I getting ready to build my first rig, and I'm a little stumped on the motherboard question. I'm not going to do any SLI stuff and maybe a little overclocking.

Two concerns/questions:

1. Should I get a motherboard that has PCI-E? Is there a difference between this and just PCI? I'm ignorant about this, help.

2. I read on X-Bit Labs that a GA-DS3 L melted under the weight of a quad core because it had a 4 pin power supply. They recommended an 8 pin. Should I follow that advice? If so, which GA boards have that?

3. I have a 8800 GTS 512 and want a 45nm. What would be good for that (again, I'm not a overclocker enthusiast)?

Thanks all,

Austin

ok i got ya covered,

1. yes, pci-e is a serial implementation of pci (among many other things). In english, it doesn't share bandwidth with other devices and the small 1x port has more bandwidth than that huge regular pci port. EDIT: It's also necessary for that 8800gts you want.

2. i'd hazard a guess that most gigabyte boards (if not all) have the option of 4/8 pin slots. A 8 pin connector is recommended but a 4pin one will fit and work. I recommend all 8. You're probably buying a power supply anyways and i recommend you getting a good one for many reasons. (most of the good ones also come with 8 pins)

3. the P35 right now is really good for what you're looking at. They will support 45nm processors fine. they are fast at stock and are amazing for overclocking. You can also choose to wait for the p45 chipset... Its your decision. Though, i have to ask, are you planning SLI? if you are, Don't... its not worth it. But if i didn't convince u not to with that line, you need to look at the 780i boards. they are the ones that support SLI for intel processors.

I'd like to add a few things.
*) all gigabyte motherboards I've seen since the 965 ones have an 8 pin power connector, although with a rubber thing covering four pins to symbolize, that if you have an atx 2.1 power supply it should still work.
I'd recommend going with a ga-p35-ds3r or ds4 ; they come with elaborate chipset cooling, and if you use the stock intel cooler, or any topdown cooler, you won't have to worry about cooling the motherboard even if you should end up running a 500mhz fsb (266 or 333 standard).

*) you won't need pcie 2.0 from x38 or p45 anytime soon, so don't get confused by that. 1.0 is the 'standard' which will more than suffice for your graphics card.

*) along with that new motherboard get an atx 2.2 compliant power supply with at least 450w power. Otherwise you'll have to replace it next time you upgrade again. Technically 2.1 specifications are enough to run a system based on a 45nm cpu and a gts

Edit: if you want the ability to run both ddr2 and ddr3 (not at once, but either of them) there's a board out that gigabyte calls ga-p35c-ds3r ; I bought one for an aquantance last autumn and it was specced similar to my 'regular ddr2 version' and about the same price as any other of those boards.


Some quick info about gigabyte's naming:

ga- all new boards start like that

p35 (or g31 or 956p or n680sli etc) represent the chipset its based on. What you want is a p35 based chipset. They support all the old 'core' processors and also all the new ones with the exception of the new top of the line extreme quad (will work, but not certified) *

-ds3r is the 'spec level' if the board. D means it has the new flat capaciators with gel inside. They last longer and can endure more stress (read: better, more stable longterm oc). s3 is the actual spec level. They have s2,s3,s4 and q6 (don't got for anything above s4). The most obvious difference is the chipset cooling. Support for a few extra details compared to the lower level vary, but higher number=better. The r (or p or nothing) stands for raid support. s4 and above can't be had without the ich9r southbridge, but s3 and below can have either the 'non raid' or the 'raid enabled' southbridge. Can't remember what the p versions represent.

* p35=ddr2 ; p35c=ddr2 & ddr3 ; p35t=ddr3

Both of you guys were tremendously helpful. Man, seriously. Thank you. I would have been real ticked if I had thrown my 8800 GTS 512 into the MOBO and nada. And do you guys work for Gigabyte? LOL. You sound like you know enough too.

I'm not planning on doing any SLI. Doesn't make sense to me right now.

As far as power supply: I was getting ready to order the Corsair 750W PSU. It has gotten good reviews and I can get it for 100 dollars at Buy.com.

