P35 vs. 680i

[Drudge]

Hi all,

What advantages/disadvantages would there be by going with a P35 board instead of this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188013

Considering I currently have an 8800GTX card and while not currently using the SLI, why would I consider anything else but a 680i board just for the simple fact that I could SLI in the future if I so chose to. Whereas going with a P35 there is not even a possibility of being able to do it.

Regards

 

[clue69less]

Since I'm not big fan of SLI, I don't see the advantage of the 680 board. Will your primary use be gaming ?

 

[Drudge]

Yes, primary use will be gaming. I should also mention I have a 24" monitor so that 2nd card may come in handy for future resource hog games.

 

[aevm]

I'm not a fan of SLI either, but with a large monitor and two 8800 GTX cards it is a good idea. Some 24" monitors can reach 1920x1200 (e.g. Samsung 245BW). If you've got one of those then by all means go with the eVGA 680i board.

Can you wait until the X38 boards are out? There are rumors that some of them will support SLI. If true, one of those could be a good alternative.

 

[Drudge]

From what I've read, the 8800GTX will currently have no problems whatsoever displaying games on highest settings on a 24" monitor at 1900x1200 resolution. However, that could change as games come out in the future that become more and more resource intensive. But then again, by the time that happens a single 9900GTX may exist that will have no trouble with that.

Other than the fact one has SLI and the other does not, are there really any other differences between the above board and a good P35?

So far the question really has not been answered yet. Not really sure why people wouldn't be a fan of SLI though. But to me at least that's really not much of a reason to not go with the 680i over the P35. There must be other reasons, else the P35 wouldn't be as popular as it is.

 

[royalcrown]

Actually x-38 is going crossfire. I actually sent a story about that to another site something geek dot com, last week.

I'm not a fan of SLI either, but with a large monitor and two 8800 GTX cards it is a good idea. Some 24" monitors can reach 1920x1200 (e.g. Samsung 245BW). If you've got one of those then by all means go with the eVGA 680i board.

Can you wait until the X38 boards are out? There are rumors that some of them will support SLI. If true, one of those could be a good alternative.

 

[aevm]

P35 is cheaper. For example $130 buys you a GA-P35-DS3R which is a very good board, or $100 buys you a GA-P35-DS3L which is also pretty good.

Some P35 boards support both DDR2 and DDR3, which some people may like. I've got a GA-P35C-DS3R for example.

P35 is newer and guaranteed to work with Penryn CPUs. I think that's true for most 680i boards too but I understand some need BIOS updates.

 

[aevm]

Actually x-38 is going crossfire. I actually sent a story about that to another site something geek dot com, last week.

Yeah, all of them will go Crossfire. But I did mean SLI, for some of them, not all. Some manufacturers promised to deliver special drivers that would allow their X38 boards to work with SLI, i.e. two nVidia cards, at 16x each. That's on top of Crossfire, or instead of Crossfire, I don't know. No idea if they're actually going to do it, or if it's even possible. Maybe it's possible but slow, if it's done through software. Anyway, we'll find out pretty soon. For now it's just FUD.

 

[Drudge]

P35 is cheaper. For example $130 buys you a GA-P35-DS3R which is a very good board, or $100 buys you a GA-P35-DS3L which is also pretty good.

Some P35 boards support both DDR2 and DDR3, which some people may like. I've got a GA-P35C-DS3R for example.

P35 is newer and guaranteed to work with Penryn CPUs. I think that's true for most 680i boards too but I understand some need BIOS updates.

Please, can anyone confirm if this is the case?

 

[Maziar]

aevm is right and here is the confirmation :

http://event.asus.com/mb/45nm/

as u see P5K (almost all of P35 boards excluding BLITZ FORMULA and BLITZ EXTREME ) boards have Native support but 680i/650i boards need BIOS update

 

[Revive]

If your using vista at all (now or in the future) I would not recomend 680i.... Ive had nothing but problems with 2 of my systems and vista. Also the board design from alot of companies runs very hot. Basically get the P35 you can always ebay your gfx card later and upgrade if you want to pump up the settings or just get some custom cooling and OC.