P35 or X38

[ZK2007]

Gonna make this short and sweet..

I'm upgrading to a new mobo in the next week or so

Current board is P5N32SLI Premium w/upgrade to originally MSI X38 Diamond, but they aren't doing DDR2/3 support and I'm not upgrading to DDR3 just yet. I hear X38 is a bit tied back by DDR2, so perhaps X38 just isn't what i'm looking for. My next option is the P35, which I hear good things about the Abit IP35 Pro "Snake" board. I think I've decided on this one unless there seems to be some majority of you guys who say "better not".

Here's a summary.. I'm upgrading the Mobo very soon for sure.. I have an E6850 and Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6400 4-4-4-12 ram that I'm NOT going to change for this current motherboard and raid0 support is recommended. The X38 boards lost out to me due to the DDR2 thing and DDR3 prices(not to mention x38 board prices) with it all being so new.

Abit's IP35 Pro "Snake" seems to be a good, solid board for me to play around with some OC'ing that doesn't require soldering and part modifications and my gaming WiC, Crysis, Bioshock, Fear, Starcraft2, etc.

Any other boards that are worth checking in to or have I made a wise choice to get me by until X38 boards are mainstream and DDR3 prices are reasonable?

 

[gtsing]

If you have tons of money to spend on DDR3 memory and X38 boards (when the release) then sure...if you really want them then go for it. But really, the X38 chipset has a very, very minimal performance increase over the P35. I'd say you should only go with X38 if you absolutely NEED the extra features on it RIGHT NOW like the connectors or PCI-E 2.0 or looking to have a massive overclock. Other than that, IMO of course, the X38 is a big waste of money until they drop in price. Same with DDR3...insane prices, not a lot of performance increase over DDR2.

The Abit IP35 Pro is a good board. I don't have one myself, but it gets tons of good reviews from various sources. Of course, other options you could consider are the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DSP, and the ASUS P5K DELUXE. If your going with P35 all of those would be good choices and I'm sure you'd be happy with any one of them unless one has something you really need that the other two don't.

 

[Sylvanas]

You seem to be on the right track- the X38 wont do much for you with DDR2, the only reason I can see with going with it is if you REALLY need PCI-E 2.0 and dual 16x Crossfire other than that the P35 is the best platform. I have just ordered an Abit IP35-E which should be here tomorrow after reading good experiences from users with the board. The Pro on the other hand I can imagine should be just as good as it is a little cheaper than the Giga/Asus/MSI competition with the same features/performance additionally, the Pro makes OC'ing a little eaisier with the Uguru software usable from Windows.

 

[ZK2007]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
You seem to be on the right track- the X38 wont do much for you with DDR2, the only reason I can see with going with it is if you REALLY need PCI-E 2.0 and dual 16x Crossfire other than that the P35 is the best platform. I have just ordered an Abit IP35-E which should be here tomorrow after reading good experiences from users with the board. The Pro on the other hand I can imagine should be just as good as it is a little cheaper than the Giga/Asus/MSI competition with the same features/performance additionally, the Pro makes OC'ing a little eaisier with the Uguru software usable from Windows.

X38 would be nice, and I wanted it quite badly.. but it's got features that I don't have hardware to take full advantage of just yet. I'm JUST upgrading the Mobo and I don't have a pci-e 2.0 video card, nor will I get 2 of them.. i could barely afford the first 8800gtx. So, as it goes, agreeingly, I'm sticking with a P35 board until prices and tweaks and such get panned out on the X38/DDR3 stuff. Of course by then, there'll be better things soon to be released or already out.. so whatever. LOL

I've never owned an Abit board, and my first Asus attempt has left me with a bad thoughts. Leaving MSI in which I owned 2 boards that never ever gave me a problem, makes me nervous to try yet another diff. company. I've got a flaky bios in my current Asus board.. which is more than likely just a random defect, but first impressions are key to success and well, Asus failed. It also didn't help I spent about $330 on the board, waited several months with it on backorder from the factory itself only having it obsolete from the new 650/680 chipsets literally within the month I recieved it. I suppose it's a risk one takes on new technology and acceptance that hardware changes very rapidly.

 

[Sylvanas]

Such is the PC industry always something better around the corner. I too have had issues with a problematic Asus Bios first my Asus Commando and now my P5N-E SLI so that played a part in my Abit purchase. If you have had good experiences with MSI twice previously then there would be little sense in changing when performance is almost negligable between all the top end P35's.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

IP35 may be a better choice. BIOS is more robust. Has RAID. Double post has been fixed with Beta BIOS. If you don't want to use Beta BIOS, then IP35 Pro is a good choice.

 

[ZK2007]

I think I'd rather stick with the Pro version of the IP35 series. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than this POS Asus board I bought and being the price of this board negligible, I don't see a reason not to buy the higher end version. Thanks for your input!