Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

[beetle]

Planning on buying a new system based on a Gigabyte mb but I'm not sure which one to chose of the above. Since it's been 3 years since last time I need advice from those who know better

I'm planning on using the following components in the system:

Case: Antec Sonata III 500 Silent
Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce 9600GT
CPU: E6750(C2D 2.66) or E8400(C2D 3.0)
Memory: 4 Gb(which speed should I use?)
Harddrives: 1 or 2 Seagate Sata
DVD: Samsung 203D Sata

Gaming will happen occasionally but the system isn't mainly for that. Not planning any overclocking.

My greatest problem is should I buy: GA-X38-DQ6 or GA-EP35-DS4 or GA-P35-DS4

Please help an old man in the cold north

/Lennart

[randomness]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

You mite as well forget about the X38-DQ6, because this board is designed for overclocking, Depending on the price difference of the Ep35-DS4 and regular DS4, the DES function hardly saves any power at all, BUT if you'r consious about the environment then go for the Ep35-DS4. Since DDR2 RAM is so cheap atm, try go for DDR2800 at the minimum and make sure you DONT buy generic, buy brand names. You may extract better performance with the new WOLFDALE 3.0GHZ instead of the E6750, which ever is necessary for your requirements. Hard drive space wouldnt matter too much unless you do alot of video editing. Judging from those 2 hard drives im sure it'll be plenty if 2x 250GB or 1x 500GB. Though 2x 250GB is slight cheaper than 500GB i think and you hav the option to run a RAID array if necessary.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

I would agree, if you dont plan to overclock (Which they are both great for anyway), and you dont game all day long and plan to use 2 X PCIe 2.0 cards then save the cash for something else and get a DS4. That way you will have a great board, and cash to spare for Your cpu or memory.

Memory, also save your cash and get PC2-6400. And if you really must have 4GB I suggest getting 2 X 2Gb sticks and not 4 X 1GB, people tend to have some issues with 4 sticks and since you dont plan to overclock you wont be in the BIOS often tweaking things and 4 sticks will just make you mad.

Brand you say???? I suggest < Mushkins

[beetle]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Brand you say???? I suggest < Mushkins

A little short on suppliers of Mushkin, I planning on buying everything from the same store if possible(have local stores with good prices) and the stores I'm compairing only stocks Corsair and OCZ. If I should find Mushkin, what type should I get EM2, SP2...

Thank you so far, more will probably follow

/Lennart

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

HP sets if you can, and if you can afford it, XP sets, then redlines are the best, If you cant buy those how about G.Skill.

Hey it is all personal preference though anyway ya know

[beetle]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

One swedish reseller of G.Skill and they only offer 2x512 PC4400 at a price that can get me between 8-16 gigs of a different brand, I think I'll go for the Corsair PC6400 DHX XMS2, hope it's ok with you...

Any thoughts on my choice of case for this setup?

/Lennart

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

O.K. With me? HAHA it is your pc, but yeah you dont want 2x512 anyway, nor do you want PC4400. So yeah if that is the only good brand of PC26400 you can get then grab it. It is a good company, just not a preference of mine. But it is good memory.

[beetle]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

I know, but I think I better keep you in a good mood since I currently feel like a beginner.

I only get a new system every 3rd year, I haven't even built a system with SATA drives so I'll probably have future problems with getting it all to work.

Thank you for the help you've given so far, I'll probably be back sometime in April when I'm trying to make the system work.

/Lennart

PS
Should the harddrives go on Intel or Gigabyte controller(probably 2x250 in Raid1 and where should the DVD go I or Gb
DS

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Well, I prefer RAID 0 but either one will do raid0 or 1, and I prefer the Gigabyte channel for raid. Dvd player can go on Intel, or IDE

Do you have floppy, if not get one for SATA/RAID drivers

[beetle]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Have floppy, plan on having it permanent in the system. I've always preferred floppys for flashing etc...

/Lennart

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Ya me too!

[beetle]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35... UPDATE

Update...

Got an unexpected boost of my economy, considering a GA-X48-DQ6 mostly becuse it supports PCI-E 2.0, which the graphics card has.

Found a reasonable price on Mushkin XP2-8000 Dual Pack (2x2048) and if I haven't gotten it all wrong, that would mean that I can run the memory at 3x333 or 2.5x400 and get 1000 Mhz, am I way off?

/Lennart

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Yeap, probably faster depending on you FSB. I use Mushkin, and they overclock very nicely, usually with low voltages once you figure out your timings, which the mushkin forum is super fast at helping you with

[SpinachEater]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

I have some advice that you can take with a grain of salt. You have three chipsets to choose from. P35, X38, and X48.

Right off the bat, X48 is out. For two reasons. First, you aren't over clocking. Performance gains from P35 -> X38 -> X48 are almost nill at stock settings. X38 and more so X48 chipsets are meant for over clocking.

Second, If you buy the X48-DQ6 for the newegg price of $310 you can do a lot more with the money that you save by getting the EX38-DS4 for $207 instead. So that is $103 you would save by doing so.

Take that $103 and go from a dual core E8400 which is $260 to a quad core Q9450 which are starting out as $369 (or get sneaky and get a cheaper now available Xeon X3350 equivalent for ~$345). Hands down that is the smartest thing to do. You will have such a better system and you will have put your money where it maximizes your performance. You will go from a dual core to a quad core and love it just by making a smart MOBO buy.

So next you may ask why not P35? Well, if you want PCIe 2.0 that is a good reason but make sure you know that right now, you won't see any benefit to having PCIe 2.0. It is more so a future investment. PCIe 2.0 doubles the bandwidth of each lane from 250 MB/s to 500 MB/s and also doubles the power that the slot will provide the card from 75W to 150W. The thing is though, no card today is using that bandwidth.

Now, X38. It has PCIe2.0 that you want. So why did I say get the DS4 and not the DQ6 series? They are exactly the same board minus 2 SATA ports and a heck of a lot less copper. The DQ6 has the north and south bridges connected via heat pipes and the DS4 does not. DQ6 also has the back side copper sink over the CPU and south bridge. This is for overclocking stability. If you aren't overclocking then you don't need to pay for all of that extra copper. Look at the comparison below to see the features side by side.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_ComparisonSheet.aspx?ProductID=2754,2760

Once again this is just my opinion so it is completely up to you. You should think about putting your money where it will give you a great performance boost rather than sink it into a chipset that no one really knows what it is supposed to do yet. Just think about the savings and how you can go from a dual to a quad core CPU without any budget change. You could even go the other way and step up with a better GPU or 2x more RAM.

P.S. @LSD...thanks for the info on the X3300s, I ended up snagging a X3350 for $333. If I was smart and got the OEM, I could have even got it for less than that.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Getting new system, which mb X38, EP35 or P35

Nice, let me know how it performs, I plan to get one of the new xeon quads once I have enough cash