Time for a change!

Big.Wayne · 19 May 2007 at 20:15

Arclite said:
please help

Big.Wayne said:
I can highly recommend [the P5B-Series] if you can get it for a good price. There are also lots of good boards from other manufacturers that use the INTEL P965 Chipset, its nearly a year old now so most of the bugs/kinks have been worked out and its on its way to becoming a 'mature' solution.

WJA96 · 19 May 2007 at 20:29

Arclite said:
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650

A couple of questions about this mobo. Does this have 2x16 SLi or 2x8Sli?

It's 2 8x channels and I couldn't recommend it for big video cards as card 2 blocks the SATA ports.

Arclite said:
Does it support 1333Mhz fsb?

Yes - But not Penryn (Wolfdale/Yorkfield) - only P35 supports those.

Arclite said:
Also, if i do buy this one (which im on the verge of, just looking around for more reviews) do i need to buy an extra heatsink for the North south bridges because i have read in the buyers review on OcUK people have replaced there southbridge heatsink in order to safely overclock their C2D. Please let me remind you once again. Im looking to clock my e6300 above 3Ghz and have it stable with my current specs.

Additional airflow on the stock heatsink is strongly recommended. You can replace it with a 3rd party unit, but unless you have good airflow, they are really no better.

The Southbridge cooler is un-necessary and again, it will block the 2nd graphics card, so I'd like to see pictures from anyone claiming to be running 2 8800's in SLi with a cooler on the Southbridge.

I honestly believe that many of the OcUK 'reviews' are made up. Those reviews are;

3 x 5* by Max Guerola - Not an OcUK Forums username
1 x 5* by Dark Angel - Dark Angel has a P5N-E SLi and a verified overclock
1 x 5* by David - Could be anyone
1 x 5* by Mike - Could be anyone
1 x 5* by Pihrana - Not an OcUK Forums username
1 x 5* by Morph - Not an OcUK Forums username
1 x 5* by Lewis - Could be anyone
1 x 5* by Stant0s - Verified OcUK user, but no verified overclock result
1 x 5* by poullos - Not an OcUK Forums user
1 x 5* by Gwyn - You've guessed it - could be anyone.

And all the information is pretty vague too.

WJA96 · 19 May 2007 at 20:35

Arclite said:
The gigabyte Ds3P looks an attractive option so far havent come across any negative reviews but for the P5N-E sli i have read some bad ones. Ok i can let go off sli, now, does the DS3P (FSB1333mHz) overclock well with the E6300?

I know im asking too many questions but i just dont want to screw up like last time so please bare with me and also please help

The DS3 (and the DS3P and the other P965 boards) is the classic E6300 overclocking board. It's almost guaranteed to give you 2.8GHz with PC6400 RAM and most E6300's will do 3.2GHz if the RAM is good enough.

I have to agree with Big.Wayne - the P5B series is excellent value at the moment and the P5B-E still holds the record for the highest E6300 overclock achieved on air on these forums (as far as I am aware) at 4GHz.

If you don't need SLi, don't buy a P5N-E SLi - there are more straightforward boards for the money.

Arclite · 19 May 2007 at 23:38

Thanks ever so much for your help WJA96 and everyone else. I really appreciate your help!

Arclite · 19 May 2007 at 23:45

WJA96 said:
I have to agree with Big.Wayne - the P5B series is excellent value at the moment and the P5B-E still holds the record for the highest E6300 overclock achieved on air on these forums (as far as I am aware) at 4GHz.

I assume that you mean the P5B deluxe version of this board?Cant find the P5B-E version on OcUK.

If you did then i think that i would have to sacrifice some bells and whistles and go for the cheaper DS3P. Just after that 3Ghz mark really

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2007 at 01:08

Get the P5B-E Plus if you want to spend less.

If overclockers.co.uk don't sell it find somewhere that does

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 01:21

thanks

WJA96 · 20 May 2007 at 08:20

Arclite said:
I assume that you mean the P5B deluxe version of this board?Cant find the P5B-E version on OcUK.

If you did then i think that i would have to sacrifice some bells and whistles and go for the cheaper DS3P. Just after that 3Ghz mark really

No - the P5B-E is an enhanced P5B - better than the P5B-Deluxe, and significantly cheaper too. As Big.Wayne says - don't be corralled into buying something excessively expensive just because the supplier that supports these forums doesn't stock it.

These forums are not linked to the store.

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 11:27

Thanks again!

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 11:28

Is £80 seems about right for a new P5B-E? Also does it support quad core with a bios update?

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 11:44

Okay just to confirm:

Asus P5B-E is the board (I guess there are no different revisions for this one)

It overclocks well, saw a review with E6300@ 515x7 stable but at C2 stepping (whatever that means).

No voltage modding required or extra cooling needed for the north/south bridges. Just saw that its quad core ready (but someone please confirm it http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1018).

Only downside i guess would be that it doesnt have sli or crossfire but as long as it gets me the 3Ghz mark and its quad core readiness would be a good future prospect.

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2007 at 13:35

Arclite said:
Asus P5B-E [Plus] is the board (I guess there are no different revisions for this one)

Got mine for £77 delivered.

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 14:39

Is it at all possible if you could tell me where you got the mobo from? I know you cant state the retailer but in some other way which doesnt violate the forum rules.

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 14:44

Is it sensible to buy the Plus version? They are not many obvious additional quirks that i can see on the Plus.

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 17:10

So Based on your suggestions and my own snooping around.

The finalised choices, in order of preference are:

1. P5B-E plus- FSB clocks in excess of 500Mhz, no additional cooling required, quad core compatible, supports fsb 1333Mhz.

2. Gigabyte DS3P- Clocks around 450Mhz, quade core, crossfire support (although 1x16x and 1x4x)FSB 1333Mhz, a bit more expensive than P5B-E.
Been considered to be very reliable amongst users.

Hmm, So last show of hands before i take the plunge!!!

Option 1 or option 2?

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2007 at 17:21

Arclite said:
Is it sensible to buy the Plus version? They are not many obvious additional quirks that i can see on the Plus.

I was gonna buy the vanilla P5B as its a good board and the price is great, however I noticed it didn't have onboard Firewire so then I was looking at the P5B-E. After looking about I noticed the P5B-E Plus was selling for less than the P5B-E so I went for that.

The P5B-E Plus is a bit of a dark horse as its fairly new and not a lot of people here have banged on about it, its going for the same price as the Gigabyte DS3 which appears to be the 'budget' champion around these parts. The DS3 was actually a few pound cheaper than the P5B-E Plus but I prefere the looks of the ASUS board as well as the fact its made from better quality components.

We are not allowed to discuss other eTailors on these forums sorry, but the board was £77 using gOOgle checkout.

Good Luck.

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 18:06

One more thing, do i need ddr2 1000 to get to 500Mhz fsb speeds or my 2gb (4x512mb) geil ultra low lat is enough?

Big.Wayne · 20 May 2007 at 18:17

Well you need DDR2 memory that can run at 500MHz if you wanna run your system at 500MHz-FSB. That's how it is on the INTEL P965 chipset anyway.

I'm not sure if the GEIL stuff can run that fast though, I'm also not sure how a system overclocks using four sticks of memory.

For memory specifics be sure you have a good read through the memory forums

Arclite · 20 May 2007 at 19:04

thanks mate,

Just read this, its a similar setup although i know that its 2x1Gb geil kit but theres no harm in trying. may be it might work. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17730997

*Chris · 20 May 2007 at 19:26

good luck with it then