Good X38/X48 mobo?

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Fri May 02, 2008 4:18 pm

Can anyone recommend a good (from a silencing perspective) X38/X48 motherboard, preferrably with ECC support? I'm looking to replace a workstation and a server and was thinking I'd build both with the same parts. I'm looking to run each motherboard with a Q9450/Q9550 proc (or the Xeon equivalents). I had my eye on the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 but I'm not seeing it on Newegg anymore (possibly because they're carrying the GA-X48-DQ6 now).

Many thanks in advance!

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Fri May 02, 2008 5:45 pm

I don't think either chipset supports ECC memory, or if it claims it does, that it is actually used. I'd *love* to be proven wrong, but ECC/Reg, more than 8GB, SAS, and that sort of stuff is why Intel wants you to buy Xeons (real real ones, not the re-badged Q6600).

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Fri May 02, 2008 6:19 pm

Well I'll be d*mned. The X38 does indeed support ECC memory, though only with DDR2 memory (namely, not if you use DDR3 memory, if the board supports it). Not registered (or buffered), so no more than 4 slots, but still ECC is a big deal for me too.

The following claim to support ECC memory; there may well be others:

Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4
Asus P5E WS Professional
Asus Maximus Formula

I did not check the X48.

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Fri May 02, 2008 10:22 pm

Yep, the X38/X48 definitely do ECC. It nice to have the option to go ECC or not on the same mobo. I'm probably looking at loading up both mobos with 8GB, probably 2 of the Kingston PC2-6400 KVR800D2E5K2/4G 2x2GB kits. I have yet to see ECC DDR2 faster than PC2-6400 (800MHz). But first, I have to find a relatively quiet mobo.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Sun May 04, 2008 12:10 am

I've got the Asus Maximus in my system at home, and all of the heatsinks on the motherboard are passive.

If you're interested, the Maximus is easy to do the ol' pencil Vdroop mod. This simple mod is fully reversible (takes a basic eraser) and helps to lower CPU voltages (thereby lowering temperatures).

The only recommendation about this board - update the BIOS to the latest version as soon as you can. Later BIOS revisions have better voltage regulation than the earlier ones.

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Sun May 04, 2008 8:42 pm

How's your board with regards to dynamic fan controls and SpeedFan support? I'm not familiar with the Vdroop mod but as a newbie to underclocking, I think I'd prefer to stick with safer methods like BIOS settings....

Does anyone have any experience with the GA-X38-DQ6 or GA-X48-DQ6 boards?

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Sun May 04, 2008 9:38 pm

lunadesign wrote:Does anyone have any experience with the GA-X38-DQ6 or GA-X48-DQ6 boards?

I have recently built a system with a GA-X48-DQ6 and Q9300 CPU. I have an Adaptec 5405 SAS RAID controller in the second x16 PCI Express slot. The 5405 is controlling four Fujitsu MBB2147RC drives in RAID 1 for database use. The motherboard's onboard Gigabyte (jMicron) controller is running two WD6400AAKS drives in RAID 1 for OS and data.

The only problem I ran into with this motherboard so far is when I originally tried to get the OS drives running off the Intel ICH9R set to RAID mode. It would conflict with the Adaptec 5405 and wouldn't boot. I disabled the 5405's runtime BIOS, upgraded the 5405 and MB BIOS, and the results were the same. Finally, I set the ICH9R to SATA mode and moved the two SATA drives to the jMicron controller ports in RAID 1 mode, and the conflict is resolved. HD Tune results on the jMicron controller look fine.

I'm running tests and installing stuff now, so far so good!

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Sun May 04, 2008 11:21 pm

josephclemente wrote:
lunadesign wrote:Does anyone have any experience with the GA-X38-DQ6 or GA-X48-DQ6 boards?
I have recently built a system with a GA-X48-DQ6 and Q9300 CPU. I have an Adaptec 5405 SAS RAID controller in the second x16 PCI Express slot. The 5405 is controlling four Fujitsu MBB2147RC drives in RAID 1 for database use. The motherboard's onboard Gigabyte (jMicron) controller is running two WD6400AAKS drives in RAID 1 for OS and data.

