Hey guys! I am looking for a new motherboard! I would like it to stay under $180, i will be overclocking an e8400. so ya if anyone can help that would be great!!!!
abit ip35 pro mobo is a great overclocking board, and it fits right into your budget. It doesn't support SLI or crossfire though, so if your after those, no dice. P35 / p45 mobo's are great chipsets for overclocking if you have no need for sli, though some of the p35 and 45 boards do support crossfire.
i have read reviews that it is good i was gunna go with a dfi board but they ran out on newegg when it was an open box retail. Is abit's support good? and is the bios really easy? i have overclocked before but it was an older computer. i am gunna be useing an e8400 processor but i am waiting till they come out with E0 stepping for the e8400. here's the link to that: http://www.techpowerup.com/61345/In..._E3110_Moving_to_E-0_Stepping_Next_Month.html
Damn, i just purchased an e8400 about a month or 2 ago, oh well. I have yet to oc on this board, but when i was setting up the bios were very well organized and simple to follow. Lots of useful features, quality board.
With Intel's new P45 coming down in price, and having much better scaling with CrossFire (P35 wasn't all that great with regards to multi-GPU setups) I'd suggest looking into the replacement to P35. For $200 you can have the very popular Asus P5Q Deluxe P45 mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...50001315&Description=P45&bop=And&Order=RATING) or if you want to keep it under $180 and have a thing for DFI then their Lanparty DK P45 is only $160 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136050&Tpk=P45). I've had good and bad luck with Abit, they seem to be hit and miss. I'd suggest Asus, DFI, Gigabyte or MSI in place of Abit personally. IIRC all P35/45 boards support CrossFire, its in the Intel spec for the chipset, however P45 may support CrossFireX which I can't recall if P35 ever did (maybe in later revisions?) You also didn't mention whether you will be using DDR2 or DDR3 RAM in your system.
Sorry for out-of-subject but, do you think that the stepping will affect E8400's price? If yes, lower or higher? If no, do you think there will be a down of prices *just* before that change? Thanks, p3ri0d
Jasio:, I have bought two sets of 2 x 1gb OCZ ddr2 dual channel 800mhz, so 4 gbs total. This is because i am going to be using vista x64bit. Hopefully OCZ is as good as it was in my first pc! p3ri0d:, From what i have heard (which is just a little), it probably wont change the price, unless they change it totally like they did going from intel's e6700 to the newer e6750, which was a change in stepping and something else i cant remember. I hope its not more expensive! that would stink As of those board u told me Jasio, I have heard they are pretty good and i will look into them further! Thanks again for your help! Anyone else can suggest something it would be awesome! Thanks, Ace
The e6750 has a higher fsb speed than the e6700 (1333MHz instead of 1066MHz) which improved performance slightly at stock speed but made overclocking a little harder I think.
Or the Asus P5Q Pro (P45) for $139 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299 Still has 2 PCI-E slots but not all of the other extras on the Deluxe model.
I am moving more towards the ASUS P5Q-E, are p45 motherboard harder to overclock or does asus have an easier bios?
The more expensive Asus boards, you're paying for the on-board mini-Linux installation which Asus seems to be placing on all of their higher-end stuff now. In terms of overclock... both the P35 and P45 overclock very well, Asus does offer some Windows only based software overclocking tools which you can either find on the disk, or better yet grab the latest version from their website. On the other hand you can always overclock from the BIOS but if you want to be very cautious, and you're learning overclocking then the software might be a better option (easier interface, warnings if you're going to cause some kind of nuclear meltdown, etc).
I think i might go with the ASUS P5Q-E ATX Intel Motherboard. It looks like it overclocks really well, has 3 pci-e, plenty of sata, and supports 1600fsb, and many other sweet things. Just wondering if the southbridge is gunna get toasty? If anyone else has one of them comment on this and tell me if i am getting the right one! Thanks, Ace
The P5Q-E and Pro are good choices. The whole P5Q series comes with the built in Linux installation, not just the higher end models.
