AMD to Intel - best mobo? Long, but please help!

[Rainmaker]

Hi guys,

I'm about to upgrade from my Athlon 64 X2 4200 (specs on the left) to a nice shiny Intel based system. I'm pretty sure I'll either get a Q6600 G0 stepping, or maybe a Q9450 if I can manage it when the prices drop this month. I can't decide which mobo to go for though. I didn't know too much about hardware before this last week and the more I learnt the more confused/undecided I became I'd decide on a mobo, then read yet another review but that time find something that made the board unsuitable for me.

Eventually I settled on P35 or P45 chipset, as my requirements are pretty basic though of course I still want decent performance and good 'bang for my buck'. I'll only be running a single gfx card, period so SLi/Crossfire is irrelevant. I would however like RAID 0 with decent performance. A single LAN port is fine, and I don't need onboard wifi or anything. My router is a WRT54GL (with Tomato) so anything over 100Mbit is overkill lol but of course most include gigabit as standard now.

I do use Linux (Fedora 8, Debian Etch, Arch etc) so exotic chips with no Linux drivers are out. With that in mind I'm pretty settled now beween the Asus P5Q Pro and the Abit P35 Pro. Yes the P5Q is newer, but that also means there are no LAN drivers in the Linux kernel yet (but I could compile and install them manually easily enough). Being new also means a potentially non-too-perfect BIOS and teething troubles etc though.

The P35 Pro on the other hand seems to get gold stars in every review, is well laid out, tried and tested, and overclocks moderately well. Yes I know it hits decent speeds for quads, but what I mean is nothing seems to be able to compare to the likes of Asus on that score (sorry!). I just read also that the IP35's uGuru is totally unreliable for CPU temp monitoring in Windows?

Anyway so far my upgrade bits will likely be:

Intel Core2Quad Q6600 G0 -OR- Q9450
Asus P5Q Pro -OR- Abit P35 Pro
4GB DDR2 6400 RAM (2x 2GB - probably GeIL or Corsair)
Scythe Mine rev B CPU HSF
An extra 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7,200rpm 32MB cache hdd for RAID 0

My system is a bit of a jack of all trades. Most of my day to day work (whether in Linux x64 or Windows Vista x64) involves downloading and assembling LOTS of pars and RARs from Usenet, watching HD video (720p and 1080p), running virtual machines sometimes, network admin (Putty, Nx, remote assistance), FTP, sharing stuff on the home network, as well as the usual web/email/IM. I also play games online occasionally (UT2004, UT3, HalfLife2 etc) and quite often I'll be doing several of these things at the same time

With all that in mind I figured a quad would be better suited than a Core2Duo (even if the E8500 does overclock so beautifully on air!). I'm not 100% about the Q6600 v Q9450 as they stack up pretty similarly considering the huge price difference. I'll probably end up just getting the Q6600 and overclocking it.

I'm just really stuck as to the best mobo for me that won't cost a bomb. The Asus and Abits are similarly priced, and about as much as I'm willing to pay. I just can't decide whether to go for the newer (and still shaky) P45 or stick to the potentially more stable P35 with the option to upgrade later for Nehalem - which would need a new mobo anyway.

I really like the Asus P5Q but I hear/read that it's having problems with booting into Linux due to lack of driver support and BIOS issues, but again that'd soon resolve itself as kernels get released and I'm happy in Windows for now. It also seems like a lovely board overall - about the worst fault so far is the fact the rear IO port shield doesn't line up properly with the actual mobo ports apparently?

Sorry this was so long, but I'd really appreciate any advice you're willing to share I'm having a hell of a time trying to decide!
Cheers,

Lee

[Will404]

I have the P5Q PRO, on Vista, and its great, have had no issues yet

[staffsMike]

In fairness the more decent bios updates seem to allow stability up to around 500FSB perhaps a little more putting it right up with the Asus P5K deluxe

My money would be on the IP-35 PRO, P45 doesn't offer enough incentive for me to get Asus over Abit.

[Rainmaker]

One vote for both, it seems I'm going to end up sticking a pin in the list staffsMike, how do you find the cooling on the IP35's north and south bridges? I've read that the stock heatsinks are so uneven (and/or have TMI applied so unevenly) that they can often run cooler WITHOUT the heatsinks, and so need lapping/replacing.

I daresay no matter which of the two I choose I'll have a great board, but the IP35 + Q6600 combo is nudging in front at the moment.

[staffsMike]

I had the dark raider board and my mate has the IP-35 pro, he didn't replace the chipset cooling just bought a certain kind of fixing kit, i'll have to get back to you exactly what he did if you want to know but I'm sure a google will reveal.

Even so it was stable at 450MHz with the standard cooling (didn't push further) but he did the mod so that they ran a bit cooler.

