Bad axe 2 or P5w dh? Help me decide

[redboy]

I'm building myself a new C2D machine, my first build as matter of fact, i'll be getting a e6600 or e6700. I'm building it to play games on for the most part and plan to do some moderate OCing, but dont plan to go crazy. I already have most of the parts picked out, the only thing i havent decided on is the mobo, that much is obvious from the title of this post, and the memory (that will depend on which board i'll get). Basically i'm looking for 3 things in the mobo: stability, quad-core support (for future upgrade) and x-fire support. Both of these boards offer all of these things, i've read reviews for both and did some research and they all seem like they are good quality, though asus does seem to have more glitches than the bad axe, but nothing serious from what i understand. So what do you folks think intel or asus?

 

[yay]

From my experience Intel != performance, ASUS for sure Anything serious would be fixed via bios updates. i personally dont trust intell with anything other than processors, one of my mates intel board died when a bios chip fried, never found out why...

 

[redboy]

Thanks for the reply! So thatsone fror Asus, right?

I'm hoping to hear some more opinions on this, some personal expreriences with either board perhaps.

 

[Undert8726]

I built my Core 2 Duo system off of a P5W DH Deluxe and it can take anything i throw at it. Mixed with a E6600 I can clear over 3.2GHZ without the board even flinching. The one thing I do suggest if you do go the P5W DH way is to remove the passive cooling and change the in place heat paste with AS5 otherwise the board runs REALLY hot.

 

[core2drew]

the statement intel != performance isn't true at all.

knowing that you aren't going for some crazy overclocking, the bad axe board will be perfect for you.

it can do relatively mild overclocks and stay rock solid for years. it's built like a champ and it's meant to last.

 

[Tyhr]

I'd vote Bad Axe 2. From what I've been reading of people's experience, it's generally accepted as the most stable board - and stability was my first priority over all else.

That, plus the Asus name seems to have taken a sudden plunge downwards from what it used to be. I've been reading a lot more incompatibilty complaints with Asus boards than Intel's, and don't even get me started on the "Striker" strikeout. Yes, Asus does put out a lot of Bios updates on certain boards...but how many of those updates are to FIX previous problems that never should have been there in the first place? Not a bash against Asus - just an awareness. Considering just how many different motherboards and versions of each motherboard they offer, some things are bound to be missed. I still think it's a high quality company.

Having said that, I'm sure either board will be fine. Those were the 2 boards I was looking the most at when looking at 975. You might want to throw Abit's latest 975 "MAX" in your research too.

As for overclocking concerns, while it's true that Intel's boards could not keep up in the past, this does not appear to be true with the Bad Axe 2. The current record over at XtremeSystems with the X6800 chip is the Intel Bad Axe at over 5.5Ghz. (http://www.iamxtreme.net/coolaler/WR/x6800/wr_1m_5526_9000S_cpuz)
Most people seem to "easily" reach 3.6Ghz on a 6600 with air on the Bad Axe 2, so I wouldn't consider oc'ing a weakpoint. I fully expect to reach 3.6 on my 6600 BX2 when I want to, but I'll be keeping it at stock for the next month or so. I also don't think the Asus should have any "problems" reaching that speed either.

The best thing about it from what I've been reading on this and other sites is that while the Bad Axe 2 overclocks great, it's "stable" when doing so.

But honestly, whether it's the Intel, Asus or Abit - you'll be getting a very good board any way you slice it. None of them would be a mistake, and I don't think any of them are "clear cut" winners in any category. If you want built in Wi-Fi (which is nice, but I heard isn't too good compared to external routers) - the Asus would be the better choice.

I hear all 3 boards raved about often, but I've rarely ever seen someone complain about their Bad Axe 2. Can't say the same for the others.

 

[cattbert]

I purchased the Bad Axe 2 (late Nov. - rev. 503) because I was looking for something that would be rock-solid stable and as problem free as I could get and read so many good things about the original Bad Axe in that regard. I figured that the Bad Axe 2 was just building on that, so I was hoping for similar results. I do not know whether I just got a bad board or if there are still problems being worked out, but it will occassionally (appx 1 out of 10 starts) boot up to a blank screen with just a cursor at the top. It will also occassionally reorder my boot sequence and then come up with an error message when it tries to boot to the wrong device. I have been holding out hoping these issues would be addressed by a BIOS update, but it has not happened yet.

