Best Motherbiard for Q6600

[redmanc]

OK, i'm after a good overclocking MB for the Q6600.

I've narrowed my search down to 3 as i want to keep around the £100 mark.

Gigabyte EP35-DS4
Asus P5KE/Wifi
Gigabyte EP35 DS3P

Any comments ?

 

[curnel_D]

As far as overclocking goes, I've had the best luck with gigabyte. I just picked up another p35 board to overclock one of the 1.6 pentuim dualcores (Now at 3.8 on air).

And that one was only $70usd on the egg.

Goodluck

 

[happy_fanboy]

I've not used any of them, but I will say this, If you ever want to run Vista at all go with the Gigabyte EP35 DS3P since it is the only one on your list that is Vista Certified. Great reviews too.

 

[asymetriccircle]

i have the p5k-e wifi board running the q6600 G0 and im running vista and all is well. i am still experimenting with overclocking, as im a bit of a newb, but i have done 3Ghz 333x9 on stock voltage completely stable. holding out for more until i learn a little more about working with the voltage. i also have a zalman 9500, i cant say how far youll get on stock cooling, 2.8ghz would probably be reasonable.

 

[rockbyter]

I have the same as asymetriccircle, p5k-e at 8x400 with almost everything on auto and memory manually set to 800. just screams. Behaves nicely with x1950 pro 512 mb in crossfire running folding@home. Corsair xms2 800 2x2Gb kit.

Heat was an issue, so i opted to sufficiently cool it with the swiftech 220 compact. This is overkill at the moment, prime 95 at 3.2 GHz doesnt get the cpu over 52C, but i have room to add a water block to my video card and then some. I will say that using a coolermaster gemini II was great and quiet at stock speed, however overclocking past 3 GHz proved to be too much to keep it reasonably under 65C (my personal definition of too hot)

Vista certified is a little overrated, i run vista ultimate 64 bit now with msdn sp1, everything is fantastic, never have to reboot unless i feel the need to overclock some more.

 

[jprevost]

They all sound fine. You've picked the 2 best companies for Intel overclocking. I used to use Abit but they have long since dropped from the top. We're talking 2000 when overclocking PIII's and UDMA 66 was an upgrade many considered worthless because of the slow hard drive performance. Oh yeah, and when SLI was a 3DX solution that utilized 2 PCI slots... the good old days. That's when Abit was king, but ASUS has taken that position with Gigabyte right on their heals.
If you had to choose, look for features that you will use other than overclocking. I personally went with a P5B-E for my e6300 overclock. I didn't buy into the deluxe version like 90% of my peers. I didn't NEED nor in many cases want the extra features offered (wifi and an extra gigabit ether). For me, it was price that came into play. I tried an MSI board, was horrified with the overclocking and constant bsd's after installing their bundled software that I got this ASUS. Never looked back.
Oh yeah, and I did NOT need SLI or crossfire support. I don't believe in SLI from an environmental stand point and the fact that I don't run high enough resolutions to warrant said expense.
Having said all that, just get what you need, everything else is a waste. I hear so many people talk about upgrading blah blah and "down the road I want"... guess what, it never happens. Life happens, build a system and if you're a gamer, plan on upgrading your graphics card ONCE on the lifetime of your mobo/cpu combo. Don't bother upgrading your CPU in the future (you're choice is at the top end of 775 socket).
This is coming from somebody that's been mentioned on another "Hard" ocp main site for helping be the 1st to overclock a celeron above 1GHz. I've been around for a while and nothing is future proof, not even these overkill (aka useless) 1000 watt psu's. Hello people, power requirements are decreasing, not increasing (green movement), and the connector standards are always changing!

 

[redmanc]

OK i've took on board peoples comments and some mention the X38 chipset.

I've seen the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 for £130.

Is it worth the extra £30 and is it a good board ?

 

[redmanc]

OK i've took on board peoples comments and some mention the X38 chipset.

I've seen the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 for £130.

Is it worth the extra £30 and is it a good board ?

 

[redmanc]

OK i've read through this topic/argument and decided to keep with a P35 board.

The decision is now then:

Asus P5K Premium
Gigabyte EP35-DS4

I've always used Gigabyte in the past but see there's great reviews for the Asus board, but i'm not familiar with them.

 

[Soul59]

OK i've took on board peoples comments and some mention the X38 chipset.

I've seen the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 for £130.

Is it worth the extra £30 and is it a good board ?

Great board, easily to over clock and rock stable.

 

[blacksci]

Plus there customer service is good, and you can understand them when they speak english, always a bonus...

 

[happy_fanboy]

Buy the non Vista certified ASUS POS board, see if I care. Have fun with your driver stability.