More P35 Goodness!

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chaohuei
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:06 am
Location: Bellevue, Washington

More P35 Goodness!

Post by chaohuei » Sun Aug 26, 2007 1:27 pm

I'm currently looking for a midrange (read US$150-200) mobo that'll support a Yorkfield processor - trying to "futureproof" a little - in a P182. I'm not going to use SLI, but eSATA is a consideration for me. Probably will OC to 3GHz or so, so overclocking isn't too big a concern. Don't need legacy.

At the moment, I'm looking at a few boards (prices from Newegg since I'm feeling lazy right now):

Abit IP35 Pro ($184.99)
Asus P5K-E WiFi ($154.99)
MSI P35 Platinum ($169.99)

I think the Abit and Asus top my list at the moment. The Abit has nice fan controls and doesn't feel crowded. The Asus seems to basically be the Deluxe toned down a little for a good price cut. Does anyone have opinions on these three? It seems the P5K-E is hard to find opinions on; most people have the SE or the Deluxe.

And I was thinking of replacing the heatsinks on at least the northbridge. Will that adversely affect cooling on the southbridge and wherever the last heatsink is?

Particularly with regards to fan control, I've heard bad things about the Asus Q-Fan. What exactly's the deal with it?

The other major consideration is that I'll probably start with a SATA HD in the lower 3.5" bay, one IDE in the upper 3.5", and a IDE DVD writer in the 5.25". The Abit seems to have major problems with SATA HDs and IDE DVD drives and I don't recall having seen a solution. Am I wrong?

Luminair
Posts: 223
Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:45 am

Post by Luminair » Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:12 pm

http://techreport.com/articles.x/12747/17

I'd get a DS3R 2.0 if I was buying a new board

chaohuei
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2007 6:06 am
Location: Bellevue, Washington

Post by chaohuei » Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:32 pm

Sorry I've been away for a while; school started.

So another question's popped up. Is there a significant difference between the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R ($129.99) and the -DS4 ($186.99), assuming both are Rev. 2? The only major things I see are the addition of Firewire and losing a PCI slot for a PCIx slot. If that's the case, I see no reason to consider the DS4 since I don't need SLI or Firewire.

Which brings up a second question that to my knowledge, still hasn't really been answered. What exactly are the differences between Rev. 1 and Rev. 2? No more legacy, circuit change...?

Abit's IP35 Pro board is the other one I'm still considering. The uGuru really interests me due to the BIOS fan control. I would like to hear some knocks on it besides the non-PCIx ethernet, though.

florinp3
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 3:54 am
Location: Bucharest, RO

Post by florinp3 » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:51 am

Abit IP35 Pro doesn't support undervolting, while Gigabyte does. I went for G33-DS3R (P35-DS3R wasn't available at that moment) and I'm happy with it. BIOS has an Auto mode for 2 fans (CPU and another 3-pin header) that works fine for my Ninja fan + Nexus @exhaust. Speedfan can change their speed too.

darkb
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Jun 16, 2007 11:07 pm
Location: Australia

Post by darkb » Fri Sep 21, 2007 2:31 am

I've had a very good experience with the Abit IP35-E when I built a system for a friend recently.. It doesn't have Firewire or Raid, but the heatsink for the northbridge isn't connected to the other heatsinks via heatpipe, which should make it alot easier to swap. I've also read somewhere that it's also the only one of the three IP35 boards that uses pci-e x1 for the gigabit lan instead of pci, which some people say makes a large difference.

The only slight issue I found with the board was that it's one of the ones that double boots.. when you power it on it starts for 2 seconds, then turns off.. then turns back on like normal. I think the IP35 and IP35 Pro also do this (not sure though).

The IP35-E was excellent for overclocking.. It was paired with a E6550, which had no problems running at 3.4Ghz at standard voltage (1.221v in cpu-z during orthos), and was orthos stable for over 12hrs. Reached 48C using stock cooler ! All that was required to achieve this overclock was to set ram to the 1:1 equivalent setting and bump the northbridge voltage one small increment, and set the fsb.

The fan control worked well, but I can't remember if it works for a non 4pin cpu fan (was using stock cooler at the time)

IMO, an Abit IP35-E with an E6750, coupled with a HR-05 and a ninja or thermalright ultra 90 or 120 would be an amazingly efficient and powerfull combination.. if you don't mind the lack of raid, firewire, and having to wait an extra 3-4 seconds upon initial bootup or bios setting change.

Edit: I just remembered: there was one other small issue: there is only one IDE port.. and it's controlled by a seperate (jmicron iirc) controller chip.. Any devices using IDE didn't show up in the bios, as they are detected after the bios finishes it's checks.

I was able to boot from the windows xp install disc.. but there were no partitions on the sata hdd at the time. I am unsure if you could force the board to boot from an IDE cd drive if there is a sata device with an operating system detected at boot, because you cannot select IDE devices in the bios. Having a sata dvd drive would solve this though, as they are listed as a boot option in the bios.

Bobendren
Posts: 117
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Location: RSA

Post by Bobendren » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:18 pm

darkb wrote:the heatsink for the northbridge isn't connected to the other heatsinks via heatpipe, which should make it alot easier to swap. I've also read somewhere that it's also the only one of the three IP35 boards that uses pci-e x1 for the gigabit lan instead of pci, which some people say makes a large difference.
Do you think you'll be able to install an Ultra 120 and a HR-05 at the same time?

As for the lan issue, it's about 1/3 slower. I asked if either the standard IP35 or E version use the PCI-E bus for the lan over at the abit forums. Answer: No. Thread here: http://forum.uabit.com/showthread.php?t=126800
The only slight issue I found with the board was that it's one of the ones that double boots.. when you power it on it starts for 2 seconds, then turns off.. then turns back on like normal. I think the IP35 and IP35 Pro also do this (not sure though).
The Pro doesn't. The IP35 and IP35-E do. I can't believe they haven't fixed this yet.

Goldmember
Posts: 220
Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:16 am
Location: U.S.A.

Post by Goldmember » Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:45 am

Luminair wrote:http://techreport.com/articles.x/12747/17
I'd get a DS3R 2.0 if I was buying a new board
Those power consumption numbers are amazing! I guess all that marketing stuff about ferrite cores and solid caps etc. was true. Puts the Asus P35s to shame. :(
darkb wrote:I've had a very good experience with the Abit IP35-E when I built a system for a friend recently...
Yeah, it seems to be a really good value @ $69 after rebate in the States. Your double boot issue seems to have been fixed in a recent bios update unless I'm mistaken.

krille
Posts: 357
Joined: Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:56 am
Location: Sweden

Post by krille » Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:37 am

I want Gigabyte's board with Abit's fan controller (actually Abit's fan controller isn't perfect at all, but it's the best of the lot). But I'll probably end up with the Abit. I don't think I'll undervolt anyway (on the contrary I'll probably OC) and my Internet connection is "just" 100/10 Mbit. But an LPT port would've been nice.

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