I am sure there are plenty of P5w users with problems as well ... and mine could be indicative of a bad board ... so this is just an FYI.

I am sure you already noted what comes with it, but I was disappointed that they dropped the front panel that comes with the original Bad Axe. Lastly, while not a deal-breaker for me, I am still baffled that Intel does not provide an e-sata port, but does provide serial and parallel ports, on such a high-end board.

 

[Tyhr]

It will also occassionally reorder my boot sequence and then come up with an error message when it tries to boot to the wrong device.

I am still baffled that Intel does not provide an e-sata port, but does provide serial and parallel ports, on such a high-end board.

Come to think of it, I think mine might have re-ordered by boot sequence too. (Can't say for sure if it was the board or my imagination, as I've been doing lots of setting changes). Long story short, I'm triple booting my system:
XP, OSX and Linux (Ubuntu). Someday I'll probably put Vista in there too, lol. But I've having some hiccups with the XP/OSX boot setup, and just dismissed it as that.

As for eSata - it should be the red port on the Marvell controller. I use it. I also bought OEM and not retail, so I didn't get a USB bracket or 2 extra Sata connectors, and I just assumed not an eSata connector.
No biggie for me as I already had an extra USB bracket - plus the front ones on my P180. I have enough Sata cables (and would be cheaper to buy them instead of retail board). And my external hard drive case came with it's own eSata bracket.

My personal beef with the XBX2 is that in the Bios, (as far as I know so far), the SATA option can only be 1 of 3 things: IDE, ACHI or RAID.
I wish the SATA options were unique for both the Intel ports and the Marvell ports. I'd personally want RAID on my Intel Matrix ports, and IDE on my Marvell.

(Considering my external drive is SATA1 and my internals are all SATA2 - it's a problem at the moment, as the ACHI/RAID isn't recognizing my external unless the BIOS is in IDE mode)

 

[redboy]

Guys, thanks for all the replies! Well, so far, if i'm counting it properly, we got 2 votes for bad axe, 2 for asus and 1 poster wasnt happy with bad axe, so i'm not sure how to count that one. It would be inetresting to do a poll on this, but since i'm new to this forum and still not exactly sure how to do it.

Anyway, let me say something that i should have said in the beginning. First of all i dont plan to use RAID (getting 1 WD Raptor 150 GB and 1 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250 GB) so whatever issues both boards had witn RAID wont affect me. Also I'm leaning towards the Asus board for 1 main reason: i need the 3 PCI slots, bad axe only has 2. I need them for an X-FI sound and PCI wireless card and piossibly physics card later on or to sacrifice 1 of them for the vid card . A lot will depend on what type of card i get. I'm planning on getting 2 Radeon X1950 pro cards, which come in 2 different varieties: 1 with the oversized cooling device, 1 without. If i get the 1 with the cooling device i'll sacrfice 1 PCI-E and 1 conventional PCI slot, that will leave me with 2 PCI slots for sound and wireless on the asus board, if i do that on the bad axe i'll have only 1 PCI slot left and thats not an option. Futhermore, when i upgrade to the next gen of R600 cards, they are likely to be huge and will probably take 2 slots anyway, i want the board to be futureproof in that sense. On the other hand i can get the bad axe and get 2 vid cards without the coolers and get a new board when i upgrade to the next vid card. It is likely that the vid cards wont need the coolers, i'm getting a nice case with good airflow (thermaltake armor) which has 4 fans already and hopefully that will keep the cards cool. This is one of the reasons i discounted the ABIT 975x board, only 1 PCI slot, but what a great board.

I know its a tough choice, and stability is very important to me, and i obviously want good performance both at stock speeds and slighly overclocked as well. So keep it coming guys, i'm interested in hearing about what issues both boards have, hopefully that will help me make up my mind.

