Motherboard Choice for E6300

X

xenithon

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Messages
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Hi all. There is fairly limited choice for decent motherboards locally, so I am trying to find a good motherboard for a new E6300-based machined. Some important things to note:
- it will be run stock....generally no over or underclocking
- the aim is something decently powerful but also pretty cool and as quiet as can be
- integrated graphics will not work, so not a must. It was originally thought to have it as no gaming is done, but the only decent integrated graphics with DVI (which is required) are AMD AM2 solutions with integrated Geforce 6150, but the DVI is in lieu of a serial port which is also required. Thus a dedicated graphics card is needed.
- must not be too costly....but would prefer a 965 chipset as opposed to the 945

Options are:
- Gigabyte GA-965P-S3
- Intel Original 'Lemont' P965
- Asus P5B

I am not too keen on the others (MSI, ASRock) as have not have the greatest of experiences with them. The above are the options from the brands I have used succesfully, and are all roughly the same price.

Any suggestions, advice, or any other questions you may have which may help clarify anything please let me know.

Cheers,
X
 
The Gigabyte and Asus are good. The Gigabyte offfers more onboard SATA connectors than the Asus P5B which has 2 and the P5BE which has 4. But then, the Asus P5B has 4 usb ports on the back as oppose to only 2 on the Gigabyte. Also, the Gigabyte boards I notice tend to not accomodate larger heatsinks as oppose to Asus boards. I have an older Gigabyte board and it to can only fit certain heatsinks on it. They normally place tall and larger capacitors around the CPU socket. The Asus board however, allows more room for a variety of heatsinks.
 
The fact that it takes larger heatsinks is important as a large one will probably be used (more for silence rather than supreme cooling power) such as a Zalman 9700NT or Scythe Infinity. However one thing which made the Asus board attractive ends up being a no-go now.....that very useful eSATA port at the back (just like the DVI port on AMD motherboards with integrated 6150) comes in lieu of a serial port, which is required.

What to do, oh what to do :confused:
 
Hi again. A Sunix PCI Serial card is cheap and easy...so no more worries. However I think the two options for motherboards are now:
- Intel DP965LT
- Asus P5B

The Asus always used to be top of my list but have read some worrying things recently about their QC and performance (though many times it is due to not-so-great overclockability, which is not issue here). The Intel board's I believe are extremely stable, though the Asus has eSATA which is a big plus.

Coolerwise, it will probably be the Scythe Infinity. Anyone know if possible incompatibilities with these boards? I know the Ninja has some issues with certain boards (including the P5B) but not sure about the Infinity.

Finally, CPU wise, I think Intel is still the way to go but the E4300 seems very appealing. Considering the speed needs, the E6300's speed may not be needed, and the E4300 runs more efficiently, cooler and quieter. Plus, it seems their performance is very close (and both seem to trounce the other option which was the AMD X2 3800+). This is after reading and [url=http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2903]here.
 
BUMP.....anyone here own or have experience with the DP965LT? For non-overclocked systems am I correct in thinking it may be more stable than the Asus (about which I have a heard a lot of problems with QC, DOAs etc.)
 
If you want silent then get a Tuniq Tower and run it without a CPU fan.

It's hard to understand why you wouldn't even overclock the motherboard to DDR-667 (333MHz FSB).
 
If you're running at stock, either the Intel or the Asus would be fine. Your real question is whether or not the cooler will fit. Most people who have those kinds of coolers aren't using those boards though, so I'm not sure you'll have a lot of data out there to go by.
 
Hi again. I was looking at the various options, and I think the best compromise would be the Asus Silent Square. It cools well, is quiet, and far cheaper than the others. I think it is as quiet if not quieter than the Zalman 9700, and - while not as good or quiet as the Scythe Infinity - it is half price here! The Tuniq is not available locally so that is not an option unfortunately.

One thing I am unclear about, and have not found info on the net about it, is serial ports. I know that neither the P5B or the Intel have a serial port on the back, but they have serial headers. Does anyone know if either come with one of those card to fit in a PCI slot which connects to the serial header on the motherboard? A serial connection is mandatory.