The only problem I ran into with this motherboard so far is when I originally tried to get the OS drives running off the Intel ICH9R set to RAID mode. It would conflict with the Adaptec 5405 and wouldn't boot. I disabled the 5405's runtime BIOS, upgraded the 5405 and MB BIOS, and the results were the same. Finally, I set the ICH9R to SATA mode and moved the two SATA drives to the jMicron controller ports in RAID 1 mode, and the conflict is resolved. HD Tune results on the jMicron controller look fine.

I'm running tests and installing stuff now, so far so good!

Very cool. What kind of case / heatsink are you using with your GA-X48-DQ6 (and how hard was it to install)? Also, any word on dynamic fan controls and/or SpeedFan support?

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Mon May 05, 2008 3:55 am

lunadesign wrote:Very cool. What kind of case / heatsink are you using with your GA-X48-DQ6 (and how hard was it to install)? Also, any word on dynamic fan controls and/or SpeedFan support?

I'm using an Antec P180 with the stock Intel heatsink. Also using the P180's stock case fans, which are "silent" in the noisy office.

I haven't looked to closely at the dynamic fan controls or SpeedFan support. The BIOS fan control looks similar to my Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard at home, but I am using the P180 stock fans which are not connected to the motherboard. The Intel heatsink fan is connected to the motherboard, and I can see it's speed is being controlled by the BIOS.

The motherboard installation was pretty easy.

The 2.5" SAS drives were a little challenging - I had to find 2.5" to 3.5" brackets, and those brackets I found did not use standard 3.5" screw threads so they were not compatible with the P180 grommet screws. I couldn't find any screws that would work so I ended up using zip-ties instead (with washers, so the zip-ties wouldn't slip through the grommets).

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri May 09, 2008 8:33 am

Hello,

Here's a review of a coupla' X48 mobo's from Intel and Asus:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/14598

bgavin · Post by **bgavin** » Fri May 09, 2008 7:10 pm

It is my understanding that all the Gigabyte boards (P35, X38, X48) all suffer from the DPC latency problems. The BIOS coders are emailing out hacked patches, but nothing official yet.

I really like those boards, but sold off my P35-DS3 stock and moved to the ABit IP35 Pro instead. I cannot base a product line on boards with audio problems caused by DPC spikes.

lunadesign · Post by **lunadesign** » Mon May 12, 2008 8:33 pm

bgavin wrote:It is my understanding that all the Gigabyte boards (P35, X38, X48) all suffer from the DPC latency problems. The BIOS coders are emailing out hacked patches, but nothing official yet.

I really like those boards, but sold off my P35-DS3 stock and moved to the ABit IP35 Pro instead. I cannot base a product line on boards with audio problems caused by DPC spikes.

Thanks for the heads up. This is the first time I've ever heard of DPC. Does this affect uses other than audio workstations?

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Mon May 12, 2008 9:11 pm

bgavin wrote:It is my understanding that all the Gigabyte boards (P35, X38, X48) all suffer from the DPC latency problems. The BIOS coders are emailing out hacked patches, but nothing official yet.

I really like those boards, but sold off my P35-DS3 stock and moved to the ABit IP35 Pro instead. I cannot base a product line on boards with audio problems caused by DPC spikes.

Hmm, just to mention I did some dpc testing recently on my P35-DS3R (Rev 2.1) and with my wireless card off, I'm not seeing any major spiking. It's possible this only affects certain revisions and/or bios updates.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Mon May 12, 2008 10:16 pm

merlin wrote:Hmm, just to mention I did some dpc testing recently on my P35-DS3R (Rev 2.1) and with my wireless card off, I'm not seeing any major spiking. It's possible this only affects certain revisions and/or bios updates.

What BIOS are you using? I'm getting the spikes with the same board and the F11 BIOS.

murtoz · Post by **murtoz** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:42 am

lunadesign wrote:How's your board (asus maximus) with regards to dynamic fan controls and SpeedFan support? I'm not familiar with the Vdroop mod but as a newbie to underclocking, I think I'd prefer to stick with safer methods like BIOS settings....

