Formula or DQ6 pls help URGENT

[nsunnyb4u]

Hi Guys / Gals (if any),

i am unable to choose between these two motherboards:
1. ASUS Maximus Formula
2. Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6

before any of you guys suggest P35, I am interested in crossfire only (and not SLI) at the full bandwidth.
Not interested in any other mobo except the above two.

being ASUS fanboy (I had a good experience with my ASUS M2A-VM HDMI mobo), I thought of opting Maximus Formula over DQ6. But DQ6 has a hell of connectivity options.
I googled in search of these but I got more confused as some people are complaining over the forms that DQ6 has a problem if all the 4 DIMM slots have been used. On the other hand ASUS has less connectivity options.

Also, reliability is a major concern for me as I am buying this in South Africa and I wont be having warranty after I leave SA. I want to use this with either HD3850 / HD3870 on crossfire for the next 2 to 3 years.

before you suggest considering VFM or Price Performance, the price difference between these two is around 5 USD.

please suggest me immediately...

Thanks in advance

 

[dagger]

Hi Guys / Gals (if any),

i am unable to choose between these two motherboards:
1. ASUS Maximus Formula
2. Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6

before any of you guys suggest P35, I am interested in crossfire only (and not SLI) at the full bandwidth.
Not interested in any other mobo except the above two.

being ASUS fanboy (I had a good experience with my ASUS M2A-VM HDMI mobo), I thought of opting Maximus Formula over DQ6. But DQ6 has a hell of connectivity options.
I googled in search of these but I got more confused as some people are complaining over the forms that DQ6 has a problem if all the 4 DIMM slots have been used. On the other hand ASUS has less connectivity options.

Also, reliability is a major concern for me as I am buying this in South Africa and I wont be having warranty after I leave SA. I want to use this with either HD3850 / HD3870 on crossfire for the next 2 to 3 years.

before you suggest considering VFM or Price Performance, the price difference between these two is around 5 USD.

please suggest me immediately...

Thanks in advance

I use the DS4 with 8gb 800mhz ddr2 ram on all 4 slots, no problems. The DS4 is almost identical to DQ6, except costing $50 less. I've never used the ASUS board, but ASUS got a lot of bad reviews, along with Abit, for releasing bad, unstable bios for their X38 boards.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

thnx for the ereply pal.

and wat abt the sound ??? is the onboard sound okay ??? or the Supremem FX II card bundled with ASUS is good ??

 

[dagger]

thnx for the ereply pal.

and wat abt the sound ??? is the onboard sound okay ??? or the Supremem FX II card bundled with ASUS is good ??

The DS4 onboard boasts "High Definition" sound, but I can't hear a difference. No idea about the ASUS card, but I don't like how it takes up a slot.

 

[SpinachEater]

^ and what are you using your valuable PCIe x1 slot for? ASUS offers a little more in the bundle for the price than what Gigabyte does with their sound card included. Both are great boards so it comes down to features that you want and which one looks the best to you.

If you plan on extreme overclocking I think that ASUS does a little better than the Gigabyte but with moderate overclocking they will be the same. There are good reviews out there that compare them if you look.

I use the DS4 with 8gb 800mhz ddr2 ram on all 4 slots, no problems. The DS4 is almost identical to DQ6, except costing $50 less. I've never used the ASUS board, but ASUS got a lot of bad reviews, along with Abit, for releasing bad, unstable bios for their X38 boards.

For vague advice like this (and nothing against you dagger I am even talking about mine above with the OCing) you want to look it up for yourself. Gigabyte has a good comparison page to check out how their boards compare to each other. The biggest difference on a physical/price standpoint is that there is a heat pipe connecting the north and south bridge and their "cool n quite" setup with the heat spreaders on the back of the board and also a SATA connector count difference. Performance wise they are the same board but the DQ6 has a few more options and a better cooling system (where the extra copper probably jacks up the price).

Good luck though, I think you would be happy with either one!

 

[nsunnyb4u]

thanks for the reply buddies... i could nt find any DS4 mobos in here.. so i m back to formula and dq6...
read that dq6 has problems when used in a 4*1GB config mode which is exactly I am opting for... no matter if windows recognize it as 3 GB.. i m planning to use it in 4*1GB mode.. at the same time DQ6 has almost all the connectivity options one could think of.. and fyi, i dont overclock much.. i may bump E8200 to 3GHz and not more than that (when needed)... so overclocking is not my cup of tea.. at times.. i may even consider underclocking my CPU to go green when CPU intesive things are not needed.. like programming.. movies.. and databases

please advice.. is 4GB config still a problem ?? or sorted out with latest bios ??

 

[DrMaV]

love my formula. Best board I've ever had. Period!
Look at my sig.

 

[Shadow703793]

thanks for the reply buddies... i could nt find any DS4 mobos in here.. so i m back to formula and dq6...
read that dq6 has problems when used in a 4*1GB config mode which is exactly I am opting for... no matter if windows recognize it as 3 GB.. i m planning to use it in 4*1GB mode.. at the same time DQ6 has almost all the connectivity options one could think of.. and fyi, i dont overclock much.. i may bump E8200 to 3GHz and not more than that (when needed)... so overclocking is not my cup of tea.. at times.. i may even consider underclocking my CPU to go green when CPU intesive things are not needed.. like programming.. movies.. and databases

please advice.. is 4GB config still a problem ?? or sorted out with latest bios ??

