Is the GA33 from Gigabyte still he best?

9

'99

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 19, 2005
Messages
99
Hi,

I'm about to start bulding a new game rig. And as last time tihi one is gonna be a SFF. I'm still trying to make up my mind about which case to buy, the SG03 or the NZXT Rouge.
But what board is the best? is it still the GA33? when using a E6850.
 
i was considering the same 2 boards and the asus hdmi is a purchase i've never regreted. Just remember (as with both boards), that your oversided aftermarket heat sinks have to be oriented a certain way to avoid bending the (capacitors?) that surround the chip. So test sit first before applying pressure or paste.
 
Why buy a borad with HDMI? I've got a nice 22" Samsung running with DVI, and i'm putting a 8800GTX card in anyway. So no need for HDMI.
 
Buying it is not for the HDMI, it just happens to have that capability. There is around a $10-15 difference between the GA33 and the P5E-VM HDMI, I personally chose the P5E to start my next SFF build.
 
I have a P5K-VM and a Gigabyte DSR2. Both boards are great.

Both will hit 400 FSB.

The P5K-VM has a 1:1 divider with the 1066 fsb chips, the DSR2 doesn't unless you use the beta F4A bios.

I would recommend either board.

The P5E VM HDMI is nice too, but why on God's green earth except for E-Penii would you need 500FSB in matx. I was thinking about it but what I have now works for me, why upset the apple cart so to speak.

;)
 
The P5K-VM is also better than the DS2R IMHO. Mainly because of the 1:1 divider issues and from what I have read the P5K-VM is getting some better OCing results lately. Its true every mobo has it quirks and problems but I feel the P5K-VM is just a tad more stable then the DS2R. overall.

I'm not yet convinced the P5E-VM HDMI is better than the P5K-VM in stablity. It does OC higher but I been reading problems people have been having with this mobo and I'm not yet sure if they are just user error or something more common to the mobo first. It should get better with BIOS updates. Right now I'd call it a toss up tie but the two dont have the same features so one has to take that into account. There is also a cost difference but thats a different subject. I'm just talking about performance and stablity at the moment.

The problem with these mATX mobos is that they all have different features and layouts. None of them 'have it all' as they say. You'd think the higher priced mATX mobo would but they dont. They are all aimed at different segments of the market. This makes it harder for the buyer to make a decision.

Right now my suggestion is to look at the P5K-VM and the P5E-VM HDMI and see which has the features you want and then go from there if OCing is top on your list.

It'd be sweet if a professional reviewer would give a three way in depth comparison review of the DS2R, P5K-VM, and the P5E-VM HDMI since these three mobos are the current best of the OCing mATX mobos. At least in my opinion they are the three best currently availble.
 
PClark99 said:
The P5E VM HDMI is nice too, but why on God's green earth except for E-Penii would you need 500FSB in matx. I was thinking about it but what I have now works for me, why upset the apple cart so to speak.

;)
Click to expand...

Well, the 'enthusiast' or 'OCer' crowd love high overclocks. The higher the better. Its all about fsb as they say. And there are those that will push a rig to the max just like with the ATX users. From what I hear of the quadcore chips is that they need a much higher fsb mobo to get those higher overclocks. Harder to overclock them compared to the dualcores supposedly. So a 500+ fsb mobo is highly desirable when it comes to OCing a quad. At least thats what I have gathered from reading about quads and overclocking them. The more the fsb the better.

Also in the motherboard world it seems the mobo that overclocks the highest is often considered the best. Although personal individual opinions may differ on that.
 
Skott said:
Well, the 'enthusiast' or 'OCer' crowd love high overclocks. The higher the better. Its all about fsb as they say. And there are those that will push a rig to the max just like with the ATX users. From what I hear of the quadcore chips is that they need a much higher fsb mobo to get those higher overclocks. Harder to overclock them compared to the dualcores supposedly. So a 500+ fsb mobo is highly desirable when it comes to OCing a quad. At least thats what I have gathered from reading about quads and overclocking them. The more the fsb the better.

Also in the motherboard world it seems the mobo that overclocks the highest is often considered the best. Although personal individual opinions may differ on that.
Click to expand...

Uh, I was going for sarcasm, maybe I used the wrong smiley. :D

Though I agree with what you say.
 
Well, I was hoping to pop one of these E8400's in my P5K-VM but Asus doesn't have a bios update for it yet. The P5E-VM HDMI has 45nm bios support as does the P5B family (P965). For top OCing 45nm support is a must. I hope the bios delay is just that.

The E8400 should perform like the E6850 at stock but the E8500 is the E6850replacement price-point wise. I pre-ordered an E8400 at Directron today, so I'll find out one way or another.
 
DS2R can do 2.2v on ram, my P5K-VM can't, thus rendering my tracers kind of useless.
 
I am the master of subtlety. :cool:

Anyway,

Honestly for 99% of users, if its a choice of the P5K VM, DSR2, and P5E HDMI does it really matter, I mean for matx and socket 775 its really good times.
 
PClark99 said:
I have a P5K-VM and a Gigabyte DSR2. Both boards are great.

Both will hit 400 FSB.

The P5K-VM has a 1:1 divider with the 1066 fsb chips, the DSR2 doesn't unless you use the beta F4A bios.

I would recommend either board.
Click to expand...

I have both too but the Gigabyte happily works from S3 Standby and Resume but the Asus doesn't so I would recommend the Gigabyte as it's more "developed" despite the lack of 1:1 divider.
 
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