Best E6600 motherboard for £150

[Supershanks]

Many boards are already quad core ready Check out LGA775 Intel® Quad-core Processor Ready logo in sppec. picked board as it's pretty much 1st generation browse the site you'll find most boards are, not just asus.

luck

[acidrainy]

I've got myself a Asus p5b. The motherboard is fantastic, best voltages i've every seen on a board - personally. The bios is great for tweaks and clocks too!

I bought this last week after coming to the conclusion that spending any more on a motherboard - just now - was silly. Whilst the 680i's look attractive, they are a bit ludicrous on the cash factor.

[Supershanks]

Do u see any droop on vcore ???
That seems to be the main issue with most of the asus boards ??

I bought this last week after coming to the conclusion that spending any more on a motherboard - just now - was silly. Whilst the 680i's look attractive, they are a bit ludicrous on the cash factor

Think i'm coming round 2 same idea may try a "cheaper" older board if it ok well & good if not then at least i'll have feedback on these new boards.

luck

[acidrainy]

Do u see any droop on vcore ???
That seems to be the main issue with most of the asus boards ??

I'm not getting any. Good sample? o_O

[Supershanks]

I'm not getting any. Good sample? o_O

Sorry i'm looking at maybe buying in 1 of the boards i mentioned. have been reading in Xtreme forums much anecdotal evidece not much concrete quite a few threads like this P5B Deluxe Vmods which together made me wonder.

According to Their 400 mobo has massive vdroop and none fullly workiing voltages & following post there'e a conspiracy theory

Bingo13
If they change the Vdroop parameters (which they would love to by the way) then they violate several engineering and license agreements with Intel. However, they are looking at a couple of ways around this in the next series of boards

next post.

so all in all i wondered how close it is my dfi board is spot on with vcore & overvolts memory by around 0.06v.

thanks for input

Edit: sierra_bound In fairness both sierra & Bingo13 are respected ocers, testers so that is most likely explanation. Just something I hadn't understood.

[EtheAv8r]

ASUS Commando and ABIT AB9 QuadGT both look very interesting, seem to be 965 rev 2 boards, with hopefully improvements learned from rev 1 boards.

Just when I decide 680i will not be worth the money, and settled on P5B.... just about to place the order with SCAN and along come these two new contenders.... choices, choices...!

[Zathras]

Could someone give a run-down of the differences of the various P5B boards from Scan? What's the difference between the P5B and P5B-E for example?

[Supershanks]

EtheAv8r :
ASUS Commando and ABIT AB9 QuadGT

Yep i knew about the commando but just picked up on the Abit today. I'm in same boat as u was thinking of higher end (well > £150 )
Was looking originally at DFI ICFX3200-T2R-G or Abit IN9 32X-MAX, But i don't like the RD600 chipset cooling on the dfi - u have to feed it volts to oc to say 450fsb so it will run around 50C a bit hot for passive cooling in my mind but the unit is held on the board by wire hooks like intel but not a std fit so after market coolers won't fit without modification. ETA 17/01/07. Looks firm at that date manual is available on dfi site. 2 full reviews & around 2/3 testing OC threads

Abit IN9 32X-MAX looks superb read that the launch is 07/01/07 but no manual no reviews no tests, got a feeling no board at that date.

So i have another option which is to get 1 of these:-
ABIT 975 AW9D-MAX - Well established have seen some good ocing etc., Available now.
Commando - great looking board decent £165 It's supposed to launch to coincide with CES see Anandtech ASUS and Shuttle
Abit AB9 QuadGT Announced today no info on launch at all if it follows the Abit IN9 32X-MAX(announced 2/11/06) that means 2 months till launch Hopefully it will be much sooner than that.

An outsider is the GIGABYTE'S GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Looks ugly as sin to me but it's alsoo shown in dabs at the same £. May be competative with the new 965s but gives u 680i

I think at this time that new plan is better as all these are ina way established boards the new 965's are in effect 2nd gen so should be sound, with digital pwm which should only improve things.
luck

[EtheAv8r]

I believe the abit AB9 QuadGT has digital pwm, but not the ASUS Commando..... Both boards look good, I have waited sooooo long for this new build, but I am getting itchy... and will probably go for the first available... Both have good (but very few) reviews....

[Supershanks]

8 phase EL-Capless power design Reliable Power Supply Lol i'm getting to be a real sad git looking at these mobos. I'm getting worse than a train spotter. In all honesty i don't think there's that much between the Commando & Abit AB9 QuadGT a few swings & roundabouts peripheral wise. Well have to guess which is the best performer.

luck

[BUFF]

only thing is that 650i may just undercut them totally.
The Commando is goinng to be £150 or so & I wouldn't be surprised if the QuadGT is £120 or so (total guess) but the Asus 650i SLI is £75-80, does 500fsb & dual 8x for SLI instead of X16+x4 for Crossfire....

[Supershanks]

Hi Buff that's suprising had got the commando £ from Asus orders Commando into action

£165 ($322/€246) inc VAT

which is probably in line with your £150.

I hadn't seen any £ for the Quad or any of the 650i boards but had assumed they would be around the same £150 mark.

I think though that the commando & the quad may be better specced in terms of digital pwm + 6x sata rather than 4 etc., but had assumed that the "usual nvidia chipset premium " would put them in the same ballpark.

That really is a cheap £ for SLI. Knocks the hell out of any possible resale value from my current board

Edit:
A bit off topic but a reminder why we're here looking at these conroe's. AMD Athlon 64 4800+ Anew: AMD Masters 65nm Technology (page 11) I remember the good old days when ocing meant amd Doh!!

[BUFF]

That really is a cheap £ for SLI.

Yep, I too was expecting it to be £100-120 for the SLI chipset given where 680i is positioned but it's showing up on several UK sites now in the high £70s/low £80s.
It's the same price on Newegg as a Gigabyte DS3 which even then would put it ~£90.

[Supershanks]

ASUS P5N-E SLI: NVIDIA's 650i enters with a Bang See what u mean, not too shabby. $ price quoted in above converts to £ you said.

It's no good though won't change my mind it's any of those 3 ... or 4 ?? i mentioned.

luck