That so called "Problem" is caused by not enough voltage to the RAM. You can easily fix that by increasing the RAM voltage by about 0.1-0.2 over the needed RAM voltage.

You won't need to underclock the CPU, if you have SpeedStep enabled the CPU will automatically scale.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

thanks for the advice buddy.. almost made up my mind to go ahead with the gigabyte.. and 2 HD 3870 Sapphire Toxic in crossfire.. and a 700Watt OCZ GameXtreme.. any advice on these pls ???

 

[acidpython]

Maximus formula is absolutely amazing.

I run,

600W OCZ GameXtreame
3870X2
Q6600 @ 3.6
2x2GB Geil DDR2-800

No problems, excellent board seriously high end. Asus has a bad rep? Thats BS end of

 

[dagger]

Maximus formula is absolutely amazing.

I run,

600W OCZ GameXtreame
3870X2
Q6600 @ 3.6
2x2GB Geil DDR2-800

No problems, excellent board seriously high end. Asus has a bad rep? Thats BS end of

It has nothing to do with "rep." Asus and Abit rushed a series of bios in order to support 45nm quad cpus. Those are unstable. Of course, it doesn't matter if you run an older processor on it and keep the old out-of-the-box bios, which is perfectly stable. Or you can wait for them to release a good bios, which is only a matter of time.

 

[SpinachEater]

thanks for the advice buddy.. almost made up my mind to go ahead with the gigabyte.. and 2 HD 3870 Sapphire Toxic in crossfire.. and a 700Watt OCZ GameXtreme.. any advice on these pls ???

Hahaha !!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, you said you were going to underclock and go green but then follow up with a xfire setup. Classic.

On a serious note...The DQ6 and Formula are both boards designed to do some heavy OCing on. I am not familiar with the ASUS board but if you look at the DQ6 vs DS4, for what you are going to use it for, the DQ6 is overkill. You could put that $50 towards something else. If you want that one then fine but you are buying a Ferrari to drive to the grocery store.

Also...once again I am not familiar with ASUS too much but go for an EX38 vs an X38 model if you want to go green. The "E" indicates that the board supports the Dynamic Energy Saver option that will help save the planet.

BTW, if you don't have your RAM yet I would recommend a 2x2GB kit and avoid the 4 RAM module quandary all together. It would also allow you to max out the 8GB limit with two more sticks in the future.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

i m going to underclock only when torrenting / movies buddy.... of course i am going to overclock when playing games... but no more than 3GHz.. as CPU doesnt play much role in the games rather GPU does... well.. thats a good option to go 2*2GB... will consider that.. as I want to use this config for atleast the next 2 years.. i dont mind being my mobo an overkill.. and yeah.. i can consider DS4.. but as I said earlier. . the only DDR2 X38 mobos I can find in here are DQ6 and Formula.. (which is good leaving me in a narrw search rather than selecting from a lot)

@dagger... u mean to say the BIOS of Formula isnt soo good compared to DQ6 ???.. wel in tht case... i tend towards DQ6 rather than Formula..

And is Zalman 9700 good enough to use on DQ6 without the need to remove "CrazyCool" ????

 

[dagger]

i m going to underclock only when torrenting / movies buddy.... of course i am going to overclock when playing games... but no more than 3GHz.. as CPU doesnt play much role in the games rather GPU does... well.. thats a good option to go 2*2GB... will consider that.. as I want to use this config for atleast the next 2 years.. i dont mind being my mobo an overkill.. and yeah.. i can consider DS4.. but as I said earlier. . the only DDR2 X38 mobos I can find in here are DQ6 and Formula.. (which is good leaving me in a narrw search rather than selecting from a lot)

@dagger... u mean to say the BIOS of Formula isnt soo good compared to DQ6 ???.. wel in tht case... i tend towards DQ6 rather than Formula..

And is Zalman 9700 good enough to use on DQ6 without the need to remove "CrazyCool" ????

Yes, the newly released BIOS for Formula is bad. If you buy it, use the out-of-the-box bios and don't update until they release a stable one. You don't need the new bios unless you're running 45nm quad anyway. I'm not sure about DQ6 bios, but if it's similar to DS4, then it's quite good for overclocking. It's perfectly stable, has all the oc settings you'll need, plus some you don't. The latest v3 supports LoadLine Calibration, which decreases vdroop. Also, the DS4 has 2 bios, so if you mess one up while flashing/updating, the backup will take over, allowing your computer to boot. I believe DQ6 does too, but not sure. The only significant difference I can tell between the two is DS4 has one fewer heatpipe, and 2 fewer SATA ports (6, compared to DQ6's 8). Both use tremendous copper heatsinks. The DQ6's heatsinks are just as massive, but with more compact fins, which saves space for other components.