I have an Asus Maximus Formula and love it. Speedfan works great after I followed some advice from spcr.
The dynamic fan control in the bios is quite flexible though, can't quite recall how it is arranged but remember you can set it to target temps or at certain pwm %'s.
One more thing I am planning to do - I am cooling my gpu with an hr-03 + 120mm fan connected to the board. I want to add a thermal probe (something like this), so that speed fan can read out the gpu temp and control the fan based on this too. I believe the board has 3 headers for these thermal probes.
In short, I'd really recommend this board!

JackyPerformance.com · Post by **JackyPerformance.com** » Thu May 15, 2008 7:27 pm

Is there such thing as DDR2 ECC memory and will it work on the Asus Maximus with a Core 2 Duo cpu?

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:00 pm

JackyPerformance.com wrote:Is there such thing as DDR2 ECC memory and will it work on the Asus Maximus with a Core 2 Duo cpu?

Yes, the Maximus supports both ECC and non-ECC DDR2 RAM. All CPUs from the Pentium4 to 45nm C2Q are supported.

For my setup, I'm running YL fans in my system (and a 500RPM SlipStream on my TRUE), and I've simply got them all set to auto with my Q6600 at stock speeds, my CPU temps never go above 44C - even when it's warm out.

jonlumb · Post by **jonlumb** » Sat May 17, 2008 2:32 am

This one is supposed to be pretty good for staying quiet:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/0 ... -x48-t2r/1

lm · Post by lm » Sat May 17, 2008 9:41 am

I have a Gigabyte EX38-DS4, 2 kits of Kingston Valueram 4GB (2x2GB) Kit 800MHZ DDR2 ECC CL5 KVR800D2E5K2/4G giving me a total of 8GB of ECC ram. Q9450 ordered, but still waiting for it, and running a cheap celeron temporarily.

All passive heatsinks.

Gillian Seed · Post by **Gillian Seed** » Sat May 17, 2008 10:08 am

lunadesign wrote:Does anyone have any experience with the GA-X38-DQ6 or GA-X48-DQ6 boards?

I have just built a GA-X48-DQ6 based PC.

P182
GA-X48-DQ6
Q6600
TRUE + 120mm nexus fan
Corsair HX620
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB
passively cooled HD3450

The loudest thing in the case are the tri-cool fans (on Low). Next the harddrive seeks, then the HX620 fan.. but that is really nitpicking. With the tri-cools off, the PC is inaudbile in my environment*.

My only complaints about the board...

CPU socket is close to the top of the board, fitting the TRUE with the top fan in place is tricky, but it can be done.

CPU Vcore in BIOS bears little relation to what CPU-Z et al show - often upto 0.3v out at idle.

Adjustments for voltage in BIOS (other than Vcore) are relative - +0.1, +0.2. On my last motherboard the adjustments were absolute - 1.10v, 1.2v etc. Having said that, this system just replaced an Abit KR7A Raid system that I built in Jan/Feb 2002...

Boy did my XP1900 feel kick ass at the time, a big upgrade from the dual 333MHz Pentium2 setup I was running previously!

* - my environment is a 5x4 metre carpted bedroom, with RickSilk RS45 accoustic slabs in the stud walls, and BG soundbloc plasterboard over them. Crown Acoustic Joist roll is installed under the 22mm chipboard floor, and the loft joists are covered with 300mm of Crown Loft Roll 44. Suffice to say its pretty queit in this room.

johnbentley · Post by **johnbentley** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 11:00 pm

I join this thread after discussion in 2008-11 Motherboard and CPU for quiet gaming.

I'm after a new motherboard that is going to support 3 monitors with two graphics cards. I've decided I'm going to get a motherboard with 2 PCIe 2.0 X 16. In 2008-11 Motherboard and CPU for quiet gaming some have been arguing that I don't need this. That is, that I could get away with lower spec'd boards, eg A board supporting the Intel P45 chipset. Those arguments have merit. However, for a host of reasons which might include stubbornness, I'm going for an X38 or X48 board. These fully support 2 PCIe 2.0 X 16.

X38 and X48 Candidates
---------------------------------

Note the prices quoted are rough. They are in Australian Dollars, from Techbuy where possible (a trustworthy store with prices in the middle), and at other times chosen semi arbitrarily from the first page of returns from a shopping aggregate website. I can vouch for Techbuy. Scorptec.com.au has website that is not scary.

