X38 Express or P45! Help

engstrom0304 · 19 Jun 2008 at 20:06

What motherboard should i get

Thinking of P5Q series like a P5Q-E on the P45 side or Abit IX38 on the X38 Express.

AbitIX38
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...X38 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

P5Q-E
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Any other boards, similar price but im starting to go off Asus.

Meronem · 20 Jun 2008 at 09:57

I would say go with P45, its newer.

I got my p45 delivered the other day and will be putting my QX9650 in there over the weekend. Apparently people are getting some good clocks with the P45 series

Cob · 20 Jun 2008 at 13:05

P45.

X38 isn't all that great unless you need Crossfire. And even then P45's Crosfire is pretty good.

WesleyBurns · 20 Jun 2008 at 13:49

Just a question about these P45's - when using both PCI-E Ports both become x8, will that not effect Crossfire performance?

Meronem · 20 Jun 2008 at 13:55

people have benched p45 in 8x8 and x38 in 16x16 and there has been no noticable drop in peformance

WesleyBurns · 20 Jun 2008 at 14:08

Guess this sums it up

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/10/page_10_final_thoughts/index.html

Meronem · 20 Jun 2008 at 14:09

hmm interesting !

Scougar · 20 Jun 2008 at 16:40

Meronem said:
people have benched p45 in 8x8 and x38 in 16x16 and there has been no noticable drop in peformance

WesleyBurns said:
Guess this sums it up

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/10/page_10_final_thoughts/index.html

Which completely contradict each other lol.

So going on the 1st quote, who are "people"? I'd be more inclined to believe the tweaktown review, with the exception that there does seem to be a massive divide in performance which does really seem strange.

Matthew

Meronem · 20 Jun 2008 at 16:43

indeed !

by "people" I mean what I've read on other forums on the issue, what others were saying.

But yes I'd believe the tweaktown review also, this being the first time I've seen an acutal review on the subject !

redballoon · 20 Jun 2008 at 16:44

Does the tweaktown review suggest PCI-E 1.1 isn't good enough for the 4850 then? If PCI-E 2.0 with double the bandwidth @ x8 is bottlenecked?

HighlandeR · 20 Jun 2008 at 23:38

Personaly yeah the P45 boards a lot of people are saying its better overclock factor a better then the X38 boards.

But it still doesnt help the fact the X38 boards are cheaper and faster spec wise....

Tis a shame the P45 boards didnt get 16/16 pci express crossfire support, which imo is gonna make an important role in the new ATI cards.

For 120 quid id say X38 board like the Abit one.

Meronem · 21 Jun 2008 at 08:18

True. But the P45 is the replacement for the P35 series which is the mid range chipset. X38/X48 will be replaced with the X58 as the high end chipset, and THIS will have 16x16x pci-e 2.0 slots

WJA96 · 21 Jun 2008 at 08:50

I'm not sure what to make of the following;

2 x x4850 in CrossfireX on a JW X48D2-Extreme with the PCIe clock locked at 100MHz, goves a 3DMark '06 score of 18750. Turn up the PCI clock to 110, and the score increases to 20,100. Turn the PCIe up to 115, and the score increases to 20,200. To me that says they coul dbe limited by 2x 8x slots rather than 2x 16x slots.

easyrider · 21 Jun 2008 at 10:05

After having a look it seems the PCI-E lanes on the P45 limit the cards in some games.

Meronem · 21 Jun 2008 at 10:22

yep, it does seem to be at high resolutions too

easyrider · 21 Jun 2008 at 10:24

P45 is a great chipset for single cards.

If I was wanting 2 4850's in xfire then x38 or x48 would be my choice.

Shaolin Chicken · 21 Jun 2008 at 12:18

I'm not so sure.

The results are only from one site (tweaktown i believe) and only one p45 and one x48 have been tested for comparison.

More results are needed with different motherboards and from other sources.

pastymuncher · 21 Jun 2008 at 14:49

Shaolin Chicken said:
I'm not so sure.

The results are only from one site (tweaktown i believe) and only one p45 and one x48 have been tested for comparison.

More results are needed with different motherboards and from other sources.

Maybe so, but we know the 4x lane in P35 boards hurts crossfire so it would make sense that two 8x lanes are not going to be as good as two 16x lanes. It seems to make more of a difference at higher resoloutions where you need more grunt as well.

Shaolin Chicken · 21 Jun 2008 at 16:12

In terms of bandwidth though aren't the 8x gen 2 slots equivalent to 16x gen 1 slots.

WJA96 · 21 Jun 2008 at 18:46

Shaolin Chicken said:
In terms of bandwidth though aren't the 8x gen 2 slots equivalent to 16x gen 1 slots.

Yes, but two 16x PCIe 2.0 slots are equivalent to two 32x PCIe 1.1 slots.

Eventually something will be limited. Economising on motherboards is usually a bad idea eventually.