Cheers,
X
 
xenithon said:
Hi again. I was looking at the various options, and I think the best compromise would be the Asus Silent Square. It cools well, is quiet, and far cheaper than the others. I think it is as quiet if not quieter than the Zalman 9700, and - while not as good or quiet as the Scythe Infinity - it is half price here! The Tuniq is not available locally so that is not an option unfortunately.

One thing I am unclear about, and have not found info on the net about it, is serial ports. I know that neither the P5B or the Intel have a serial port on the back, but they have serial headers. Does anyone know if either come with one of those card to fit in a PCI slot which connects to the serial header on the motherboard? A serial connection is mandatory.

Cheers,
X
Click to expand...

Personally, I'd get the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. I doubt you'll have any problems mounting it, and it's a great price/performance cooler.

If it has a Serial header, all you need to do is come up with one of the serial brackets and you'll be fine. You can check the retail packaging at newegg and see if they are included. I doubt it, but you might be surprised. If it's not included, you can probably buy one from either Asus or Intel or find someone who isn't using theirs and have them send it to you.
 
Unfortunately AC is not available here (as you can see, very limited options).

In terms of serial: I was thinking of a Sunix/Kouwell PCI serial card. Those have a serial controller on the cards itself IIRC, and do not connect to the mobo's serial header. So you say I wouldn't need that?

X
 
No, you wouldn't need it. All the PCI serial bracket is going to do for you is put a serial port on the back of a PCI bracket with a cable running to the header on the mobo. Much cheaper solution than a separate PCI serial card and probably more likely to work correctly also (I never did have much luck with PCI serial cards).

Where you find one is anyone's guess though. Probably cost $10 to have Asus ship you one directly.
 
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3.......easily takes an ArcticCooling Freezer Pro 7, but the stock Intel Cooler aint that bad as far as noise goes, youd be surprised.:D The DS3 has a serial port on the back plate. Got my DS3 for 135 dollars. A great board for the money.
 
magoo: Gigabyte board is very expensive here. It is around double the price of the Intel and about 30% more than the Asus. Also as already mentioned, Arctice Cooling not available here.
 
Hi again. Quick update - I found a good source for the GA-965P-DS3 at decent pricing. What I worked out was that with the P5B I would need to add a PCI slot cable (which is not available locally so would need to import), so looking at this and other reasons, the better option would be the P5B Deluxe. That has a serial port and an eSATA port which are both very useful, plus the Deluxe has a few other extras.

That being the case, the GA-965P-DS3 is now in the same price range as the Asus P5B Deluxe (and both of these preferable over the Intel). The Gigabyte has serial but no eSATA (which is not too critical because I'll be getting an external Vantec enclosure which comes with a PCI eSATA card anyway).....so between the Giga and the Asus which would you guys choose? I do not believe any overclocking will be done (though the option is there with both boards), so reliability and stability is key. Both also come with a 3-year warranty.

Cheers
X
 
If it's between the P5B Deluxe and the DS3, I'd say get the P5B Deluxe. If it's between the P5B vanilla and the DS3, get the DS3.
 
Hi again guys. The P5B Deluxe is more expensive, but one worrying thing about the Gigabyte 965P-DS3 is that it only has one CPU fan and one system fan header. That will make controlling the fans a pain (do not want to start adding fan controllers into the equation) and the aim of this PC is an ultra-quiet build!

Anyone know if the caps on the Asus are solid too, like the Gigabyte? Or is the GA still the way to go for reliability and durability?

X
 
The P5B Deluxe does not use solid caps in it's construction where the DS3 does. I also went with the DS3 as the BIOS is less cumbersome to use rather than the version that Asus went with in the P5B Deluxe.

The P5B Deluxe is a stable board and runs with all different kinds of OCZ, Micron, and Mushkin RAM that I threw at it, but the design of the board, the BIOS layout and the cheapo caps on the board is what kept me away from it. If you want to compare a proper Gigabyte board to the P5B Deluxe, it should be the DQ6, not the DS3.
 
