I'm trying to decide on a mobo for my new system, and I have it pretty well narrowed down to three:
GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R
ABIT IP35 Pro
The trouble is I've heard far too many stories of Abit's shoddy support (though reviews of the board seem quite good). On the other hand, I've read the Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R only has 2 three-pin fan connections (I assume the othe Gigabit board would be the same if its true; the only difference I can tell of the two is the P35C one has DDR3 support, which I don't need). My case has 5 fans (1x120mm, 4x80mm, and I think they are all three-pin connections) and I wish to use them all. Would the Gigabit board, if its true about connections, limit how many of my case fans I can use?
The price of the Abit board is about the maximum I want to spend, an therein lies the appeal of the Gigabit boards: cheaper and support (from what I hear) is better.
What would you guys suggest? One of those three, or a different board?
My system components are:
Case: Raidmax Smilodon ATX mid-tower
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 8800GT Superclocked
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Optical Drive 1: LiteOn DVD-RAM Lightscribe Burner - SATA connection
Optical Drive 2: LiteOn CD-RW Burner 52x32x52x - IDE connection
Floppy Drive: Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
Hard Drive: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA 3.0GB/s in RAID 0
RAM: Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB(4 x 1GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Kit
PSU: Antec NeoPower 650 Blue ATX12V / EPS12V 650W
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler