Motherboard for E8400

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:09 pm

I am thinking of building a new system on the E8400. I usually get an ASUS board, but was thinking of getting one from Gigabyte. Is there a favored board for this? I've had nForce motherboards in the past and like the audio.

How is the GIGABYTE GA-EP35 mb?

I need a PS2 connector for my old keyboard.

Thanks,

Steve

mkk · Post by **mkk** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:17 pm

Gigabyte has several slightly different models in the EP35 line, but the simplest named EP35-DS3 would be a good budget solution.
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... uctID=2741

I'm using a slightly older model named P35-DS3 and it's doing very well for stably overclocking my E7200, which is the budget version of the E8x00 series. The july BIOS release for their P35/EP35 boards weeded out a few lingering problems with these relatively new 45nm CPU's. I haven't tried the onboard sound since I already had an Audigy2 card. I slapped on 8GB of Kingston ValueRAM and it runs sweet with 64bit Windows.

nafets · Post by **nafets** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:38 pm

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:18 am

I have Gigabyte P35-DS3L. It works wonderfully! I am very sure the new version (E)P45-DS3L will be excellent for ther e8400 without breaking your budget. Difference between P and EP is that EP has energy saving things optimized heavily and improved. DS3L lacks Raid, firewire and E-sata but is excellent Motherboard none-the less, if you don't need such things, DS3L will be excellent, solid choice for budget conscious person.

falke · Post by **falke** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 6:34 am

Make sure you check out their forum at Tweaktown for any conflicts with the board you are interested in.

bgavin · Post by **bgavin** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:47 pm

I sold all my Gigabyte P35 stock after finding out about the long running, and chronic, (unsolved) DPC latency problems.

I moved to the ABit IP35 Pro and am entirely satisified with using this board for my clients' machines.

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:23 pm

Thanks for the help.

The EP45-DS3L is a nice board. It does lack IEEE 1394. I have a very old adaptec card. It would be nice to go with the on board firewire, but I wonder how good that is?

The GA-EP45-DS3R has IEEE 1394 but newegg reviews suggest it has some problems. Also, the DPC latency issues...not sure how much they would affect me. I do some video compression and conversion.

I am comparing to the ASUS P5Q boards, but still thinking about an nForce board.

aztec · Post by **aztec** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:15 pm

If you are NOT overclocking, I would suggest looking at the Intel mobos.

Stability/compatibility is beyond anything else I've used. BIOS updates are very frequent and always address specific issues.

....this is coming form someone who has bought Asus/Abit for a good many years.

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Fri Jul 25, 2008 3:42 pm

The GA-EP45-DS4P looks interesting. Both the GA-EP45-DS3R and the DS4P meet most of my basic requirements. The only difference between the two appears to be heat pipe and the PCI slots. It's been so long since I built a system I am not sure what PCI slots I will need.

I did not find much on the tweaktown forums on the EP45 board.
I'm not going to run SLI but I don't mind if it's there. With 1394a onboard, that is one less slot, so it probably leaves the audio card as the only possible extra card. Maybe a tv card.

If anyone is interested

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=190360

A test of the GA-EP45-DS4 board shows the latency issue appears to be resolved, but only one data point. I notice the ASUS board shows latency.

nomoon · Post by **nomoon** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:24 am

I'm running an E8500 on a GA-EP45-DS3R. It works. I haven't had the system long. I got the GA-EP45-DS3R because it was the only P45 board available at Frys and I needed to get my machine up an running immediately. It's supposed to have "advanced dynamic energy saver" features, which in theory would reduce heat produced from the motherboard, and thus cooling requirements for the case. My old board that died was an Asus A8N Premium (w/AMD 4600x2), in which the passive heat sinks ran really hot. This one seems to generate my less heat than the older Asus. The Asus's thermal sensor would get really hot when the machine was loaded. The heat sinks also got really hot to the touch. The Gigabyte doesn't get nearly as hot.

For the E8500 CPU, I'm running a Thermalright HR-01 Plus with a KAMA PWM fan (DFS1225-12L-PWM). It idles at 393 RPM at
CPU MB Socket = 27C
CPU reading 0 = 34 C
CPU reading 1 = 37 C
I'm not exactly sure what the Intel temperatures represent. The hot reading (37C) doesn't change much with CPU loading.

I have it running in a P180 case with case fans that are controlled with a FanMate2. None of the fans run faster than 750 RPM.

The fan headers are quirky and not optimum, but it does have enough functionality to allow a quiet system to be built. So far, I have only been able to control the fan on the CPU_FAN header using a 4 wire PWM fan. Apparently, this is the only header that is controllable. All of the others appear to be fixed. I have emailed Gigabyte with some technical questions about the fans and I am waiting for a response.

There are four fan headers:

CPU_FAN: 4 wire. Appears to require a 4 wire PWM fan to be controllable
PWR FAN: 3 wire. Does not appear to be controllable at all.
SYS_FAN1: 3 wire. Does not appear to be controllable at all.
SYS_FAN2: 4 Wire: Runs at 5 volts instead of 12. The +5 pin and PWM pin are inexplicably reversed (according to the manual). The is header is not controllable even with a FanMate2 unless the wires are resoldiered.

It's possible that some of the other fan headers are controllable and that I just haven't figure them out yet. The control-F1 feature to access advanced features in the BIOS doesn't seem to work on this board. I've read that the older Gigabyte boards could change fan control from PWM to "Voltage Controlled."

The heat sinks on the DS3R board do not interfere with the placement of a third party CPU heat sink. I don't know about the boards with the fancy heat sinks.

Jason

krille · Post by **krille** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:29 pm

canthearyou > what PCI cards do you have currently?

