X38 Comparison Part 2: DDR3 Motherboards

[muk]

In our earlier DDR2 motherboard comparison, we found that features, not raw performance, mark the big improvements of Intel's X38 Express chipset compared to the previous P35. Can DDR3 further its improvements?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/26/x38_comparison_part2/index.html

 

[japps2]

I just want to say that I feel lucky and vindicated that I have the editor's choice motherboard. I picked up the Maximus Extreme last week and built my system this thanksgiving weekend...and now that I see that the performance is ~1% better (something I'll never "feel") I feel like a tool for spending $400 on a motherboard.

 

[little_scrapper]

AAAAHHHHHHHH AHAAHAHAHAHAHHHAAA...yea

But at least I give the writer cudos for calling it for what it was, a miniscule performance lead. SOOOO many many articles I have read where the writer compares chipsets, or other things, and calls leads of 1 or 2 % a "huge lead", or 10 marks on 15,000 a major victory...phht. It would just make me sick and I ususally posted something about it.

This article makes one thing very clear, just go buy the lowest price X38 mobo that has the features you need and know that at worst, you are only loosing about 1% overall performance by not spending the extra $175. Take that extra money and put it into that 8800's or a better CPU where it belongs.

 

[LaloFG]

Con lo visto en éste artículo puedo decir: Que estupidez de chipset el X38 y ni hablar de la patética DDR3.

A donde hemos llegado con ésto de sacar nuevas tecnologias que no superan a sus predecesoras.

La único positivo que podría ver sería la disminución de consumo de energía.

Beh!

 

[Crashman]

Con lo visto en éste artículo puedo decir: Que estupidez de chipset el X38 y ni hablar de la patética DDR3.

A donde hemos llegado con ésto de sacar nuevas tecnologias que no superan a sus predecesoras.

La único positivo que podría ver sería la disminución de consumo de energía.

Beh!

Actually the P35 is also more efficient than the X38, unless you were speaking of the energy saved by using DDR3.

 

[justinmcg67]

I wish they would use PCI-Express 2.0 cards with these boards. Somehow I feel that it's not a true evaluation of a board if you're not using everything that's presented to you. X38 boasts PCI-Express 2.0 and DDR3 memory, lets start using both.

 

[Luscious]

This may sound a little bit oddball, but seeing that the Asus board is larger than the standard ATX spec has got me thinking - top end motherboards trying to pack every feature in should move to E-ATX format, similar to server boards.

Yes, the old BP6 was a dual socket ATX board, but it had no way near the features of todays boards and it didn't push the amps that these X38 boards use.

The upcoming Skulltrail and 4x4 are both dual CPU designs, making room for two CPU's plus all other regular mobo features AND allowing 2 or 4 dual-slot video cards to fit cannot, IMHO, go without some sort of redesign in either mobo layout or case size. I know EATX won't give any extra slots above 7, but it could allow mobo makers to play around with CPU, NB and ram slot placement.

I'm not suggesting that ATX be dumped or replaced overnight, but it is becoming ever more evident that increasing feature sets and multi-GPU requirements have reached the size limits of what an ATX board can physically accommodate.

 

[LaloFG]

Actually the P35 is also more efficient than the X38, unless you were speaking of the energy saved by using DDR3.

Actually, I talked about both technologies (Chipset & memory), but i did not know the efficiency of the P35. The Only benefit that remains is the energy savings in ddr3... and that is worse.

De hecho hablaba de ambas tecnologias, pero no conocía la eficiencia del P35 frente al X38. Sólo queda entonces el ahorro de energía al usar DDR3, lo cual es peor aún!

 

[hairycat101]

Any one else notice or compare the DDR2 boards with the DDR3 ones? There is very little difference. I would kicking myself in the cat tail if I bought a DDR3 board! I think that most builders are on some what of a restricted budget. With no gains from ram, the build money would be better spent on the cpu, lots more ram, or video card or something. Come to think of it, the monitor is really the only item that will probably last a few builds. If it were me, I would sink the aditional dough into the monitor. Just me though.

