Mid ranged P35 mobo?

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FartingBob
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Mid ranged P35 mobo?

Post by FartingBob » Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:04 am

Currently in the process of upgrading my system, i know everything im getting except for the board. Here's what i plan on buying:
Q9300 CPU
9600GT or the ATI 4850 depending on its price to performance ratio. Leaning towards the 9600 though as i know my S1 fits it.
2x WD 640GB WD6400AAKS drives

For a mobo im looking at spending £70-100. don't need anything special, would like something with plenty of fan headers and speedfan support (I have 3 case fans, all nicely undervolted, plus my CPU) and a good BIOS for under/overclocking), and decent on board sound so i can get rid of my soundcard.
Ive heard very good things about the Abit IP35 Pro but here its quite expensive (~£100). Is it worth it over others like the Asus p5k pro (£82), the MSI Neo2 fr (£75) or the cheaper Abit IP35 (£81)?

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:21 am

OC is fine with all the boards that you mentioned above.
As for fan control, I haven't used IP35 before, but I can guarantee that even a low-end IP-35E has relatively powerful fan control compared to others. Of course, you can use speedfan to control two fans on Abit IP35-E.

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FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:14 am

thanks! Does anyone know where i can find a list of differences between the IP35 pro and the standard IP35? All the reviews online focus entirely on the pro.

smilingcrow
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Post by smilingcrow » Sat Jun 07, 2008 4:37 am

Keep an eye out on the Scan Today Only pageas they’ve had it for under £80 in May and it seems to come on offer regularly. They have free postage for AVForums and Hexus forum members also.

I’d also consider the Gigabyte P35 series as I’m very happy with my P35-DS3R 2.0. It’s good for serious under-volting & over-clocking and I can control 2 of the 4 fan headers with Speedfan. There are reports that the later versions (2.1 or EP35) don’t support Speedfan but I’m not clear if this is because people haven’t configured the BIOS and Speedfan correctly; I had to change some settings to get it to work for me.

Scan has the EP35-DS3R for £73.44 but you’d be hard pressed to find the version I have in stock anywhere.

Added. There’s also a P35C-DS3R which is the same as the P35-DSR3 with the addition of 2 DDR3 slots (it keeps the 4 DDR2 slots) - http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInf ... ctID=17596

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:45 am

http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=44
I think Abit's official website is a good reference.

Gigabyte produced decent OC boards, but their bios fan control at least was a mess of loss. It's too changeable in every bios releases without logics.

FartingBob
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Post by FartingBob » Sat Jun 07, 2008 11:03 am

loimlo wrote:http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=44
I think Abit's official website is a good reference.
Thanks. The spec sheets arent that detailed (no mention of fan headers, supported CPU's etc), but theres enough there and on a few other places ive seen to convince me that the IP35 pro is ideal for me.

I do think someone at Abit needs to update their info on LGA775. It currently reads:
The Prescott (Pentium 4 core) is the only processor to use the LGA 775 socket type, for now. LGA 775 offers a Front side bus of 1066 MHz.
:lol:

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Sun Jun 08, 2008 12:50 am

FartingBob wrote:
loimlo wrote:http://www.uabit.com/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=44
I think Abit's official website is a good reference.
Thanks. The spec sheets arent that detailed (no mention of fan headers, supported CPU's etc), but theres enough there and on a few other places ive seen to convince me that the IP35 pro is ideal for me.

I do think someone at Abit needs to update their info on LGA775. It currently reads:
The Prescott (Pentium 4 core) is the only processor to use the LGA 775 socket type, for now. LGA 775 offers a Front side bus of 1066 MHz.
:lol:
Yes, IP35 Pro is almost perfect about fan control except 6V tip. In my opinion, IP35 Pro is the best P35 board on the market. :)

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Mon Jun 09, 2008 11:41 pm

The IP35 Pro you won't be disappointed with, at least when it comes to fan headers, control and features. There are six headers, all controllable from BIOS or µGuru, and the only reason I'd try any other control method would be to get hysteresis - native control is a bit hasty in changing fan speed, transitions aren't very smooth. The little BIOS code display and external BIOS reset switch I'm sure you'll appreciate very much.

Abit's site seems to live in a bygone age, but at least there's not a huge number of boards per chipset to wade through.
Yes, IP35 Pro is almost perfect about fan control except 6V tip.
What's the 6V tip? I've heard of the voltage never being able to drop below 6V even though you can apparently set it lower.

Dutchmm
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If you haven't yet decided ....

Post by Dutchmm » Tue Jun 10, 2008 5:40 am

I can recommend the Gigabyte-P35-DS4, which you can get for around GBP 100 including VAT (some of these price comparison sites seem to mix and match VAT inclusive and VAT exclusive).

I have a 25% overclock on my E6750, using standard (non-OCing) DDR2-800 memory, and it is both rock solid and quite cool - load temps folding for the motherboard are in the range 43-45C today, with the weather similar to that in London.

I did find it necessary to undervolt for my OC, to keep the fan speeds down, but this is partly because I also need to replace the Tri-Cools in my P182 with something that move the air more quietly.

HTH

Mike

loimlo
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Post by loimlo » Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:33 am

Das_Saunamies wrote:
What's the 6V tip? I've heard of the voltage never being able to drop below 6V even though you can apparently set it lower.
Yes, you could only lower to 6V by uGuru software.

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