I don't know anything about PCIE 2.0 and I'm glad to hear that I don't need to :-)

Neiro said, "I'd recommend going with a ga-p35-ds3r or ds4..."

Sounds good to me. Newegg, here I come!

Austin

ds3p has firewire support

Quick question: I was looking at the GA-P35-DS3R at the Gigabyte website and they have version 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1. Only 2.1 has PCI-E X16. Newegg has the 2.0 version. Is version 2.1 simply 2.0 with some kind of download you grab from the Gigabyte website or something? Or is it an altogether different motherboard?

Thanks again,

Austin

They all have pci-e-x16 and its the same board. The revisions probably have some slight alterations to certain minor functionality. I myself do not know how 2.1 is better than 2.0 or 2.0 better than 1.0. Hope someone can clarify this.

* just did a comparison on the gigabyte site between the 3 boards. 2.0 and 1.0 seem the same.
2.1 ->
fsb says 1600 (O.C.)/1333/1066/800 MHz FSB.
(others only 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB)
Dont know why as you can overclock the other revisions also beyond this.

2.1 has dual bios, while the other 2 have Virtual DualBIOS ( I have no idea what this means lol)

And It seems that 2.1 doesnt not support IDE drives any more.

It's good to know that all of them have PCI-E. You know, someone recently convinced me to stop going with Dell and build my own. I don't regret going down the build it path, but seriously, I feel like I have to obtain a master of arts in current technology in order to pull this off :-)

I guess it's fun... I guess.

Austin

the revisions are just that, revisions. It could be a new cooling system for the cpu northbridge (like the difference between the ga-965p-ds3 1.0 vs 2.0) or it could be semi-significant change giving a chipset stable support for fsb1333(ga-965p-ds3 2.0 vs 3.0) Generally the newer the revsion, the better the board. Places like newegg usually carries the latest revison as they pass so much hardware around nothing really sits in inventory.

As for the bios thing. dual bios means physically 2 bios. they are two independent bios chips on the board and should one fail, the other one will completely take over whatever the reason (this is true for the ga-p965-dq6). virtual dual bios is really a giant bios that has 2 images installed. Should one fail, hte other will allow the system to post. However, should the chip go bad, both images will be lost.

any other questions?

Edit: PS. Thanks for the complement, but I don't work for Gigabyte, i just do a lot of pc building so i am familiar with gigabyte's product line, i love their naming scheme and their reliablity.

Like the other person said,
GA-means gigabyte

p35/g33/p965 etc- chipset the board has. sometimes with a minor modifier at the end for ram. c is "combo" or both ddr2 and 3. vanilla is just ddr2 and t is for ddr3

suffix- a D stands for durable (aka good caps), s is their collection of features (S3 stands for speed, smart, safe), the last letter is a minor designation. P stands for performance, R means RAID, L is really the lower edition... not sure what it actually stands for.

I am also familiar with Asus's product line should you have any questions about their products as well. I also work with abit boards (they arent bad either), and (unfortunately) A LOT of crap boards like ECS and pc chips.... I don't know their product line, but i know how to jerry rig them to make them work ;-).

Any Gigabyte P35 board will serve you well. Let the features you need determine which one to get. The DS3L is great if you can live with 4 SATA ports and no RAID or Firewire. If your needs change in the future you can always add a PCIe card with these functions. No home user needs RAID.

I was also bout to buy a dell couple of weeks back. Then checked around a bit and now can build a much better system with the same money . The only drawback is the amount of reading to do

Thanks, that another thing I now know .

Since you know more about these boards, had to ask, that read on a few forums about people having problems with the GA p35 ds3r, with the raid and with sound problems. I opened a thread also http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] audio-ds3r in regard to this.

Is this some concern, as im thinkin of getting this board and would raid in future sometime since it has the option? Havnt seen people saying problems about asus boards, which asus board would match the ds3r exactly? thanks

A good match.... the Asus P5K series are closest (more specifically the P5K-E).

As for sound... i'll look at the other thread