Jul 2008 at 06:08

FatRakoon said:
Its not you know... I just had a peek and the DS3R is DDR3 and the only DS3 that is DDR2 is the DS3L - according to what OCUK list anyway.

hehe, in this case ocuk have got it wrong. that ds3r is ddr2 only but i see they have it listed it as ddr3. oops.

it's the p35c-ds3r (note the c) that takes ddr3 (but has 4 slots for ddr2 also). the p35 ds3r and p35 ds3l are ddr2 only.

But thats by the by...

FatRakoon · 9 Jul 2008 at 19:29

I thought it seemed odd, but there you go... Mistakes happen to the best of them.