 

[Tyhr]

Neither of the 2 boards you're asking about has any kind of issue with RAID that I'm aware of. (there was a mention of eSata - but that's not RAID).

Didn't know the Asus had an extra PCI slot.
Yeah, my Bad Axe 2 has only 2 PCI slot, and 3 PCI-E slots. I wish PCI-E was backwards compatible with PCI, but whatever.

Do you already have the X-Fi audio card? I've been happy with the onboard sound. I think there's a version of the Asus too that has built in Wi-Fi, in case you don't already own that.

Too bad no RAID - the Intel Matrix chipset has one of the best motherboard RAID's around, although the 965's do it better with the ICH8R.

If you're really gung-ho on Crossfire, make sure you at least check out DFI's RD600 motherboard as well. Better oc on Core 2 Duo's, but last I checked, not as impressive on the Quads. I'm sure this will change in the future with BIOS. Support may be/is a question. For video performance (gaming), I would guess they'd do Crossfire the best. Ironically, the benchmarks show that the RD600 performs better than the nvida 680i when using a single NVIDIA video card... It also uses the least amount of power and generates the least amount of heat. The independent memory speed to fsb was a huge selling point to me - ram would never limit your CPU overclock.

Why did I pick the XBX2 over the RD600 or even the Commando (965 gen 2)? Primarily because of the ICH7R southbridge.

Why you ask - knowing the the ICH8R and the S600 is superior to the ICH7R? Because I'm a geek, and was willing to lose a little bit of performance to gain big compatibility with Mac's OSX. If that wasn't the case, I'd be looking at either the Asus Commando or DFI's RD600.

PS - DFI's RD600 has the ugliest and most child-like box I've ever seen...

 

[redboy]

Yes, i have researched the DFI lanparty R600 and was thinking of getting it. However, board is too new, still has lots of issues, way more than the bad axe or the asus board. Furthermore, with so may BIOS options it is hard to get the board to obey you from what i've been told, i was told that a beginner like me will have a hard time with it.I'm not a big BIOS tweaker and i'll be happy with whathever intel and asus has to offer, though asus board has more options. I'm willing to explore them no matter which board i get though. Since stability is my primary concern i decided not to get the R600 board, though i admit i was tempted, perhaps later on when everything is worked out i'll get it.

As far as RAID goes, i' dont really need it, but judging from newegg reviews folks using the asus board had a hard time with EZ-RAID, there wwere reports about that with the bad axe as well, but to much lesser extent. Some peopler seem to have it working, while some have problems. But like i said its nothing for me to worry about. I'm glad that you are happy with your RAID setup as well.

 

[Nomans63]

redboy,
I don't have an ASUS P5 board so I can't help you to compare both boards, but I do have a Bad Axe2 "mildly" OC'ed with X6800. From my experience with that board, the Bad Axe2 is fairly "easy" and straight foward to overclock, but its overclockability is limited. My X6800 is currently running @ 3.35Ghz with 1.35V. It used to run 3.5GHz stable at 1.4V but drop the OC frequency suddenly to 3.35 without any change of BIOS settings (or not that I'm aware of).

Besides of this little issue. the system runs fine and rock solid. I just have to accept that fact, even though I was expecting a little more on OC from this board. I would be more happy if my system could stay @3.6GHz instead 3.35.

 

[redboy]

Hey Nomans, i appreciate the info! The fact that the bad axe has limited overclockability doesnt matter to me that much, like i said i dont plan to go crazy no matter which board i choose but in the beginning i'll be running at stock speeds just to see how that goes. Though i do like the fact that asus board overclocks so easy due to its features. I am curious about something though, you have a fast processor as it is, what kind of program/game you are running that you need to be going to 3.6 Ghz? Or you are just checking to see how much can you push it, is that it?

 

[jjw]

I have a BadAx... I haven't had any problems. I wasn't interested in overclocking.

My previous Asus board was pretty good, except the bios battery continually died. Asus did not respond to any of my emails-- this is pretty typical Asus, they don't care about the customer, do some searching very few people will give Asus credit for customer service.

