Best Mobo for Core 2?

swimtech

First off, bless all you early adoptors using the new Core 2 CPU in the various mobos available for the past three months or so.

Please chime in here and let us all know of your experiences and opinions about the motherboards you are using to run the latest Core 2 CPU from Intel.

The various iterations of the boards from Asus, Gigabyte, Abit, ECS, MSI, Foxconn, Biostar, Intel, ASRock, and others, have been out for a while now and surely have their idiosyncracies, quirks, and advantages in the areas of overclocking, stability, bios setup and use, memory compatibility, voltage ranges, features, and so on. Here's your chance to let us all benefit from your experiences (positive and negative...) and wisdom - post away!

Asmoday

Well, I own two Asus boards the P5B Dlx and the P5W DH both are really nice boards no stability issues at all. The Abit AW9D-Max recently reviewed here on DH also seems to be a real winner.

hackerx

This has been done before.But either way.If u aren't going down the multi-gpu route in the future.The 965 boards are great.
The ASUS P5B Deluxe and the Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 are by far the best in that section.
If u want crossfire get the ASUS P5WDH(975x based).Or wait for the bad-axe 2 which should come out with kentsfield.(that is supposed to be the best overclocking 975x board according to some previews)

blackdog

My P5W DH Deluxe works like a charm, with great features and is rock stable, have not experimented too far with it cause I'm on the road more than I'm at home but the board has not gave an ounce of trouble since I built the system. Although a healthy alternative would be Intels D975XBX, 3 pci-e slots and good features for an Intel board, plus you get Intel reliability. Check out Maximum PC's review in their holiday issue.

PangingJr

i'm just curious, you also think that the Intel board has more reliability?
i have read many times about how stable the Intel board is... often heard that it is a very stable board.
i kinda wonder if that means the other boards are not stable enough or something? i personally think, stable, means stable. so if the other boards have less stable, then, to me, they are simply not stable. and to me, stable just mean everything in a computer.

Lowfat

I personally say stay away from the P5B-Deluxe. The bioses are horrible and I have nothing but problems with mine.
-about 90% of the time my PCIe 16X slot runs @ 1X
-when booting my computer turrns on for a few seconds, then turns off, then proceeds to boot
-4:5 memory ratio works like poop
-the crashfree bios doesn't work properly. I have to completely shutdown the computer, then, power off the PSU for 15 seconds, then proceed to boot the computer

if you need more reasons why not to buy the board, i can easily find more lol.

PangingJr

lol.. that bad? you can always go back to the 965P-DS3, you still have it, don't you?

Lowfat

nope. It was completely dead when i bought it. Had to send it back. Once you get the board completely stable it isn't too bad. It will be good enough until either the RD600 or i680SLI boards are out and about.

H3X4D3C1M4L

Would this apply to the P5B-e or just the Deluxe version because IMO the deluxe has too much extra crap on it

Erroneus

P5B-e is an interesting board, has high quality capacitors, to bad the first rev has a lousy mem controller, which is only able to give 2.1V to the ram. Waiting for some tests of rev2, which could be a very nice board.

blackdog

I have found in the past that Intel chipsets for Intel procs are a win-win combo, the problem in the past was the boards where not usually feature rich or had no overclocking capabilities(or poor ones). Other boards are good, I have an Asus board myself and works great.

Tipstaff

Personally, if I were buying a 965 board I would go with one of Intels own boards. Doesn't matter which one really as they are all pretty much the same. It's just a matter of picking one that has what you want on it. If anything, maybe the DG965WH, or the DG965RY as they are full sized boards.

As for 975 boards, Intels D975XBX (rev.3.04 and up), D975XBX2 (which, btw, is out now), and Asus P5W DH Deluxe will all give you ATIs Crossfire support, or go with Asus' P5N32-SLI Premium if you want nVidias SLI + nVidias PPU support.

Just be aware of the ram. As I mentioned in another post HERE your best bet would be to stick with Corsairs XMS TWINX2, or Crucials Ballistix ram.

dipstick

I've used two C2D boards, the Intel 975XBX and Asus P5W DH, and they both have been a pleasure. The Intel is very limited OC'ing-wise unless you have a C2D Extreme but you can get a moderate OC on any C2D using the Intel OC Utility. The P5W however is the cream of the crop with all the features you could ever want along with great OC'ing options. Both are rock solid thanks to the Intel 975 chipset and run totally silent.

PangingJr

i agree that Intel makes good chipsets, the south bridge include the BIOS and drivers that is provided by Intel to control the RAID function itself is the best in its class. i use many Intel chipset-based platforms... not too far away... the 440BX/ZX... 815/815E... 910, 925X, 945P/945G, 955X, P965/G965 chipsets, never used 865/875 chipset and still have not yet used the 975X... all of these boards from the past and up to now are made by many different manufacturers. since the 815 chipset (socket 370 boards) i can say that all of my Intel chipset-based boards were/are stable, otherwise i simply will not continue to use any of the boards if i ever found that it's not stable, just never found one that was not stable.

Retarp

I have the AW9D (not Max) intel 975 chipset and it is a beast for overclocking. I have not had any stablitly issues after finding the "sweet spot" for overclocking. E6600 @ 3.4Ghz, ram 1:1 @ 380Mhz -the massive heat sinks on the chipset & power regulators work like a charm. Intel raid controller is much faster than the Uli raid I had before.

F1N3ST

I have the ECS P965T-A. It is no good for overclocking, only allows 333FSB, and you cannot lower voltage. It has P965 Chipset, 5 SATA, and Gigabit Ethernet.

H3X4D3C1M4L

Yes but as I read this didn't have as profound an effect on overall OCing as one may think Just in circumstances where running low latency at DDR2-1000 needed high volts etc.

Erroneus

Well some ram really runs the best at 2.2, so I'm waiting for rev2

PangingJr

an article at anandtech.com named "Conroe Buying Guide: Feeding the Monster", on the "Value DDR2", the author have written some of value DDR2 modules that can be ran at low memory timings at all standard speeds, however, according to that article some of the modules ICs requires up to 2.2V. so IF the Asus P5B-E only allow you to adjust DRAM voltage of up to 2.1V, i wouldn't want to buy it since i can't even play around with my memory modules, and it will be very limited for me to find and use a better or overclock memory modules with the board.
anyway, have you check for any info of the P5B-E Plus version of the board yet?

Erroneus

Rev 1.01G goes to 2.1
Rev 1.02G goes to 2.4

Also it's a 965 C2 board, which fixes som small problems in the 965 chipset.

PangingJr

you mean the "P5B-E Plus" also have 2 revisions?

and what about the "P5B-E" how many revisions do exist on the market?

hackerx

The black board seems to be full of capacitors and looks a lot better.
I really don't see the need for so many capacitors

PangingJr

as i've read somewhere before that Asus's don't have the "P5B-E Plus" for the US. market, didn't have any idea why.

however, seems to me they are 2 different boards...
"P5B-E Plus" is not a new revision of the "P5B-E"

P5B-E Plus is a newer version board that has been added to the Asus "P5B" series.

if i understand correctly, as of today, there are 5 boards in the P5B's... that are using Intel P965 chipsets...

1) P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP
2) P5B Deluxe
3) P5B-E Plus
4) P5B-E
5) P5B (with South Bridge of ICH8, rest of above boards are using ICH8R)

and then there are 3 more boards in the P5B's... but these are the boards that uses G965 chipsets...

1) P5B-V DH Deluxe/HDMI
2) P5B-V
3) P5B-VM

i don't know about the revisions, nor what's changing on each revisions on any of these boards.

Erroneus