Good p45 mobo

[ashleypursglove]

Im hoping to be building a gaming system in the next couple of months.

Im going to be on quite a tight budget at the min as im not long graduated, but I have a job so I have money coming in for upgrades in the future.

My plan is to get a dual core ( e8200/e8400 ) and some good ddr2 memory, which will save me some money, and if I need to I plan to upgrade to something like the q9650 when the price comes down.

Something to mention is I will be hoping to overclock my processor a bit but nothing serious.

On the GPU side of things im thinking a single 4870 for now.

Anyway onto my questions.

Do all p45 mobos have support for ddr2 and ddr3?

Would people recomend the p45 chipset as a good match for the above components/plan?

If so can people suggest a p45 that would fit with the above components?

Ta

 

[ashleypursglove]

Also what speed of ddr2 should I be looking at?

Is it just a case of the faster the better?

 

[dirtmountain]

Most P45 support DDR2
P45 is an excellent choice, but it hasn't been out very long. Asus boards have been getting good reviews, but search around make sure it has the features you want.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3309
As you start getting into the high level P45 boards you start running into the territory of the X38/X48 boards which are much better if you're going to crossfire.
Look around for P45 reviews.
DDR2 800 low latency

 

[ashleypursglove]

I wasnt planning on crossfire. I figure that by the time the 4870 starts to struggle there will be another mid range single card.

 

[RamGuy239]

Most P45 support DDR2
As you start getting into the high level P45 boards you start running into the territory of the X38/X48 boards which are much better if you're going to crossfire.

May I ask why the X38 / X48 boards are so superior?


It's a fact that Intel P45 with it's small 65nm outperform the X38 / X48 when it comes to overclocking.
They've also got the new improved southbridge, and because 65nm is cheaper to produce it cost less.


The only downside with P45 is when running more than 2x cards in Crossfire, and whom are doing that if I may ask?
When running 2x cards in Crossfire there are no limitations on the P45 PCI-Express2.0 bandwidth WHATSOEVER!


So why the hell claim something as stupid as the X38 / X48 being that much better for Crossfire?
That's simply a lie.

 

[outlw6669]

I wasnt planning on crossfire. I figure that by the time the 4870 starts to struggle there will be another mid range single card.

If you are not looking at CrossFire, check out a cheaper P35 based Mb. It will still offer you great overclocking and everything else you need minus the second PCIe hooked to the north bridge.
As for P45 Mb's, the ASUS P5Q-E looks like a solid choice.

 

[fallen2004]

There is no point runing Xfire on a P45 mobo as it will only run at x8 each instead of x16 which will throttle the 4850 and anything above, especially the 4870, u myte aswel just get a p45 board with 1 slot like the ASUS P5Q which u can pick up for about £80

 

[ashleypursglove]

If I go for something like the p5q (£80), am I going to be missing any important features that I would find on the p5q e (£104) or the p5q deluxe ( £121 ).

From the pics I can see the stadard p5q has no heat pipe cooling system. The only other difference I can see between the boards is the bios features.

I have no idea what all these features are and probably will never use half of them, but I dont want to get a board thats missing something important.

Thanks