Hi all. I'm currently swapping pieces of my system out having recently purchased one of the glorious g0 batch of Q6600 CPU's.

At present, everything lives in the DFI Infinity 975X/G hotel, but i'm seeing a lot of good reviews for Asus and Gigabyte boards.

With the current range available and with overclocking in mind, what would you guys buy? I'd prefer to stick to Crossfire as I have an X1950XTX and X1950 Master-card and as i'm not a bleeding edge kinda guy, P35 seems to be the best option for me at the moment. I also have the Swiftech H20 Apex Ultra+ kit with an extra single radiator and YS-Tech 120mm Fan (like a friggin turbine engine cooler 125cfm woot) which i will be using on this board and kit.

Any help here is greatfully received.


Insomnai

I've seen the Gigabyte GA_P35_DS4 and the Asus P5K Premium WI-FI/AP boards which look pretty good spec wise.

Any more light on this would be great.

Instead P5K-PREMIUM , look for P5K-E , but remember something , 975x chipset support CrossFire @ 8x mode , but P35 boards support crossfire @ 16x4x mode , (With the exception of ASUS BLITZ Formula and ASUS BLITZ Extreme)

Thanks for the input there! Is there a reason to leave out the p5k premium board and go for the p5k-e? I've read that some people are having problems with that particular board and didn't want to get caught short...

Thanks again


Insomnai

i recommend P5K-E over P5K PREMIUM because they dont have a lot of difference and also P5K-E is cheaper

here are the specs :
P5K-E :
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx? [...] odelmenu=2

P5K PREMIUM:
http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx? [...] 3=534&l4=0

P5K PREMIUM has Dual GIGABIT LAN + One more copper +some advertising about WaterCooling , nothing more

Well thank you very much Maziar, much appreciated buddy!

I took a look at the photo's and they do seem almost identical.

Ok, another question for you since you were kind enough to point it out.

Is crossfire not as good when running one card at 16x and one card at 4x?

Big differencd from 8x and 8x?

Regards

Insomnai

8x8x is better than 16x4x , here is a review of P35 vs 975x :
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2990

Damn, P35 didn't do so well there did it? Mind you, I don't have the 2900's, or vista. I have XP SP2 and Crossfire X1950XTX.

Would I be better off sticking with my DFI Infinity 975X/G for the time being? or do these new fangled X38 boards promise great things for crossfire?

X38 doesnt have much differenece with P35 , the main difference is that X38 supports CrossFire @ Dual 16x mode , which is good , but they are expensive :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/prod [...] &subid=946

as u see, the cheapest one (GIGABYTE X38 DQ6) is £176

and as i said there are only 2 P35 boards which support Crossfire @ 8x8x mode , (BLITZ EXTREME , which is DDR3 , and BLITZ FORMULA which is DDR2 ) and BLITZ FORMULA is £164 :
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=607903

8x8x and 16x16x doesnt have much difference ( the difference isnt noticeable ) , here is an old but good benchmark comparing 16x16x vs 8x8x :

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/m [...] eluxe.html

Was looking at the X38 but it seems that intel is recalling the x38 chipset boards due to an inherant fault with them. I've asked the local supplier but they can't shed any light on it just yet.

I was looking at that very board but with this news, i'm just not sure of anything...

Regards

Insomnai

Although the Blitz Formula looks nice also! hmmmm.....

and here are 2 reviews from trusted sites:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=451
http://www.hothardware.com/Article [...] herboards/

Again, thanks Maziar. Those reviews were excellent and massively detailed. Pretty much everything I could have asked for.

I've put in my preorder for my Asus Blitz Formula board and a few people have asked me for results of installation and cooling / overclocking when mastered as they also have their eye on this board.

I'm looking forward to posting great results.

Many thanks buddy.


Insomnai

no problem
good luck

Well, after all that, Asus have discontinued the Blitz Formula board. Was on the shelf for 3 weeks prior to being removed from circulation. Therefore, I have pleasure in purchasing the Maximus Formula. Again, I'll post results once I get everything installed.

Little annoyed though cos x48 chipset is being released in a few month and will be the shizznit apparently.

Regards

Insomnai