What X38 would you get?

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signmeuptoo

Weaksauce
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Jul 4, 2007
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I know that not all of the new X38 motherboards are out yet. One example is DFI's, DFI seems to be behind the 8 ball getting stuff out lately.

But what companies have yet to put out X38 boards besides DFI?

What board would you choose of the current and/or upcoming X38 boards, and why would you choose it?
 
I'm thinking about the IX38 QuadGT myself, but I want to see what DFI has up their sleeves (although $330 is a little ridiculous). I have a feeling the Abit board will come in under $250. Historically though, Abit needs a good month or more to iron out a good bios for the board after release, so it doesn't pay to be an early adopter.

The Asus boards (P5E, Maximus) look interesting, but probably need some bios revisions to iron out some issues.

The Gigabyte DQ6 sounds like a good board too. Personally, I'm going to go with either the Abit or the Asus. Probably after the New Year so bios revisions get ironed out.
 
WhiteZero said:
I'm banking on abit's IX38 QuadGT.

Their last few boards have been golden, so I hope they keep up the pace with X38.
Click to expand...

Good card slot layout, even if you would be running Crossfire you'd have a 1x and a 16x (sized) slot free and clear of any double wide vid card. Good to see they also will have the CMOS reset on the outside, I am glad to see that new trend!

You know, though:

It appears that board will support up to 12 USB, but only 4 are on the riser, and I don't know of any case that supports 8 USB slots, though my favorite case, the Stacker STC model supports six.

They are going to have to start offering a front bay device with these boards that will provide for the USB, Firewire, eSATA, CMOS reset, and sound. DFI has sold motherboards with FrontX devices, but I don't like the design of the FrontX products, they are too limited configuration wise and too few types of devices are supported, such as no eSATA! I wrote the FrontX people and they didn't have the good manners to reply to me!

I'd also like to see the diagnostic LEDs in a front bay device.
 
Did you check out Abit's uGuru front panel. I used it in a build with an AB9 and it seemed to do everything you were looking to do.

Edit: I tried to find a link from Newegg, but doesn't look like it's for sale there anymore. I bought it from there and it worked great.
 
I went with a Gigabyte x38, upgraded from an ASUS 975express

My Main Reasons

1. Board layout, ill never use 3xPCIE16xs

2.Features, organic compactors, quad bios, 45nm support. O/C ability. NO chipset fans, and low heat. 8SATA ports, 8USB ports on the back 3 PCE1x, 2 PCI can have 2 doule slot GPUs and not block key ports, slots.

ga-x38-dq6_top.jpg


3.Warranty only MB manufacturer that still gives you 3yr warranty

Much more reasons then that, but thats my big ones
 
what about the asus with the onboard linux distro with web browser and some diagnostic tools?
 
I was contemplating on the Foxconn x38a for ddr2/ddr3 :cool: compatibility and all the other goodies mentioned. I do realize that the board has very little rear USB I/O so that could be troublesome.

...am i alone on this? :D
 
FOXXCON is a china based company, they are good at making small plastic covers- IE cover over your 775 mobo is a foxcon cover. But for making a reliable board... hell no
 
Spaxspore said:
FOXXCON is a china based company, they are good at making small plastic covers- IE cover over your 775 mobo is a foxcon cover. But for making a reliable board... hell no
Click to expand...

What rock have you been living under?
 
i big comfy one, i just hate foxcoon, hell just read the tom hardware review, they couldn't even give the foxconn a rating because it was not a stable product.
 
i ordered the asus maximus formula se. gonna pair it with my quad core when i get it, was between that and the gigabyte, but the gigabyte had a backplate on the cpu/northbridge and im using water cooling. so decided to go with the asus.
 
i feel insulted cuz im from china...but nvm, dont like flaming ppl here :cool:

the QuadGT looks good, and im definitely considering the maximus formula too.
and i wish asus can make a deluxe ddr2 version of the x38...it looks so tempting to have one
 
curious question, since both pci express slots are 16x. if i put my 8800gts in the bottem slot instead of the top one, would i get the same performance?
 
the performance should be the same if the slots themselves are electrically configured the same (for example, dual x16 electrical configuration).
 
Went with the Gigabyte one... should be here tomorrow. Looking forward to it, my first board from them.
 
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6, excellent board, i have it for 2 weeks and couldn't be happier. The only one with two 1394 backplate ports (4 pin and six pin). And 4 esata ports with power, on 2 included brackets.
 
well the x38 arrived, gonna make a stop by the local pc shop, pick up some supplies, then gonna slap it in with my c2d. will fiddle with it, and when the quady comes, will slap it in.
 
WhiteZero said:
I'm banking on abit's IX38 QuadGT.

Their last few boards have been golden, so I hope they keep up the pace with X38.
Click to expand...


I'm still chugging along nice with my Abit AB9 Quad GT and so if I were to buy now I would go with the new Abit offering. Their boards are in one word "Back" after a long absence. The only thing I have issue with is that their hardware is ahead of the bios teams. If they can get their bios people on the right track it will make them perfect, but its not enough for me to not recommend them. It just takes some bios releases to iron out stuff, and sometimes their new releases may break something already fixed, like on the AB9 Quad GT version 16 bios, which was a terrible release.
 
