Doing some upgrades, suggestions?

[inactionman]

I've got an Asus nforce 650i Sli mobo at the moment, and it's showing it's age, and the issues they have (vdroop, memory incompatibility, FSB ceiling so can't O/C my Q6600 as much as it should, can't use 45nm cpus, etc.). So now that I have an ATI 4870 and I don't need Sli anymore, I'm looking at a new motherboard, possibly with a new processor (Q9550 after this week's price cuts, maybe).

The problem is that there are so many motherboards out there that I've got a severe case of indecision due to too much choice! There's so many X48/P45 mobos!

What do I want? Ideally I'd be looking at something like a DFI P45, but I don't think they aren't out over here yet, and I'm hoping to do the upgrade next monday.

I'm looking for good overclocking and similar features, with space for a noctua cooler. Well I don't need built in audio, as I have a xonar (why can't we get mobo's without built in audio anymore?). I don't want DDR3, as DDR2 does the job for me and it's cheap. I don't do water-cooling, too fiddly and too much chance of leaks. I'm not sure I need multiple graphics cards anymore, as I can just get a 4870x2 if I need more power, although having the option there in the future would be handy.

 

[Kryten]

It all really depends on the budget and target use for the system - you're mentioning overclocking and DFI so I'm assuming you just want to squeeze every last bit out of the system.

The P45 is the current mainstream board which won't dissapoint especially for it's low price, the "one to get" is the Asus P5Q series (again there's a load of options with extra hardware, multiple graphics slots for crossfire etc). They will still offer some good overclocking juice without sacrificing reliability, just as the P35 series was. Otherwise Gigabyte are continuing their trend of decent quality kit with the GA-EP45 range, going from around 100 to 200 of our earth pounds depending on options.

Not a personal fan of DFI but I've yet to hear anything from them on the P45 front.

X48 is probably the pinnacle as far as overclocking goes but you'll certainly be paying the premium, as you no doubt know - but saying that the midrange P45 chipset boards do interlope in the price ranges of the X48 boards - specifically where DFI may well come in. I believe its the DFI T2R range for around 130-150 squid, the main difference is the 3rd PCIEx16 slot for triple crossfire.

Still a lot of money to pay, being honest. 100 notes will land an Asus P5Q-E midrange, and just like it's predecessor the P5K-E will still leave you plenty of room for overclocking

I quite agree with the DDR3/DDR2 thing, money better spent on more DDR2 really.

 

[inactionman]

Never had a DFI mobo before, just that the reviews say they are good for overclocking.

Thanks for the suggestion, the many varieties of P5Q are interesting, particularly the P5Q-E, however the sheer number of them is getting a bit silly! I'll have to investigate if they suffer from droop, as a lot of Asus boards seem to get that.

Although, as you point out, the difference between a high end P45 and a low end X48 isn't that much.

 

[Kryten]

Not really noticed any detrimental effects on my Asus, nor vdroop but then I've not really been taking my processor to "that" high when clocking: on both e6600 and q6600's I've gone up to 3.4 stable but keeping both at 3ghz for heat, power consumption and general "no need to be any faster than that" reasons.

Don't like DFI kit personally as in the past I've noticed a trend for components that are less in quality than you expect from the likes of MSI, but I've not had a close goosey at the new kit; being perfectly honest with solid polymer caps these days you shouldn't be able to go too far wrong. Have certainly noted a *lot* of impressive and succesful overclocks on them.

 

[inactionman]

The other board I've been looking at is this. Heard some good things about this board, in layout, overclocking and features but it's not a brand I've heard much about.

 

[Kryten]

Only chinese motherboard maker I know of is ECS, who are best at their intended market of *very* midrange products, and when I say midrange, I mean desktop email and entertainment machines rather than gaming and high end.

Oddly though, visually the board looks more like an MSI which are avoidable as they are.
Some odd specs on it though : max 8gb ram? my board is well over a year old and will take 16 without batting an eyelid. I'd personally give that one a wide berth especially at that price.

Ah, it appears J&W is the manufacturer. Certainly never heard of them, but the board itself looks suspect and that northbridge cooler, I doubt will allow for a Noctua.

And another edit, as an afterthough, you going to be playing with large, high performance or RAID hard drives?
If so, I'd skip the X48 for the P45 due to the older ICHR9 chipset in use on the X48, which as you'll have noticed elsewhere on these forums causes a few concerns.

 

[inactionman]

Not likely to RAID my desktop, I've got a NAS for that kind of thing. Large, high performance? Like a 1 Tb Hitachi?

My only concern with the P45 is that it can only supply 2x 8 lanes in crossfire, and as i'm highly unlikely to need that, I can probably live with it.

 

[Yaka]

jw up until recently made some asus, abit and gigabyte mobos and some via imbedded mobos used in atms and pos terminals and such. as for the board it self those overclockers who use ice and nitrogen etc to hit isane speeds are recommending it to everyone. personaly i would suggest a more stable day to day mobo over this one

oc.uk are prolly milking it if they got exclusive uk sales

hardly any english reviews of it tho

 

[Kryten]

The more I look at it, the more it looks like a recapped MSI board.
Wasn't aware they've been making other boards, but as Yaka rightly says if OCUK have an "exclusive" on it they'll no doubt milk it for everything it's worth. For the money, stick with something that'll be reliable as well as offer the performance you need - but more to the point, somewhere you can get decent support. I know Abit and Asus's sites are both typically slower than a nun driving a lada on the M25 at peak traffic time but at least the content therein (and content provided by 3rd parties) is worth your time and effort.

 

[inactionman]

True, think I may go for the P5Q Deluxe. The embedded linux is useful, as is the heatpipe to the south bridge.

Still waiting on the imminent intel price cuts to decide what cpu to get though.

 

[Kryten]

Aye, just noticed they've murdered the prices, few days then the retailers should start to show it.
I'm guessing we might (hopefully!) start to see things like the G0 Q6600 hit £100 inc VAT.

 

[inactionman]

Looks like the DFI P45's have started to hit the UK. I may pick up one of these:

Scan Computers UK: DFI DK P45-T2RS, iP45 Express, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1066, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

 

[Kryten]

Doesn't look at all bad on specs or features. Physically looks bloody awful though, just like all DFI kit

More to the point though that's a very competitive price, just let us know how it performs, looks like one to recommend

 

[inactionman]

It's even cheaper than that on today only. Hearing it's may have a few bios problems at the moment, only with high overclocks (500MHz+ FSB), but they are fixing the issues with each bios update.

Apparently the price cuts on quad cores are not happening until the new ones are released on the 10th of August, so considering waiting on upgrading the processor until then.