What motherboard should I take?

Hey,

I am wondering what motherboard you would recommend for Q9450?

As I have no old socket 775 cpu around, I have to count in the price of a cheap cpu for updating the bios unless the board can run with Q9450 out of the box.

I haven't been able to find any other boards than ASUS P5K/EPU supporting Q9450 out of the box - do you know of any others? (I looked at http://support.asus.com/cpusupport [...] uage=en-us for ASUS support list)

I'm just in doubt whether I should go for a X38 board (though I haven't been able to find one supporting Q9450 with the oldest bios) - I am probably gonna get a 8800GTS and I have no intentions for Crossfire at the moment.

But as I'm not very often upgrading my system, I am wondering if it is worth taking X38 because of PCI 2.0 and just having the option for crossfire (in case crossfire solutions become cheaper and more normal in the future)? I would like to have the option of buying a good graphics card at some point in the future when things start getting slow.

As a last note I am not playing games in extreme resolutions (gonna get a 19" or 20" screen at some point - not bigger).

Thanks in advance

That would really push the limits of my budget, with both X38 and an HD 3870X2, but would you say the performance gain is worth it?

And are you 100% sure that GA-EX38-DS4 can run with Q9450 out of the box?

I don't have anything against ASUS, I am open to all brands available to me (I'm from Denmark)

My Abit IP35 Pro ran my Q9450 out of the box.

Yeah, to find out they'd have to open the box, and they hate that because they'd have to sell it cheaper if you don't buy it.

The 3870X2 is worth more than the 8800GTS, but not even close to double. OK, stick with the 8800GTS. In that case, Crossfire is not an option, so you might as well get a P35 motherboard and save some money. The aBit IP35 Pro jtt283 mentioned is an excellent mobo, for example.

PCI-E 2.0 will be important for future cards, absolutely. Just guessing here, a card that costs $300 in 2010 will lose at least 25% of its speed on a P35 motherboard. Don't ask me to prove it, it's a guess and it may be completely wrong. All I'm basing it on is some articles that showed the 9800GX2 losing a few percentage points on P35. I'm guessing that future cards will need even more bandwidth than the 9800GX2 so they will suffer more from the PCI-E 1 limit.

For a 20" monitor you don't need two video cards. You can get your PCI-E 2.0 slots from either X38 or 780i, and you don't need to care that one supports Crossfire and the other SLI. The XFX 780i would probably be better than an X38 because it has SLI and you're getting an nVidia card, but you don't really need a second card.

I'd consider an X38 for the Q9450 because:

1) Nice powerful new 45nm processor because of all that hardcore stuff you want to throw at it, why start out skimping on the motherboard?

2) Overclocks, an X38 is gonna do 1600FSB easily, maybe even 1750FSB or better...which would be harder (but maybe not impossible) for the P35.

Okay, I didn't read further after that statement. Here's some funky logic. I have an X48 board. Many people here tell me that its older sibling the X38 Maximus Formula...is precisely the same thing and that only if you're stupid would you pay the $20 difference. Well, my X48 ran my Q9450 right out of the box. So, that should mean that an X38 Maximus Formula would also run the Q9450...right out of the box. Well, the P5E is ...basically a Maximus Formula minus some heatsinks and bios smoke and mirrors. So, see where I'm going with this?

If A = B and B = C, then A ... = C

LOL. I know its not quite like that. I think your Q9450 will work on a P5E...right out of the box and give you more than enough time to upgrade the bios, if you feel you need to. Here's where you might find some more info on that...right out of the box... http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.as [...] board_id=1

I have the same problem but I guess I will take a chance and get the Asus X38. Yeah i think all x38 support q9450 out of the box.

In my experience the way to reset an Asus board after a failed overclock (Striker Extreme and current Rampage Formula) is to power off the PC and power it back on. Even when I've thrown in some memory combinations and settings that didn't work all I had to do was...power off the PC and power it back on and correct my mistakes.

A message comes up that says, "I'm sorry master, you're overclock has failed, I've reset the bios to automatic settings. Would you like to make adjustments now. You're wife just called."

JUST KIDDING. It does come up with a message that your overclock has failed and asks if you'd like to enter the bios to make adjustments, both on the 680i Striker Extreme and X48 Rampage Formula. ...very forgiving.

Yes, the P5E does, it's called C.P.R. (CPU Perameter Recall)

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx? [...] odelmenu=1

This is one of the kinds of features that Asus charges you a little more than the competition for. Their enthusiast boards offer tools that allows your less experienced overclockers (like me) to overclock easily, while also allowing the veterans all the scalpels they need to tune just about everthing an overclocker could want.

I'm not being an Asus fanboy, I'm just calling it as I've seen it.

It does... http://support.asus.com/cpusupport [...] &model=P5E

Where do you buy from? Whenever I buy from NewEgg I somehow end up with a fairly new (and sometimes even BETA (really new) bios).