Chipset: Intel X38

MSI X38 Diamond, Platinum, $AUD 373.
+ Listed in Recommended Motherboards: From a Silence Perspective 1.1
- A little scarce in my country, http://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/sea ... &q=MSI+X38+
- More expensive than the MSI X48C Platinum.

Chipset: Intel X48

All of the following have 2 PCI2e 2.0 x 16 (form factor and data speed).

MSI X48C Platinum, $AUD 339 (From scroptec.com.au, 2008-11-24)
+ Supports four DIMM of DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600, 8GB Max
+ Supports two DIMM of DDR2 667/800 SDRAM, 4GB Max
+ 3 PCI slots
+ PCIe Spacing looks Good. If you took up two slots with a graphics card in the second PCIe slot, there are still 2 PCI slots free.
+ CPU looks like having good clearance for aftermarket cooler. Can this be confirmed?
+ Integrated RAID.
- Only 4GB of DDR2.
* DDR2 and DDR3 can not be installed at the same time

ASUS Rampage Formula, $AUD 439 (From scorptec.com.au, 2008-11-24)
+ DDR2 1200*/1066/800/667 ECC, Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory. *DDR2 1200 is O.C. speed.
+ ECC memory support.
+ 8 GB max memory.
- No DDR3 support.
- 2 PCI slots.
- PCIe spacing not as good as MSI X48C Platinum. If you took up two slots with a graphics card in the second PCIe slot, it may obscure the PCI slot.
Question: The specs say "Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10" does this mean RAID is integrated or must a seperate card be bought?

GA-X48-DQ6, $AUD 466 (From Techbuy, 2008-11-24)
+ DDR2 1200/1066/800/667MHz, ECC, non ECC memory modules.
+ 8GB max memory.
+ User success at building a quiet system. Eg Gillian Seed above
-

bgavin wrote:all the Gigabyte boards (P35, X38, X48) all suffer from the DPC latency problems. ... with audio problems caused by DPC spikes.

- Gillian Seed reported "CPU socket is close to the top of the board, fitting the TRUE with the top fan in place is tricky, but it can be done."
- No DDR3 support

Asus P5E3 Premium, $AUD 552
- Too pricey.

My Choices and further questions
-------------------------------------------

For me it's a toss up between the MSI X48C Platinum and the ASUS Rampage Forumula. I'm inclined towared the MSI X48C Platinum as it's:
* cheaper,
* looks like it has better PCIe/PCI clearance, and
* The MSI X38 Diamond, Platinum (not the X48) made it onto the Recommended Motherboards: From a Silence Perspective 1.1 list. One hopes that a manufacturer learns from the past and improves upon an already solid product. Of course, this is not necessarily the case.

I'm not too fussed about having DDR3 support given that it is reported to be expensive without too great a benefit.

DrJ wrote:ECC is a big deal for me too.

So I had to learn what the big deal about ECC is....

Chances for a single-bit soft error occurring are about once per 1GB of memory per month of uninterrupted operation. Since most desktop computers do not run 24 hours a day, the chances are not actually that high. For example, if your computer (with 1GB of memory) runs 4 hours a day, the chances of a single-bit soft error happening (when your system is running) is about once every six months. Even should an error occur, it wonâ€™t be a big issue for most users as the error bit may not even be accessed at that time. Should the system access the error bit, this little error wonâ€™t result in a disaster either - the system may crash, but a restart of the system will fix that. Thatâ€™s why ECC memory is not a necessity for most home users.

Things are very different when it comes to workstations and servers. To begin with, these systems often utilize multi-gigabytes of memory, and they usually run 24/7 as well. Both of these factors result in increased probability of a soft error. More importantly, an unnoticed error is not tolerable in a mission-critical workstation or server - a system crash is only the smallest of worries. What really matters is the erroneous data itself - you can imagine the issues that can arise as a result of a soft error in bank systems or a flight control computer system. Therefore, ECC memory is definitely required for mission critical applications.

Source: Do I Need ECC and Registered Memory?

I'll be rebooting my desktop once a day and not running a server. So I don't need ECC.

Does anybody have anything else to add to help in deciding between the MSI X48C Platinum and the ASUS Rampage Forumula?