MOBO - ASUS P5B v Gigabyte DS3

[Andeh13]

Just bought half the components for my PC from scan, and im waiting for the other half to be delivered on friday from Ebuyer.

I went for the Intel Core2Dueo 6300, and the Asus P5B mobo initally, however having a quick scan over these forums there seems to be a great deal of support behind the Gigabyte DS3 boards.

Before i open the mobo & invalidate the returns option, have i made the right decision? has anyone else had any good or bad experiences with this Asus?

I need reassurance, thanks guys.

[shaithis]

I am having issues with the Asus and DDR800 RAM and 533FSB CPUs.......although that issue will not effect conroes (due to them having a higher FSB) and its effecting a ton of boards across all manufacturers.

The P5B (I have the Deluxe Wi-Fi) seems to be a very solid and stable board. Nicely laid-out, easy to use and tweek.

The only odd thing about it is its second PCI-E 16x port is only wired for 4x (~1GB/s) and isn't SLI or xfire compatible.

[Clunk]

the ds3 seems to be the best of a really poor bunch at the moment. if you really want to be sure, wait a few weeks, or if not, youll have to take a gamble like everyone else

p.s. my p5w died after a couple of hours, ds3 coming tomorrow.

[Steve B]

interested to hear how u get on clunk, as im thinking about getting the DS3 too, as soon as my conroe arrives from Hong Kong

[kempez]

I'm getting a DS4 so I'll see how that goes

[Andeh13]

bah, so the general agreement is the gigabyte > Asus?

Also, what attracts people to the DS3* over the Asus? The Asus seems more feature rich then the DS3?


*Ds4 is out of my price bracket

[Clunk]

bah, so the general agreement is the gigabyte > Asus?

swings and roundabouts seems to be the best analogy at the moment. they all have their flaws, they all have their advantages, for example, the asus was laid out perfectly for me, except the battery was behind the pci-e slot, meaning that if you needed to reset the cmos for some reason, you had to take out the graphics card...pointless! also, the northbridge cooler looks impressive at first glance, but look closer and make sure that it is on straight, mine wasnt even contacting most of the northbridge. there was shedloads of goodies with it too, and a nice touch was the iclusion of a little jumper block that you plug all your case wires into and then plug that onto the pins on the motherboard....saves fumbling around with big daft sausage fingers shame it died so quick.

steve, how come its coming from hong kong?

[shaithis]

Odd, the P5B works a little different...

Toggling the PSU power switch basically does the same as a BIOS reset, except it boots with BIOS defaults and then puts all your settings back for you as they were. No need to go for the BIOS jumper or the battery.....I have found this feature to be amazingly useful so far

And also got to agree about the little connection block for the power, reset, hdd led etc.....why something this simple, yet so useful, hasn't become standard already is beyond me.


I think that the Gigabytes are more popular as thats what people have been able to get recently due to availability and price, so thats what a lot of the overclocking results are coming from, ergo, more poeple are buying them.

[Andeh13]

yeh, i spose at the end of the day they cant be entire worlds appart & asus isnt exactly an un-heard of company when it comes to PC components.

As i said above, if it dies im not too fussed, Scan have been excellent in the past when it comes to turning faulty goods round, and this will be a 2nd PC till i leave for uni in a months time. Ill put it throughs it paces before then and see how it goes.



edit: As for clunk's CPU comming from hong kong - they are light years ahead of us when it comes to new tech, i have a few friends who got their PSPs shipped overfrom there a few weeks/months before the Uk release date, my guess is he is doing the same with the CPU?

[Clunk]

shaithis, yep, the crash free bios means that in theory, you shouldnt have to take out the battery, but there are going to be times when you need to, thats for sure

[Andeh13]

so buying the asus isnt the end of the world for me then? It just didnt take off as fast as the gigabyte?

I tend to get a bit paraoid whenever i buy anything this big(ie an entire system), last time it was over the graphics card, this time its over the mobo.

[ExceededGoku]

Am I the only one getting a DQ6? :S Anything wrong with it lol??

[Hidden Hippo]

No, nothing is actually wrong with it, just that it is quite expensive when compared to a DS3/4 which works just as well. I think I may be following the trend by getting a DS3, but I may get a DS4 or even an Abit AB9 Pro. Retails at about the same price as the DS4, but doesn't have the problems with certain types of RAM. The list of compatible RAM can be found here. I think the list for the DS4 is the same, but if you want to check, just change the part that says "motherboard_memory_ga_965p_ds3" to "motherboard_memory_gam_965p_ds4".

[ExceededGoku]

I have more capacitors with the DQ6 meaning more stable voltage feeds meaning better overclocks. Which is basically what I understand anyway. Other than that the feature set is mainly bland.

[kempez]

I've heard of a lot of issues with the Dq6 so that's why I stayed away

[ExceededGoku]

I've heard of a lot of issues with the Dq6 so that's why I stayed away

lol typical, I reckon I'll be fine though