Hi there. Having thought more about it, the DS3 looks like the better option. I am not overclocking, and ultimately need something stable and reliable. I was unsure about the DS3 because #1 it only has 2 fan headers which is a real dissapointment (but to be honest, I will only have 2 fans in my system) and #2 it does not have eSATA integrated (which isn't a problem because the Vantec eSATA enclosure comes with a PCI-->eSATA card anyway).

X
 
The only memory that I've seen that is known to be problematic with the DS3 is Micron based D9 memory. Supposedly that was fixed in the rev. 2 board as it was a hardware problem not fixable completely in bios. I have a rev. 1 board and I have used several different brands of memory and have not had any problems at all (none of it was D9).
 
Contrary to belief, this DS3 has had no problems with D9's, and is a Rev.1 board running F7.
 
Same here. Rev.1, D9 memory, chugging along with 3.2GHZ on my 64K. F7 Bios here as well.
 
fireluxx said:
The P5B Deluxe does not use solid caps in it's construction where the DS3 does. I also went with the DS3 as the BIOS is less cumbersome to use rather than the version that Asus went with in the P5B Deluxe.

The P5B Deluxe is a stable board and runs with all different kinds of OCZ, Micron, and Mushkin RAM that I threw at it, but the design of the board, the BIOS layout and the cheapo caps on the board is what kept me away from it. If you want to compare a proper Gigabyte board to the P5B Deluxe, it should be the DQ6, not the DS3.
Click to expand...

Just because a board doesn't use solid caps does not mean that it is suddenly inferior. Traditional caps can last along time and they've been working fine for most motherboards made for 20 years.
 
fireluxx said:
Contrary to belief, this DS3 has had no problems with D9's, and is a Rev.1 board running F7.
Click to expand...

ScYcS said:
Same here. Rev.1, D9 memory, chugging along with 3.2GHZ on my 64K. F7 Bios here as well.
Click to expand...

Well, from what I understand, it can't clock the memory as far as it could go on other boards if that makes sense ;). Like I said, I never tried it, and Gigabyte did a pretty good job of getting out bios revisions that helped the issue out. F7 is still the bios I run on that board.
 
Dan_D said:
Just because a board doesn't use solid caps does not mean that it is suddenly inferior. Traditional caps can last along time and they've been working fine for most motherboards made for 20 years.
Click to expand...

Yeah right, did you miss out on the capacitor fiasco that happened 3-5 years ago with Soyo, ABit, Intel, and PCChips? That still happens today and I still continue to see Asus using sub-par caps on their boards. Sure an electrolytic capacitor can last 20 years IF made correctly, but there are not a whole lot of companies that do it properly.
 
fireluxx said:
Yeah right, did you miss out on the capacitor fiasco that happened 3-5 years ago with Soyo, ABit, Intel, and PCChips? That still happens today and I still continue to see Asus using sub-par caps on their boards. Sure an electrolytic capacitor can last 20 years IF made correctly, but there are not a whole lot of companies that do it properly.
Click to expand...

No I didn't. I was one of the thousands of technicians that had to repair a number of systems that were using motherboards effected by that issue. I don't think the issue is so much that the capacitors are made incorrectly as much as being ill-chosen for the particular job. Additionally, the overwhelming bulk of the motherboards made in the last 20 years do not have the capacitor problems you speak of.

It's not that the capacitor issue is unimportant, but it isn't as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be.

Solid capacitors also do not make a board better. You assume that they are rated to handle the job they are being used for. You also seem to be assuming that the manufacturers are all using the proper amount of them, or that they aren't badly designed in other ways. If a manufacturer is going to build shit boards, solid capacitors won't save them.

As for ASUS using bad caps, I've never personally seen an ASUS board with failed caps. While ASUS boards aren't the best overclockers, they have always been stable in my experience, and are generally better quality than most boards made by competitive companies.
 
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