Most likely you will only need a single PCI-E x16 slot for a graphics card and a sound card, since a lot of people - like me - won't make do with the integrated solutions. The sound card is very much optional.

Other than that you probably won't need more slots unless you know it yourself (ie if you want a superb HW SAS controller, you would already know this, same goes for firewire card, TV tuner/card, etc).

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:06 pm

I have a Firewire card and the AGP video card. I may choose to get a audio card if I am more serious about music, but the onboard audio has been quite good on my current ASUS board.

My Solo case just arrived so it is time to start choosing what's going into it.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:29 pm

aztec wrote:If you are NOT overclocking, I would suggest looking at the Intel mobos.

Stability/compatibility is beyond anything else I've used. BIOS updates are very frequent and always address specific issues.

....this is coming form someone who has bought Asus/Abit for a good many years.

The lack of bios options in intel boards makes them a complete no for me. No undervolting is a huge issue when you're a silence and power addict. Underclocking/undervolting are reasons to avoid intel. Also fan controls is another reason.

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 10:50 am

I decided to get an ASUS P5Q after a lot of study.

I hoped for good Linux compatibility from the onboard LAN, 1394 and sound, but after looking through SuSE and Ubuntu HCLs, I doubt there is any board that really gives good compatibility between the ones I was considering.

The choice was narrowed to between the Gigabyte EP45-DS3R and the PQ5. I thought about the PQ5-E or the PQ5-Deluxe since they have Marvell LAN nic cards that some versions of Linux support. I also looked at nForce boards, which Linux is more compatible with for LAN and sound (mine work fine on an old my old nforce board). But the new gigabit LAN is not supported well and there are a lot of driver problems.

The ASUS was about the same price as the Gigabyte and it looks to have a better quality power supply and built a little better.

I might have gone with a EP-35-DS3R to save quite a bit of money, but wanted to avoid the latency issues that appear to be unresolved in all the forums I visited. It made me wary of the p45 based boards and that Gigabyte only has the tweaktown forum...the intangibles led me back to ASUS, which I'm used to.

The manual for the Gigabyte is nicely illustrated with photos.

All my previous ASUS boards were higher than base models, but the P5Q is pretty advanced. I don't think I will need the heat pipes, which seem to be for show on these boards.

snake plissken · Post by **snake plissken** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:43 am

@ canthearyou

I'm also considering the P5Q or the P5QL-E for my next PC. The only thing that's REALLY bothering me is the placement of the ATX power connector just above the PCIe 16x slot (instead of on the right side). Doesn't this cause problems for the airflow? Is cable management more difficult with the large power cable there? Also it's really close the the GFX card (i'm considering a ATI 4850) wich can get verry hot.

Greg F. · Post by **Greg F.** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:12 am

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138126

I don't know why you don't consider this Biostar board. It has heatpipe, very good integrated sound, solid caps, is noted as being one of the very best OC'ers on the market right now, and is well laid out.
When I email Biostar I get a reply within a day. The one time I called they picked up the phone on the third ring. And quickly answered my question.
IMHO and YMMV.

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 6:37 am

Greg,
I did consider Biostar. I checked out the the I45 board, which uses the P45 chip

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138118

It looks like a really good board and there were some good comments about it from users on one of the review sites (anandtech?). But I was concerned about the intangibles like the lack of support forums. MSI and ASUS have support forms, FWIW. I've heard that ASUS never answers their support email and just take that as business as usual. I am surprised by your Biostar experience.

On the other hand, the onboard LAN and sound are Realtek chips, which have problematic support under Linux. Neither SuSE or Ubuntu really supports the Realtek LAN and my old nic card was a Realtek and wouldn't work either. Only the nForce LAN has really worked without trouble. I'm not sure if I should have gone with another nForce board, but the video corruption problems were unacceptable.

All the boards seem to have some problem. They are getting so complex and the software that runs them seems to be getting buggier the more features they add.

canthearyou · Post by **canthearyou** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:54 am

snake plissken wrote:@ canthearyou

I'm also considering the P5Q or the P5QL-E for my next PC. The only thing that's REALLY bothering me is the placement of the ATX power connector just above the PCIe 16x slot (instead of on the right side). Doesn't this cause problems for the airflow? Is cable management more difficult with the large power cable there? Also it's really close the the GFX card (i'm considering a ATI 4850) wich can get verry hot.

I completed assembly with the P5Q. The placement of the power connectors is an issue. I was just barely able to loop the main power cable around the Xigmatek heat sink and it comes within a couple of centimeters of the fins and fan. It blocks airflow to some degree and may create turbulence. I am somewhat okay with this.

But the placement of the 12v ATX connector is terrible on the P5Q. What were they thinking? I could not fit the cable between the ASUS heatsink, the Xigmatek fins to come inside the top rail, instead I had to loop it over the rail and back down to the board. The cable sits right in the airflow of the HSF, the PSU and the 120 rear fan on the Solo.

I wish I had paid more attention to this connector.

malmal · Post by **malmal** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 5:32 pm

Biostar has a support forum listed under support.
http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Their P35 m/bs have a replaceable bios chip. GA and Asus have soldered chips. If it wont post , you have to send the m/b to the manufacturer to get reflashed.
My GA EP35 died - no post RMA, then the second one did the same. So I parked it.
Got a DFI UT P35 runs good. got a replaceable bios chip.Bought a second bios chip in case I toast the first one o/cing.

Abit has replaceable chips as well.
So far all P45 m/bs have soldered bios chips.-waiting for DFI LT P45 to come out.

Monkeh16 · Post by **Monkeh16** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 5:46 pm

malmal wrote:Bought a second bios chip in case I toast the first one o/cing.

Uuuhhh.. How do you break a BIOS ROM chip by overclocking?

Motherboard for E8400

Motherboard for E8400

OR BIOSTAR