Spaxspore said:
I went with a Gigabyte x38, upgraded from an ASUS 975express

3.Warranty only MB manufacturer that still gives you 3yr warranty

Much more reasons then that, but thats my big ones
Click to expand...

Asus is 3 year as well.

Got the maximus formula myself...will be replaced withthe DX38BT when it arrives.
 
Mad_CatMk2 said:
i feel insulted cuz im from china...but nvm, dont like flaming ppl here :cool:

the QuadGT looks good, and im definitely considering the maximus formula too.
and i wish asus can make a deluxe ddr2 version of the x38...it looks so tempting to have one
Click to expand...

Ok, maybe I wasn't clear, am not saying all companies from china are bad but foxxconn as a company doesn't hold a candle in support or quality in thier boards compared to gigabyte, asus and dfi. Let alone Abit. In fact my PCB for my gigabyte x38 is made in china and has rave reviews. Am talking about the company not the country. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


EDIT-
Wow asus does have (3yrwar) I stand corrected

I like asus btw :)
 
Spaxspore said:
3.Warranty only MB manufacturer that still gives you 3yr warranty
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afaik abit's USA warranty is still 3 years.
Of course eVGA give 10 years on certain models but they are nVidia chipsets only atm.
 
Spaxspore said:
Ok, maybe I wasn't clear, am not saying all companies from china are bad but foxxconn as a company doesn't hold a candle in support or quality in thier boards compared to gigabyte, asus and dfi. Let alone Abit. In fact my PCB for my gigabyte x38 is made in china and has rave reviews. Am talking about the company not the country. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


EDIT-
Wow asus does have (3yrwar) I stand corrected

I like asus btw :)
Click to expand...

its cool we're all misunderstood once in a while hehe
I do like asus too, but I've been reading about all those 'bad' striker/680i reviews I got kinda scared. Would the problems only be attributed to the Nvidia chipsets though?
Otherwise, Abit IX38 or Maximus Formula here I come :D
 
Spaxspore said:
FOXXCON is a china based company, they are good at making small plastic covers- IE cover over your 775 mobo is a foxcon cover. But for making a reliable board... hell no
Click to expand...

Spaxspore said:
Ok, maybe I wasn't clear, am not saying all companies from china are bad but foxxconn as a company doesn't hold a candle in support or quality in thier boards compared to gigabyte, asus and dfi. Let alone Abit. In fact my PCB for my gigabyte x38 is made in china and has rave reviews. Am talking about the company not the country. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


EDIT-
Wow asus does have (3yrwar) I stand corrected

I like asus btw :)
Click to expand...

Are Intel-Branded boards considered to be able to be reliable? or hold a candle in support or quality to the other manufacturers?

Just curious.
 
if your meaning is 'intel chipset' then they are pretty darn stable compared to other chipsets (P35 is one of the best this year has seen).

the motherboards that intel manufactures and releases themselves are pretty good too, but I haven't bought any of those boards to give any suggestions
 
Getting ready to do my first major upgrade after 4 years of milking an AGP based system as long as I possibly can.

Long/short: I know I want an Intel chipset, I don't really care about SLI, and from all I gather, I'm getting the idea I should probably come in at P35 or even X38 for the "futureproofing" capabilities those motherboards have.

As it stands, I'm bouncing all over the place from various Asus', Gigabytes, abit P35 Pro etc. ,and the rest of it and the one thing that concerns me more than anything else is I'm wondering how stable and mature the BIOS's are on a lot of these boards.

Where does that all stand these days and who has the edge on that, if anyone?

FWIW, prudence suggests to me that I probably should favor P35 since PCI Express 2.0 will probably not mean anything for at least another year or two and DDR3 is too expensive right now with negligible gains all things considered. LOL, and then X48 isn't too far off...

That's just kind of the haze I'm in right now while suffering from serious information overload. ;)
 
Since the currently available Core 2 processors all run flawlessly with the P35 chipset, which is actually on sale as a real product in the market, we can’t recommend buying an X38-based motherboard. As soon as the QX9770 goes on sale, you’ll be able to find an appropriate X48 board for the same price X38 boards sell for now. It’s definitely not worth purchasing an expensive X38 board now that may not be compatible with newer processors later due to upgraded specifications , e.g. FSB 1600.
Click to expand...

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Intel-QX9770-X48-X38-QX9650,review-29749-27.html
 
mis3 said:
Before you consider the X38-QuadGT, you should read the following:

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/reviews/861-abit-ix38-quad-gt-living-review-ii.html
Click to expand...
they're getting to grips with it now though, it's already surpassed their Gigabyte X38-DQ6.
At this early stage you have to allow for abit being several weeks behind Asus & Gigabyte in development because that's a big chunk of how long the boards have been available.
It won't be an acceptable excuse in 6 months but for now it is.

I do agree though that if you already have a P35 & aren't planning on running high end Crossfire then there is no need to switch.
 
But a good P35 board would still be nice for OCing a QX9650, correct? Not sure if I should go X38 or P35, since I'm not sure if SLi will be necessary for me.
 
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