 

[panzer948]

Hi guys, following this closely cause I want to rebuild in December and would prefer to have the latest and greatest so I can keep it for about 3 years. What about that Foxconn X38A. That MB has the X38 chipset and is compatible with both DDR2 and DDR3. Maybe buy DDR2 for now then upgrade to DDR3 when the prices become more mainstream. I just hate to buy the P35 when we already have newer chipset available.

 

[hairycat101]

Hi guys, following this closely cause I want to rebuild in December and would prefer to have the latest and greatest so I can keep it for about 3 years. What about that Foxconn X38A. That MB has the X38 chipset and is compatible with both DDR2 and DDR3. Maybe buy DDR2 for now then upgrade to DDR3 when the prices become more mainstream. I just hate to buy the P35 when we already have newer chipset available.

Why buy the DDR3 ram at all? Look at the benchmarks. They ran the exact same tests with both DDR3 and DDR2 boards. There is no noticable difference. You would never notice a second here or there on something that takes over a minute. My question is why not save that money until your next build or put it toward something that makes a noticable difference.

 

[neocortex]

guyz have you looked at the charts..DDR3 out-performed DDR2 by less than 0.5%...so could someone please enlighten us and tell us why should we buy DDR3? i mean could someone justify those hard-earned extra 200 bucks we put when we buy DDR3?

 

[Crashman]

guyz have you looked at the charts..DDR3 out-performed DDR2 by less than 0.5%...so could someone please enlighten us and tell us why should we buy DDR3? i mean could someone justify those hard-earned extra 200 bucks we put when we buy DDR3?

You should buy DDR3 so that it will become "mainstream" faster. That way the price will come down sooner, and the rest of us will be able to get it cheaply when we want to overclock our front-side-bus beyond, say, 600MHz

 

[hairycat101]

You should buy DDR3 so that it will become "mainstream" faster. That way the price will come down sooner, and the rest of us will be able to get it cheaply when we want to overclock our front-side-bus beyond, say, 600MHz

That could be one of the dumbest arguments ever put forward. It still doesn't address the issue; DDR3 (insofar as it has been implemented to date) holds no significant advantage over DDR2. I suppose that you could argue that DDR3 makes someone more money... hardly the advantage that anyone is looking for though.

 

[Crashman]

That could be one of the dumbest arguments ever put forward. It still doesn't address the issue; DDR3 (insofar as it has been implemented to date) holds no significant advantage over DDR2. I suppose that you could argue that DDR3 makes someone more money... hardly the advantage that anyone is looking for though.

I don't think it's such a bad argument: If you buy 10,000 modules this month, 20,000 next month, and 40,000 the following month, the rest of us might see mainstream prices by mid 2008.

 

[hairycat101]

I don't think it's such a bad argument: If you buy 10,000 modules this month, 20,000 next month, and 40,000 the following month, the rest of us might see mainstream prices by mid 2008.

Please explain how increased demand is going to lower the price. I would love to see that. Now, assuming that prices are similar or not relavent, what's the advantage in DDR3 again? Did you look at the benchmarks? Its the same #$%^ing thing! It makes no difference at all. Ok, there might be less then one percent difference.

 

[spotless]

PCI 2.0 & DDR2!!!!!!

 

[Crashman]

Please explain how increased demand is going to lower the price. I would love to see that. Now, assuming that prices are similar or not relavent, what's the advantage in DDR3 again? Did you look at the benchmarks? Its the same #$%^ing thing! It makes no difference at all. Ok, there might be less then one percent difference.

Anyone who limits their idea of price to the old "supply and demand" idea is completely lost because they're forgetting "the economies of volume". You increase demand to cause companies to shift production, tricking them into believing the increase is a trend. Then when the market levels off, the prices fall through the floor.

 

[neocortex]

i dont get why you're avoiding the question...why DDR3 is better than DDR2? instead of teaching us how economy works and how supply and demand is gonna affect my sorry a$$, just repeat after me: I..DONT...KNOW

 

[b3n]

Wouldn't it be false economy to buy an X38 board that only supported DDR2?

I'm about to build a new system, and I'm thinking of getting an Asus P5E3.

I want to get a Q6600 CPU and overclock it to at least 3GHz so I also plan to get DDR3 1800MHz, as I hear that is the only speed that will allow a 1:1 ratio. Is that correct?

