New motherboard...

I was under the impression that it was the refrence boards that had problems.
 
I'd stay away from that Asus board you listed. eVGA 680i NF68-A1/T1 or NF67-A1/T1 are your best options if you want SLI, aside from the new 780i boards. If you don't need SLI, go with a P35 board. Check out the Asus P5K-E or the Abit IP35 Pro, since you had bad luck with the P35C-DS3R.
 
Jaffa Cakes! said:
So according to the post above, this? http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?ASU-P5KPW just don't like the fact its CrossFire which I am NEVER going to use! But thats not really a problem.
Click to expand...

Well, thats the P5K Premium, which is overpriced (£121 w/ VAT), IMO. Though, the one I suggested, the P5K-E, is only slightly cheaper:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?ASU-P5KE (£114 w/ VAT)

If you don't mind trying another gigabyte board, the DS4 is has a better feature set than the C-DS3R and is cheaper than the P5K-E:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?GIG-35DS4 (£105 w/ VAT)

In the states, the DS4 ($170) is more expensive than the P5K-E ($140), lol; and thats without tax.

So, the premium isn't bad for you. However, there were SATA problems with it when it was first released, so make sure those problems are gone now.
 
It looks as if the P5K and the P5K Premium don't support PCI-E 2.0 ?

Whats the difference between 2.0 and normal PCI-E?


Also, may I ask why the Q6600 and the 680i isn't such a good idea?
 
Jaffa Cakes! said:
Whats the difference between 2.0 and normal PCI-E?

Also, may I ask why the Q6600 and the 680i isn't such a good idea?
Click to expand...

PCI-E 2.0 has greater bandwidth for graphics cards. However, most cards barely or don't even saturate the bandwidth of AGP let alone PCI-E 1.1. So it'll be a long long time before you actually need a mobo with PCI-E 2.0 support. So you don't need it right now or for the forseeable future.

The 680i chipset doesn't OC the Q6600 very well compared to the P35 chipset motherboards. In addition, the SLI feature of the 680i chipset is only needed if you're planning to game at a 1920x1200 resolution (24" size monitor) or bigger at max settings. So since you only have a 19", you do not need SLI and therefore a 680i motherboard.

And a few more caveats of the 680i chipset compared with the P35 chipset:
- Runs hotter
- Does not support the new Yorkfield (Penryn) quad core CPUs
- Is not as stable
 
Ok, I went for the P5K Premium, its the same as enginurd but its got a few extras, hey its only about £10 more than the normal version. Hopefully this one will be fine!

Ill only be doing a bit of mild overclocking, nothing big so it shouldn't matter too much.
 
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