Choosing a motherboard from this list?

[Shark00nPT]

Hey guys! I had a Asus P5K-Premium, which gave me a TON of SATA, RAID, RAM, and overall stability problems. I couldn't install a OS, couldn't setup a RAID array. And when I finally did manage to do this (I had to take out my 4 x 1GB of RAM and do all the installations with only 1GB, because with the other modules the board wouldn't even boot) I had transfer rates of aproximately 4MB/s. And I could only boot with 1GB of RAM. So I returned it, and the store where I bought it has now give n me credit to choose another motherboard from their inventory. I have no price range since the P5K Premium was already one of the most expensive motherboards, and the others that are even more expensive are only by a difference of +/-50 bucks.

So, these are the motherboards available for me to choose from:

680i SLI
- ABIT IN9 32X-MAX, I'm really leaning to this one. Haven't seen any unresolved issues, the last BIOS took care of every RAID problems. It's a really beautifull board, looks rock solid and is very stable.
- ASUS STRIKER EXTREME, I'm afraid of going "Asus" again. The P5K Premium was filled with problems and Asus is not taking any kind of action, the two BIOS updates that were release solved nothing. So I don't know about this board, I have heard about RAID problems here too.
- BFG NFORCE 680I SLI, Standard Reference Board from nVIDIA. I dislike the layout and overall build quality of this board, but some people are very happy with them, others hate it.

P35
- ABIT IP35 PRO, Abit board, as far as my research went, no big problems what so ever with this board. But it's not a high-performance motherboard, so I'm not that sure of it.
- ASUS BLITZ FORMULA SE, Again, Asus board. I don't like that. What I do like is it's layout and build quality.


My system is:
-Q6600 B3
-8800 ULTRA 768MB DDR3
-4GB Corsair Dominator PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM (4 x 1GB, Keep in mind that I want a motherboard that actually boots with 4GB of RAM)
-Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
-1 Western Digital Raptor 10.000RPM 74GB HDD for OS
-2 Western Digital Caviar 7.200RPM 160GB HDD @ RAID0 for Games/Software
-2 Western Digital Caviar 7.200RPM 500GB HDD @ Single for Storage
-CPU and VGA watercooling.
So, what do you guys think? Which mobo should I go with?

Thanks a lot!

[Lucio]

Given your setup, I don't think you particularly care about the money so I'd consider going for either the aBit IN9 or the reference 680i (though I'd recomend EVGA since the retail pack comes with a lifetime warrenty). Choosing between the two I think purely comes down to layout rather than anything else, again though, lifetime warrenty on something like an EVGA model might make a difference to you.

[Shark00nPT]

Given your setup, I don't think you particularly care about the money so I'd consider going for either the aBit IN9 or the reference 680i (though I'd recomend EVGA since the retail pack comes with a lifetime warrenty). Choosing between the two I think purely comes down to layout rather than anything else, again though, lifetime warrenty on something like an EVGA model might make a difference to you.

Thanks. Lifetime warranty would be nice yes. But I prefer a board that has a two year warranty but is stable and works properly, than a "lifetime" warranty board, where that warranty would come handy. Did I make myself understandable?

The store where I got the credit does not deal with eVGA, so BFG is all I got.

Oh and by the way, what do you think of the Striker Extreme and the other P35 motherboards? Are they worth thinking about?

[Lucio]

Ok, well BFG have a pretty good warrenty and the EVGA board I mentioned is simply another reference one so no more or less likely to fail than the BFG model

Personally, I stopped looking into details on Asus boards when I decided to get a Lian-Li case for my new system, as AFAIK they all have evaporation based heatpipes which wont function correctly inverted.

I'd personally choose not to get the P35 boards if money was no object, purely because you never know when the extra features on the 680i's will come in useful, not to mention I believe in pairing like with like (e.g Intel chipset with ATi and Nvidia with Nvidia) because quite frankly, you know that their test rigs during development are at least likely to have been tested with your hardware setup.

[Shark00nPT]

Ok, well BFG have a pretty good warrenty and the EVGA board I mentioned is simply another reference one so no more or less likely to fail than the BFG model

Personally, I stopped looking into details on Asus boards when I decided to get a Lian-Li case for my new system, as AFAIK they all have evaporation based heatpipes which wont function correctly inverted.

I'd personally choose not to get the P35 boards if money was no object, purely because you never know when the extra features on the 680i's will come in useful, not to mention I believe in pairing like with like (e.g Intel chipset with ATi and Nvidia with Nvidia) because quite frankly, you know that their test rigs during development are at least likely to have been tested with your hardware setup.

Thanks a lot man.

So, if I understood you correctly, ABit IN9 first, BFG board second.

Thanks again.

[EtheAv8r]

Abit..... great support and I have Abit QuadGT - best board I ever had.... (just ordered two more for a friend's build)...

[DataMatrix]

If you're using only one graphics card why do you need an unstable 680i chipset?

[Shark00nPT]

If you're using only one graphics card why do you need an unstable 680i chipset?

Instead of asking rethorical questions, why don't you you advise me on a motherboard?

[EarlGrey]

I would go with any P35 option you have, thus the IP35 pro, but is there any chance you could delay for a X38 board? For the sake of a few days you might end up much happier...

I'm not sure when they are actually going to hit retail, but Scan say they have been expecting to arrive since 15th Sept...

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=662323

And there must be other models flying around.

[Shark00nPT]

I would go with any P35 option you have, thus the IP35 pro, but is there any chance you could delay for a X38 board? For the sake of a few days you might end up much happier...

I'm not sure when they are actually going to hit retail, but Scan say they have been expecting to arrive since 15th Sept...

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=662323

And there must be other models flying around.

The store where I got my credit from is going to receive Asus X38 motherboard next monday. But I'm not paying again to be an Asus Beta-Tester.

One thing I'd like to know, what's the big advantage of X38 on 680i?

[silent]

or p35 and i975 to???

now im confused as want a new mobo and ram (ddr2)

[Shark00nPT]

Thanks for all your help guys! My new Abit IN9 32X-MAX is arriving tomorrow in my mail box!

Would you like some pictures?

[DataMatrix]

No, the 6x chipset makes my eyes hurt.

[aidanjt]

Instead of asking rethorical questions, why don't you you advise me on a motherboard?

Actually the question is valid, if you're looking for stability then 680i isn't a suitable chipset solution if you don't need SLi. So with that in mind, the Abit IP35 Pro would be a more suitable board, in the real world, the difference in performance between the all boards is next to nil where frequencies are the same.

[BUFF]

I don't know who told you that the IP35 Pro isn't a high performance mobo but they were wrong.