I've also read that the X38 and new CPUs appreciate the high bandwidths of DDR3, and that latency is not so important ?

 

[goodie]

400x8 = 3.2ghz 800mhz DDR2 1:1

 

[hairycat101]

Anyone who limits their idea of price to the old "supply and demand" idea is completely lost because they're forgetting "the economies of volume". You increase demand to cause companies to shift production, tricking them into believing the increase is a trend. Then when the market levels off, the prices fall through the floor.

Clearly Crashman is a raving idiot. Supply and demand isn’t some old notion. It is the way things work. What you are referring to is the idea that supply follows demand. What will level the prices isn’t some trickery but the fact that the companies are trying to be the first to recapture their “sunk costs”. This is a cost separate from the production costs. Example: Brand X retools to make DDR3. They spend $ 1,000,000 to do so. (This is just an example, don’t give me @$@$ about the figures used) The cost to produce each unit is $ 1.00. That means that after they produce 2,000,000 units, they have recaptured their sunk costs and now they try to reduce prices so that their competitors will be caught selling cheaper then they want to thus dragging out when they can recapture their sunk costs. The economics of volume or economy of scale plays in to this by producing as many units as possible to reduce costs for each unit. The reduction in costs you see is a product of the supply finally catching up with demand. When the suppliers have recaptured their sunk costs, they can try to undercut each other. Further more, neocortex has it right when he states that you are avoiding the whole point about why you believe DDR3 to be better then DDR2. My advice to Crashman is to get on the right meds.

Opps. Forgot to put in that this example assumes a $2 selling cost for each unit.

 

[Crashman]

Clearly Crashman is a raving idiot... .The reduction in costs you see is a product of the supply finally catching up with demand. When the suppliers have recaptured their sunk costs, they can try to undercut each other. Further more, neocortex has it right when he states that you are avoiding the whole point about why you believe DDR3 to be better then DDR2.

You can't have it both ways. You clearly agree that when supply catches up with demand the price goes down. You know that production cost sink when more units are produced as manufacturers find ways to undercut each other. Therefore, any "idiot" could see that increasing demand over time sets the stage for companies to do just that, and that when the demand levels off there will be a slight oversupply which brings prices down.

And the question wasn't "why is DDR3 better", it was "why should I buy DDR3". The answer is simple: People must buy DDR3 in relatively large quantities in order for this to happen.

You just proved my notions about underlying forces that manipulate supply and demand...making me look brilliant! Thanks!

 

[japps2]

Hairycat,

I'll tell you why I purchased DDR3...I wanted it and it wasn't that much different in price from good DDR2. At the time I bought 2gb of DDR3-1800 it was on sale for $400, there was still DDR2 2gb for $540.

The last time I built a computer was when DDR2 was just coming out. Everyone said the same things about DDR2. So I skipped it and got DDR-400. After all, there wasn't much of a real world performance boost from going with DDR2 at that time either. However, when DDR2 prices did drop, I couldn't jump on the bandwagon at that point because of motherboard compatability. Something I regretted. So once every 3-4 years I get to build a computer financially, so I wanted to have a little future proofing...so I got DDR3.

I think crashman has a point. next summer when DDR3 prices drop and everyone is marvelling at (reasonably priced) DDR3-2200...remember if nobody bought DDR3 in the first place (like me) they never would have pressed the advance. DDR3 has to be economically viable for anyone to invest, research, market and sell modules. If nobody bought DDR3 until prices dropped...I think many companies wouldn't go down that road in the first place. Put another way: if you space out the investment and reward too far...say that we the public won't buy DDR3 until prices are 1/4 of today...then it might be too much for companies to take the risk and carry the financial burden for 2 years before they can sell chips. So it is people like me who get suckered into buying DDR3 that keep the wheels greased so that prices can come down in the future.

 

[hairycat101]

Sunk cost refers not to lowering costs but to initial costs. It’s a business/economic term. It’s the cost just to get started. The thing that would decrease the cost of these chips is supply outpacing demand. But I will concede that supply will try to follow demand. That’s why they are in business. BTW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost worth a look so that you can learn what the term means. I didn’t read the whole thing, so I hope no one on wickipedia screwed up the definition. Buy it if you want to. My initial point was that the delta could be better spent some place else.