high end motherboard

[radar]

hi,
im looking for a high end motherboard for this (Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 3.0GHZ 1333FSB 4MB ).ive read hours of reviews and when ive found ones that sounded good,i would fine bad write ups.its going to be used for movie encoding and gaming,also it needs to be ready for any new up and coming technaligy.

thanks

[Adub]

Check out the intel motherboard section over at OCforums.com, and look for the board that seems to be the most inquired about.

Pretty much anything with the new X38 chipset should work great. Asus and Gigabyte are pretty much the best manufacturers using that chipset right now, so that should help you narrow it down a little.

Keep in mind that a "high end motherboard" is going to be pricey. Easily north of $200.

[radar]

hi Merlin7777
ill check it out.do you have any recommendations,ive read that the high end asus were buggy.

thanks

[Adub]

Well, there are several "high end asus" motherboards, are you speaking of one in particular?

[Blue_MiSfit]

P35 should be more than adequate for now - any specific reason to get X38? I have heard it's not tremendously faster.

~MiSfit

[burfadel]

The only real benefit of the X38 over the P35 is better performance (supposedly) when using SLI, otherwise there's no real benefit. The very small performance increase can be surpassed by spending the difference in money on faster RAM...

[radar]

these are the boards im looking at:

EVGA Nforce 680I SLI
ASUS P5N32-E SLI
Gigabyte X38-DQ6 ATX
ASUS P5E LGA775 X38
ASUS P5E3 DELUXE/WIFI-AP X38
ASUS Maximus Formula SE

ill be doing video encoding and gaming.

[burfadel]

Are you planning to use SLI, and what video cards do you intend to use for this?

One point of note, the 8800's are a very long card, by the time the extra PCI-E power plug is inserted many of the cases out there may not fit it correctly.

Also are you planning to do any overclocking?

[radar]

hi burfadel

im not sure what card yet.need vid ram for encoding,so somthing very fast.

i already have my case.(black pearl,full tower)

im going to try overclocking

[burfadel]

All the motherboards on that list are either X38 or i680 chipset based. How about a P35 chipset base? unless of course you're going to run 2xGeforce 8800 Ultra's, where the x38 would probably perform a bit better.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=534

Thats the list of all P35 chipset motherboard made by ASUS.

[Blue_MiSfit]

The very small performance increase can be surpassed by spending the difference in money on faster RAM...


RAM speed has little to do with performance - when you don't overclock. If you do overclock, then fast RAM lets you overclock without stressing your RAM, which can easily be a limiting factor if you use cheap RAM.

If you're going to encode, I would get a P35 board with 4 gigs of DDR2 800, and a Core 2 Quad processor. This CPU has a 9x multiplier to run 2.4 GHz at 266 MHz FSB (533 effective). So you can get up to 3.6 GHz on DDR2 800 MHz RAM without stressing the RAM.

Realistically, you're going to produce too much heat for this CPU to be air-cooled at those speeds, but it's nice to know your RAM won't hold you back :)

~MiSfit

[radar]

burfadel

thanks for the link.
i was only picking the boards that support up and coming technology.
just would like a better than average board.this is my first build and I'm still learning.

Blue_MiSfit

what do you think of this board,Asus Blitz Formula .
or do you have any suggestion's.

thanks

[burfadel]

The very small performance increase can be surpassed by spending the difference in money on faster RAM...


RAM speed has little to do with performance - when you don't overclock. If you do overclock, then fast RAM lets you overclock without stressing your RAM, which can easily be a limiting factor if you use cheap RAM.

~MiSfit

Thats true! I actually meant faster in the sense of 4-4-4-12 RAM instead of 5-5-5-15 for example :)

[Blue_MiSfit]

Oh sure - faster timings are always preferable, but these days the impact is VERY minimal :) It's not like the PC100 / PC133 days where CAS2 vs CAS3 meant 10-20% improvement!

@radar - not sure about the Asus Blitz Formula. I don't see it on Newegg - some other board with Forumula in the name, but not a Blitz.

If you want my honest opinion - the P5K-E is a great choice http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131225

Take a look :)

~MiSfit

[saint-francis]

First of all you can only SLI on an Nvidia chipset. That rules out x38 and p35 and leaves 680i, which is pretty old now.. I have a p35 board and it's fantastic. And it's certainly not Asus. It's a DFI. I highly recommend it. 8 phase power. Asus was basically the last company to switch to 3 phase power. Personally I'm less than satisfied with Asus. But then again I overclock and I like the advanced functionality that a DFI board affords the operator. Their x38 board is coming out in about a week but their p35 is more than adequate. I think it's more robust than the processors. My CPU is a q6600 and I have ddr2 800 RAM. I am steadily cruising at a 60% overclock that has withstood days on end of encoding.

Of all of the boards you have listed I think the best option would be the Gigabyte.