 

[Mario75]

Some so called "experts" saying,that Formula bad board
They probably cant buy this mobo,thats why they giving BS.
Asus Maximus Formula 100% best mobo than any gigabyte.And listen BS about bad BIOS-its a joke.Absolutely no problems with bios or any else in Formula.
Over all years i never see better mobo than Formula-all settings leave any gigabyte in dust.
Go for Formula,absolutely briliant thing,and at least doing what suppose to do.My last was gigabyte DQ6...after 5 months it just stop working..

 

[dagger]

Some so called "experts" saying,that Formula bad board
They probably cant buy this mobo,thats why they giving BS.
Asus Maximus Formula 100% best mobo than any gigabyte.And listen BS about bad BIOS-its a joke.Absolutely no problems with bios or any else in Formula.
Over all years i never see better mobo than Formula-all settings leave any gigabyte in dust.
Go for Formula,absolutely briliant thing,and at least doing what suppose to do.My last was gigabyte DQ6...after 5 months it just stop working..

No offense, but that's really lies by a fanboy. BIOS problems in Asus and Abit boards are well documented. The manufacturers admit it themselves, and are working on fully stable bios. The board is not bad, just rushed bios. It's only a matter of time before they release good ones though. Benchmarks show a difference in fsb overclockability between the different models of p35 boards, but none in boards with x38 chipsets.

Oh, and DQ6 haven't been around for 5 months.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

Well.. now I am more confused.. as formula in here is "cheaper" than DQ6.. and so are the HD3850.. read the reviews on the net and HD3850 in crossfire mode is not far behind than the HD3870 crossfire.. so to save soome bucks.. planning to go the former way...
sounds stupid.. but i wanna go either complete ASUS way (formula + HD3850 crossfire) or gigabyte way (DQ6+ gigabyte HD3850 crossfire)...

apart from the E-SATA brackets.. ASUS seems to be good.. esp. with the bundled game and antivirus []...

@dagger DQ6 is released somewhere around oct-nov.. which makes it 5months..

 

[nsunnyb4u]

so guys....
my final config would be..
intel E8200 / Maximus Formula / ASUS hd3850 / ocz 700Watt gamextreme / Zalman CNPS9700 LED / DELL SP2008WFP (20")

cmments pls..

 

[atomicvai]

The Maximus Formula is a fantastic board. I have two computers, both using them. I have one flashed with the Rampage bios, the other with the latest Formula bios and have had zero issues with either. Both OC their Q6600's to 4ghz on air, though I definately don't keep them at that speed 24/7. I like the Corsair HX620 that was suggested earlier also, I've had no problems with either of mine. Rig looks fine if you're not going to go past 3ghz. If you are, replace the Zalman with something better (Ultra 120 etc).

Best board I've owned period.

 

[dagger]

so guys....
my final config would be..
intel E8200 / Maximus Formula / ASUS hd3850 / ocz 700Watt gamextreme / Zalman CNPS9700 LED / DELL SP2008WFP (20" )

cmments pls..

Looks good. Out of the box bios on that board support E8200 just fine. It's only 45nm quads that you need the currently unstable updates for. When/if you upgrade cpu, they should have stable bios out by then. The brand of hd3850 don't matter at all, and will work the same on any brand board, might as well pick the cheapest one.

 

[leon2006]

My board works just fine... Asus Maximus Formula...Can't go wrong with ZALMAN 9700 LED.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

stuck again pals.. this time at RAM..
Corsair 2*1GB @800MHz - Twin 2*2048-6400 C4DHX-XMS2
Corsair 2*1GB @800MHz - Twin 2*2048-6400 C4 Low Latency
both at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V

which one of these is good pals ???
Also... is 2.1V "okay" with formula mobo ???

 

[dagger]

stuck again pals.. this time at RAM..
Corsair 2*1GB @800MHz - Twin 2*2048-6400 C4DHX-XMS2
Corsair 2*1GB @800MHz - Twin 2*2048-6400 C4 Low Latency
both at 4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V

which one of these is good pals ???
Also... is 2.1V "okay" with formula mobo ???

2.1v is a bit high for ram that runs at 800mhz stock. It'll work, but ideally, you should look for lower voltage. Timing looks good. Another thing is, 2gb ram isn't enough. You should get more than that.

 

[nsunnyb4u]

hey dagger..

can u pls mention the specs and manf. of ur RAM ??? also abt the power supply pls..

looks like u've got pretty good RAM

 

[apache_lives]

The DS4 onboard boasts "High Definition" sound, but I can't hear a difference. No idea about the ASUS card, but I don't like how it takes up a slot.

The card does take up a slot but its above the video card and thats the actual sound card - its PCIe! and therefor removable if you wish to use another sound card.

The P5E cops vdroop bigtime and all sorts of issues with corsair memory, well most of there boards do.

I came from an ASUS P5B Deluxe/Wifi which was having issues with quads, it was undervolting it i realised after replacing it with a gigabyte EP35-DS3P and seeing stable vcore with barely any vdroop - dont think i like asus after seeing so many issues with it since i own 4x1gb corsair XMS6400-C5's - asus tried running em at C4 too.

Im now more of a gigabyte fan