DS3 or DS4

[Stevethegreat]

Hi, I'm about to buy a new mobo for my C2D, so that I will harness the overclockability that my OCZ Gold 6400 RAM gives me. While I'm quite content by the stability my MSI p965NEO gives to me, I was quite dissapointed to see that it didn't give any real overclocking experience (333MHz is its max FSB), making my relatively expensive RAMs obsolete and my E6600 feel restless (I guess). After a little research and since my badget is not the greatest around I eventuate to the two Gigabytes (GA-965P-DS3 and GA-965P-DS4).

So my questions is: Which is the one giving the highest FSBs? Also if there is sth similar or better in that pricerange, please write about it.

Lastly, I have read that my RAM has issues with those particular mobos (DSx that is), would it be safe for me to buy one of those Gigabytes, would my system post? (this is mostly directed to those who have both of these pieces of hardware and have some experience on them)

 

[ProSlayer]

DS3 has gotten really high ratings. I would recommend that.

Edit: It really depends if you are going to crossfire or not. The DS4 has two PCI-16 slots while DS3 has one.

 

[Stevethegreat]

Yeah I know of the additional PCI-E slot that the DS4 has. My real concern is about their maximum FSB though. Is there a real difference between the two mobos besides the number of PCI-E x16 slots?

BTW will the second PCI-E x16 slot be usable from the upcoming pci-e PhysX cards (since Crossfire is not an option for my nVidia 8800GTX card)?

 

[Stevethegreat]

Since I'm buying the motherboard in a few hours, I have to bump it (and plead those who can to help the situation)

 

[Accord99]

There isn't much experience with the DS4 since it's doesn't appear to be available in North America.

 

[Stevethegreat]

At least inform me if DS3 will work fine with my OCZ Gold XTC 6400.... Thanks

 

[Killer4Hire]

I have a DS3 board and i am very happy with it.. i have tested up to 291fsb at 2.8ghz on my e6600 and corsair pc6400.. the only issue with your ram i could think of is the stock volts vs the stock bios volts of the DS3 witch is 1.8-1.9 v unless there is an update bios.. you would need a lower volt stick to boot the system so you could change the dimm volts in bios to what your ram needs and then save .. shut down..pull ram out and put yours in and reboot..

I don,t unstand why people overclock so high with there Core 2.. at 2.8 Ghz my cpu score is as high as my gpu score which is an oc 7900GTO in the 11,883 range in 3DMark05.. my cpu score is also over 11,000.. so if you don,t have an 8800GTX/GTS your just spining your wheels because the GPU will not do much more no matter how much oc the Core 2 has because the gpu has reached it's peak..

 

[Stevethegreat]

I indeed have 8800GTX. Thanks BTW Killer4Hire