I like Asus boards just fine, What I hate is there poor excuse for customer service which is why I like abit. That and the boards are fantastic overall quality.

[Rainmaker]

Hm... Sorry to be a klutz, but having read the FAQ and the Welcome stickies I still can't find out how to add thanks to someone. A search told me 'thanks' was too common a word to be allowed = no results lol If you don't mind letting me in on the secret I'll be sure to send some your way

[staffsMike]

You need 25 or so posts to be able to thank

It'll pop up down by the Send PM and quote buttons when you can do it.

[Rainmaker]

Ah, I didn't see that mentioned. Well in any case, thanks very much for your input It'll be interesting to see if anyone else can weigh in with an opinion - I'm quite open to new ideas/different mobos I've only focused on P35/45 because I'd read the Nvidia chipsets don't handle the quads so well?

[staffsMike]

No the nvidias aren't great with quads, I fear the quad with my 680i

Mine is actually lovely for my dual core setup but Intel would be just as good and offer me a decent upgrade path.

The 7 series nvidia boards are better with quads but apparently very unstable when overclocking so best to stick with intel.

What we really need is the Abit P45 boards but they are taking their time getting them to us.

There is a nice DFI P35 board on scan if DFI are your thing.

As I said I would stick with the P35 PRO even with the P45's appearence, which adds PCIe 2.0, 1600MHz FSB support.. for the £600 chips and 8x crossfire support as opposed to 4x on the Abit PRO, I'm still not completly sold on it due to lack of other manafacturers boards for comparison.

[Rainmaker]

Yeah, I believe the Abit P45s are well overdue now. That said the Abit P35 is more expensive than the Asus P45, and at the top of my mobo budget, so no way could I afford an Abit P45

[staffsMike]

Not strickly true if you compare the models.

The Top of the Range P45, deluxe, is about £125, the -E is about £100 both more expensive than the Ip-35 PRO which is lingering around £85 now I believe. The P5Q PRO does seem to match the overall feature set of the Abit though.

If you are considering complex overclocks though the Abit does offer the CMOS reset switch and LED error code read out etc.. so it's a overclocking friendly board to say the least.

[Noxvayl]

What about Gigabyte? Over all quality in my opinion is superior to Asus and support is without a doubt better. I'd choose Gigabyte over Asus every day of the week.

This is a good P35 board> Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R
or for P45 this is good> Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3

I find with Gigabyte the BIOS has been more stable for me as well as it has the simplest BIOS upgrade utility I have ever used> @BIOS

The Abit motherboard I don't have anything against. Its a good board and also superior to Asus in my opinion. I just prefer Gigabytes offerings personally.

[Rainmaker]

I'd not really looked at the Gigabytes tbh. Having seen the specs and price though, I'm having a really good read up about them now! They seem to have all the features I liked in the Asus, with the reliability and speed of the Abit. I'd definitely need the R version, and with only £20 between the P35 and P45 chipsets they're good value too.

The EP*5-DS3R seems to have all the features of the higher end Asus/Abits but at a lower price. Win They perform very well in reviews too. And I thought I was confused this morning?

[TAKTAK]

@ExHail

is @BIOS windows based if so... DON'T DO IT!!

@Rainmaker

my money would go on:

Intel Core2Quad Q6600 G0 (overclocks very nicely )
Asus P5K -OR- Abit iP35 (or possibly a DFI board as i have been meaning to try one...)
4GiB DDR2 6400 RAM (2x 2GiB - probably GeIL or Corsair) Yup
personally i would go with a TRUE or Xigmatec Red Scorpion but the Scythe mine is a perfectly capable cooler

An extra 500GiB Seagate Barracuda 7,200rpm 32MiB cache hdd for RAID 0

personally i would swap out the other 500GiB drive and get 2 640GiB WD AAKS's (the ones with the dual 320GiB platters) as they would be faster.

or possibly just two 320GiB single platters and create a separate RAID array from the current 500GiB


@staffsMike

you didn't get into the thread first , what were you doing this time? having a life? (oh wait... you don't get that back till 10k posts do you )

[staffsMike]

I don't get up that early mate. Suprised I was up that early in fact

[Noxvayl]

@ExHail

is @BIOS windows based if so... DON'T DO IT!!

I have used it 4 times without fail... no problems WHAT SO EVER.

All @BIOS does in windows is connect to Gigabyte's server and download the new BIOS version. Then it Restarts the PC and the BIOS update is completed before windows loads. Restarts again and your PC is working just like it did before but with a new revision of the BIOS.

Its extremely hard to get it wrong... @BIOS makes fail safe saves to revert to should the process somehow fail, so without you doing anything the BIOS will sort the problem for you should one occur.