mobo for my Q6600

[kevinali]

Hey guys and gals,

I am slowly getting my parts i need for a new build, i bought a Q6600 last week

the last piece of the puzzle is the mobo...

I need one that will support the 45nm parts later next year or the year after that....having said this, i am leaning towards the gigabyte ga-p35-dq6 (p35) or any flavor of the 680i chipset mobo (the burning question i have is the support for the 1333 bus the new cpus will need on the 680i boards) I have 2 gb of pc 5400 ddr2 ram, and will buy the good stuff later on when the price is right, so i will not look into the ddr3 stuff.

Any recommendations ( i am buying the mobo to fit into an antec p180 case, so i have to take into account the connector layouts)

Thanks a million

Kevin

 

[JAG87]

no sli ? no 680i !

p35 or if you can wait a month, x38.

 

[kevinali]

is the x38 a ddr3 only chipset?

If so, i would rather get a p35 and get top quality ram later on to complement the q6600

Kevin

 

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by: kevinali
is the x38 a ddr3 only chipset?

If so, i would rather get a p35 and get top quality ram later on to complement the q6600

Kevin

Officially it is DDR3 only (Intel certified). There are, however, a number of manufacturers including all of the usual suspects who are releasing DDR2 boards and a few who are releasing hybrid DDR2/DDR3 boards.

 

[lyerx]

x38 can only use ddr3

 

[lopri]

I know this is a bold statement, but anyway: I would not buy any X38 motherboard (or any NF7 which should debut shortly after) for the first 6 months, no matter how great they look on the paper.

It's just based on my personal experiences from the past. I do love tweaking for more performance, but I hate wasting time for trouble-shooting.

 

[lopri]

And at current rate, higher grade memory really means little on Intel platform, IMO. Data has to pass through FSB, and faster memory helps very little. (Just look at the AT memory reviews) With the introduction of 1333FSB CPUs, this situation is even worse because at the same CPU frequency the performance will be even lower. Worse yet, I predict even less choices (or no choice at all) of dividers available. Have you wondered why 4:5 is so prevalent on 975X (but no 2:3), and 2:3 on P965 (but no 4:5), other than the obvious (1:1)?

I believe there is a 'known' issue with these chipsets that Intel don't want us to know. It's really not an 'issue' to be exact since 1:1 will give you the most, if not all, performance you should be getting from C2D CPUs, but it's interesting nonetheless. When overclocking, there really isn't much of choice of dividers with current Intel chipsets (lest you employ some exotic cooling for the chipset and memory). 1:1 should work for every chipset - but on 975X 4:5 seems to be only real alternative, and 2:3 on P965. I wonder how things have changed with P35, but knowing its predecessor - I suspect it's either 1:1 or 2:3 just like P965.