 

[redboy]

Thanks for the warning! I know their customer support is horrible, i too had an asus board before with very few problems, that is one of the resons i'm considering this one.

Another 2 votes for intel, which leading asus 4 to 2 for now. Any P5W DH owners out there who have any kind words to say about asus?

 

[Nomans63]

Hey Nomans, i appreciate the info! The fact that the bad axe has limited overclockability doesnt matter to me that much, like i said i dont plan to go crazy no matter which board i choose but in the beginning i'll be running at stock speeds just to see how that goes. Though i do like the fact that asus board overclocks so easy due to its features. I am curious about something though, you have a fast processor as it is, what kind of program/game you are running that you need to be going to 3.6 Ghz? Or you are just checking to see how much can you push it, is that it?

Yeah, you're right. I just want to see how far I can push the Bad Axe2 without a lot of headache. I don't really need to OC at all because all my games are running fine at the X6800 stock speed. But once you can run your system @3.6 GHz, you'll love it. It's not the same as 3.35 GHz, and not the same as stock speed. However, just like you, I don't plan to do some extreme OCing due to the known limitation of the board, i.e. I don't want to push it to 4.0GHz at all cost. So I just stop @3.6 GHz (now @3.35 GHz). See, it's really easy. Once you have set up the other OC parameters, all you have to do is to tinker a little bit with the FSB and CPU core voltage. If the board tell you it fails to boot, you back off. That's it.

 

[redboy]

I hear you, bro, good luck getting it to 3.6 Ghz

 

[redboy]

Ok, folks, i think i made up my mind, i'll be going with the bad axe. I've done a bit more research and it seems that it is recomend more than the asus board though no 3rd PCI slot on this one, sucks! But it does have a PCI-E x4 slot, that i can hopefully use for the ATI physics card.

Also I would like someone to recomend me some DDR2-800 RAM, for some moderate OCig, that will be compatible with this board.

 

[jjw]

Try Patriot. I haven't OC but have heard good things.

 

[redboy]

Which patriot model are you using? I need a 2 GB dual module kit. As you know this board is quite picky with memory supporting only unbuffered single-sided or double-sided ECC DIMMs and Non-ECC DIMMs 1.8v - 1.9v. I was actually considering getting one of these 2 modules, it looks like they meet those requirements:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146108

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146118

I want memory that will boot right out of the box with no tweaking, i can change everything in BIOS later.

Also i have a question regarding the electrical PCI-E slots, what exactly does that mean, other boarrds dont refer to their PCI-E as electrical, is this a good or a bad thing?

 

[jjw]

Sadly I have neither...

I have these (link)

Back in August, If I remember right the faster RAM was mostly 2.1-2.3 volts.

As for the PCIE slots. If a slot is mechanically 16x it means you can physically install a 16x (or less) card. You should be able to install pretty much any PCIE card. My board has 3 -physical 16x PCIE slots.

When the slot is specified as an 'electrical' 4x, it means that there are only 4 PCIE lanes connected. When a 16x card is installed only 4 lanes of the card will be used. This is what happens with the old SLI motherboards that were 16x/1x or 8x/8x. When 2 graphics cards were installed, both cards ran with 8x electrical connections.

This actally was one of the things I liked most about this board. If in the future I want to install a 8x or 4x PCIE RAID card, I can. In my research I found that many boards (or at least bios support) had problems with RAID cards in the 2nd slot.

Clear as mud

 

[redboy]

Hey,

Thanks for the reply! Looks like whatver you have wont work for me though, i need PC2-6400, but appreciate the suggestion.I was looking around at newegg and didnr see many sticks of DDR2-800 RAM that were 1.8 or 1.9, but i was able to find some. On top of what i mentioned in my previous post there is also these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227169

OCZ & ATI teamed up to bring us these nice looking modules for crossfire setups.

And these 2 Corsair modules that will work on bad axe according to reviews:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145589

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145590

I personally like the pro version better, looks like a good overclocker. Unfortunately most of them are out stock, so i may have to get em elsewhere.

Has anyone tried these out?