Don't know your budget, but I bought an ASUS X48 Rampage Formula a couple months back and it does everything that I need. With only raising the FSB and voltages for the CPU and ram, I got over 4ghz with everything else left on auto, and this using 8 gig of DDR2 800 ram. ASUS also has a X38 Maximus Extreme using DDR3 if you want, but I prefer the cost savings of the Formula with DDR2.
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Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.
DDR3 ram is ever so slightly faster than DDR2, but is 2-5 times as expensive right now. So for the price difference, DDR3 isn't worth it unless you're in for the highest mhz possible. As to the difference of the X38 and X48, the X48 uses a few newer and better pieces of hardware, along with some better options if the BIOS from what I've read.
The present cost of an ASUS X48 Rampage Formula is about $290, If you read the Gigabyte article about ASUS only using a software EPU, don't worry about it. When overclocking, the EPU doesn't get used anyway. Similar thing about ASUS not using capacitors from Japan. Who cares where they are made, as long as they work?
Gigabyte and ASUS make very similar boards, with similar prices on the high end boards. Anandtech has a couple articles on the ASUS and Gigabyte boards that are worth reading. That's how I came to decide on the ASUS board. By the way, the top Gigabyte DDR2 board costs $299, so is a bit more expensive. Generally speaking, I think the ASUS and Gigabyte boards are very close in quality, though I personally favor ASUS, having has a problem with Gigabyte in the past.
Message edited by Sailer on 05-16-2008 at 12:16:28 AM
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Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.
That's true. Have to wait until some some real reviews come out to know if its any better than a X48. I'm not sure about its Crossfire capabilities, but that's a lesser concern for most people.
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Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.
