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DS5 OR DQ6 ?

G

granorpio

n00b
Joined
Mar 17, 2008
Messages
14
Hello
This is my first post and I'm from the UK so please be patient with me.

Please note that prices in the UK compared to the US are exorbitant so figures given may have no real meaning in real terms to your good selves.

I am currently looking into buying a new motherboard and having convinced myself that the GA-X48-DQ6 was the only board for me I have now discovered that the previously unobtainable EX38 boards are now becoming available and filtering into the shops, though still not widely yet.

So this brings a new dilemma. The choices that I have given myself are:

1. Gigabyte X48-DQ6 @ £200 - $400 (available in store)
2. Gigabyte EX38-DQ6 @ £166 - $332 (web purchase only)
3. Gigabyte EX38-DS5 @ £128 - $256 (available in store)

Now my obvious choice would be DS5 and save my self £72 - $144 but IS there any real benefit over a DQ6 model to that of the DS5 other than Quad Bios (not necessary I think) a couple of capacitor changes and the crazy cooling for under the CPU, which I would need to remove anyway to add water cooling. :confused:


Current and soon to be specs are:
Vista Ultimate 32bit
Asus P5W DH Deluxe (soon - ?)
Quad Q6600
4GB PC6400
2x 512Mb ATI X1950PRO (soon 1x 512 X1950PRO + 1x 1GB 3870x2)
1x 160GB + 1x 500GB Samsung (soon + 1x 150GB Enterprise Raptor)
Tagan 1300W modular
Liquid Cooling System
1x 22" + 2x 19" Samsung TFT
 
I can only tell you my thinking when I was looking at a DQ-6 vs other models a while back. Spec wise it does seem that a slightly newer version of the onboard NIC chip and the true fully functional dual bios chip backup is the only advantage of the DQ6, (the DS5 is not available in the US but I believe it also has the dual bios chips but the secondary one is not accessible to the user as it is in the DQ6 but serves only as an emergency boot, which is sufficient and cheap insurance. All have the improved CPU voltage regulation circuity and that is what made me go with a DQ6 vs a DS3 so that does not help.

The other thing I was thinking about and what I think maybe might be your major area of concern is how long you intend to keep the board. Nehalem is coming the end of this year with what seems to be a MAJOR performance increase but will be DDR3 only as far as I know. If you think you would make that swap in the next two years I would go with the cheapest of your options, performance between any of the boards you are looking at is negligible. If you were going to keep the board for 3 or more years I think the X48 board would allow the most chance of future processor upgrades, but depending on what CPU you buy now it might not be a big concern, only you know the answer to that.

So I am not much help, If it were me I would go the cheapest, you will not know the difference in performance, the bios is more stable, and 18 months from now when Nehalem are sorted out and just crushing anything you have today, you will not be inclined to slit your throat when you have to sell that board for 50 quid. There is just not enough performance difference between an X38 vs an X48 to justify the price IMO. and as you have determined the DS5 gives you all the same as the DQ6 where it matters the most.

Just my opinion, worth what you paid for it.
 
The future is x48 chipset. I am using the P35 DS4 and a P35 DQ6..very solid boards. I also have a DFI P35 T2R UT//Anyway the bios in all the boards have matured-finally. Everything I have read shows that the X48 will be "better"..But $400 US is a whole lotta bucks. So for me it depends on how you are going to use the comp. Work or Play
 
Belated thanks for the replies guys only my motherboard finally gave up altogether. Funnily enough two days before I was due to replace it, it must have known. :p

Anyhow I decided on the GA-EX38-DS5 for it shares the same board layout as the DQ6 including the new DES (Dynamic Energy Saving) software as well. Both boards support 1600MHz even if the X48 is officially the one to support it but this frequency is not an issue for me at this stage.

The X48 has Quad Bios which when you read about it is simply 4 copies of BIOS distributed between the Flash ROM, hard-disk and driver CD. The EX-38 also has dual BIOS and setting recovery technology alongside software such as Xpress Recovery 2.

The CPU voltage regulation circuity is the same on both.

So all in all it's practically the same board and £72 - $144 cheaper as well. This saving then allowed me to buy a 750GB Samsung F1, costing me only an extra £10 - $20 over what would have been the price of the X48 :D
 
I'm not sure the X48 is really all that much different. I've read that the x38 maximus can be flashed with the x48 rampage bios with no side effects. Go figure.
 
X48 basically equals higher binned X38. I believe the GA-EX38-DS5 was a great choice. I had to "settle" for the GA-EX38-DS4 here in the states.
 
bigsnyder said:
X48 basically equals higher binned X38. I believe the GA-EX38-DS5 was a great choice. I had to "settle" for the GA-EX38-DS4 here in the states.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm so glad I decided on this board after having supposedly made my mind up on the X48. There really wasn't any benefit to be had. ;)
All in all it's a far superior board than the Asus I had. :) Now all I need is one new graphics card and some new memory as I will be donating mine to my daughter when I upgrade her machine next month.:eek:
 
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