which x38?

B

bburk64

n00b
Joined
Nov 11, 2007
Messages
32
I'm building a gaming/home theatre system, near silent. Only fans will be the 120mm at low speen at the back and the PSU in the Antec Designer case. I've pretty much decided everything but the MB. E8400 CPU with a scythe ninja cooler, a samsung DVD, 4GB OZC reaper ram (with the heat pipe system), 750gb samsung HD, probably a ECS N8800GT-512MX+ unless there's a better fanless one out there? My main MB choices are gigabyte or asus;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128080
any suggestions please? thanks
 
I'm ditchin my DFI and going with the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6.
I've read too many great reviews on it to not at least try a Gigabyte this round.
For me it was between this and the Foxconn Digital Life x38...
Both are in my shopping cart at Newegg.
 
Maximus Formula gets my vote. Just got it today, and I can run 3DMark06 at 3906 with a Q6600. I am running at 3.6 normal though, at 1.40 Volts. Great board. Alot of BIOS settings that, if you don't know what your doing, could jack some stuff up.
 
WozniakMac said:
Maximus Formula gets my vote. Just got it today, and I can run 3DMark06 at 3906 with a Q6600. I am running at 3.6 normal though, at 1.40 Volts. Great board. Alot of BIOS settings that, if you don't know what your doing, could jack some stuff up.
Click to expand...

Which cooling solution and memory did you use on this board? It moves on my list and off
 
I have a P5E myself, which is basically a Maximus Formula minus a few extras - it even comes with the latter's Republic of Gamers-branded sound daughterboard. The PCB is the same - they actually stick "P5E" on top of the "Maximus Formula". If you're considering either, it's a good idea to look at the other and see if you need/don't need its features.
 
The Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 is a really sweet motherboard with a TON of overclocking options.
From the reviews of the X38 DQ6, the BIOS is practically identical.
So far it has got 4.2GHz out of my E8400 at 1.44Vcore on a x8 multiplier (default x9) - so plenty of headroom for bigger clocks.
Under load it is at 53C (Coretemp measured 67C both cores) running Orthos with a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Cooler and MX2 paste. Ambient around 20C
(Tj Max on the CPU is reported to be 105C by Coretemp so theres a good amount of headroom here too if this is correct)


I'm not sure if this is the same with all X38/48 boards but the lowest ram multiplier available is x2.
If clocking you will want at least DDR-2 800 running at 900 to get 4GHz clock from an E8400.

ie with an E8400:
4.05GHz = x9 @ 450MHz FSB
Requires DDR-2 900 so make sure your ram can clock this far at least.

4GHz = x8 @ 500MHz FSB
Requires DDR-2 1000
(If you 'can' get an E8200 to 4GHz this is the ram you will need)


A few tests have shown that 1 stick of DDR-2 900 in single channel mode gives identical speed in games as DDR-2 1000 in dual channel mode.
So far it looks like memory bandwidth differences have almost zero effect for games.
I havent tried latency tweaking yet.
 
I should mention, I am not planning on overclocking much, if at all, this system will have no fans on the CPU, video card, or any other extras, so low airflow, but nearly silent, which is my goal. Whatever overclocking can be done in that setting is all I'll be doing.
 
The memory should be run at 1:1 which is 2x the FSB (being DDR) for best performance but...
If you can get substantially higher clocks it might be worth breaking from 1:1, you'll need to benchmark and see.
As mentioned in my previous post, when gaming I found no difference in performance going from 900MHz in single channel to 1000MHz dual channel, fyi.

At the default clocks of the E8400, you will be running at 333FSB (quad pumped to 1333MHz) so your ram will run at DDR2-667.

You should be able to get the same timings as the DDR2-800 if you clock the DDR2-1000 down.
You also have the option later to make the ram faster if you wish, so I'd get the DDR2-1000 seeing as they are the same price.

I'm about to see how fast I can get the timings on my DDR2-1000 4GB OCz Platinum running at 950MHz (CPU at 4.275GHz, 475FSB x9). They are 5-5-5-15 default.
Its rated at 2.1V and runs fine at 1.8V -10%
I can report back with the fastest timings if you like?
 
Although I am not a noob at building computers or dealing with them, it has been four years since I built my last one and am gradually putting together components for another system but am in no particular hurry.

Asus Maximus Formula mobo is at top of my short list
Corsair XMS2 Pro Twin2x1024-6400C Pro (x2)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Cooler Master 832 case
Video card unknown at this time

In regard to the above -- I am not much of an OC'er, but want the potential to play with it AFTER the basic computer is up, running and is stable.

QUESTIONS: Does the memory seem appropriate and with that memory, what might the maximum stable FSB and CPU speeds might expect when I do OC the board?

AND--in setting the initial computer up, will it be possible to leave most items on "auto" in the BIOS since there are a ton more settings than in my current P4C800-ED motherboard and in building this thing, I would like to keep it simple to start with and deal with OC'ing as I have time, IF I have time to do so later.

Thoughts/opinions

Thanks

MikeSp
 
I have the board Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6. Run fast and is very stable. I paird that with a 6850 core 2 and a 8800 gt and it screams. It has lots of settings in the BIOS, more than any previous ASUS boards I've had in the past, could be good or bad depending on how you look at it, lol. Personally, I would stick with ASUS for Gigabyte.
 
ASUS Maximus or ABIT Quad GT, Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 is pure crap if you want good memories, ie. fast 4x1GB modules since the DQ6 can´t hadle 4 dimms at all and the poor component quality is shining throu.
 
E.R said:
ASUS Maximus or ABIT Quad GT, Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 is pure crap if you want good memories, ie. fast 4x1GB modules since the DQ6 can´t hadle 4 dimms at all and the poor component quality is shining throu.
Click to expand...

Umm, not sure where you are getting your information, the DQ6 and DS4 use high quality components.
My DS4 has Lower RDS MOSFETs, Ferrite Core Chokes (inductors) and Lower ESR solid capacitors. No crap here at all.
This board is top notch quality.
 
Nenu said:
Umm, not sure where you are getting your information, the DQ6 and DS4 use high quality components.
My DS4 has Lower RDS MOSFETs, Ferrite Core Chokes (inductors) and Lower ESR solid capacitors. No crap here at all.
This board is top notch quality.
Click to expand...
Its first hand info and own experience of the bad board it realy is. I dont think there is any difference from the first batches back in september witch mine came from and the latest you get today.

The board (GA-X38-DQ6) is low quality and have way to many faults that only hardwarerevison can change and they make it apears to be a BIOS-issue when its not, just like ATI make it look like a driverthing that 2900XT is not to good when it is a hadwarething.

*Usage of 4 dimms is no go when OC, meaning no highperformancememory is usable on this board so highqualitycomponent and propper dimensioning parts should granted usage of 4 dimms but this boards failure on both parts
*Board can die by simple BIOS-flash in safe DOS-mode.
*Way to low memorybandwith compare to the board that is standard when comparing ie. Maximus/Rampage.
*Undersized cooling of NB/SB, they should have used the bigger one from P35-DQ6 rev1 , the one from DQ6 rev2 can´t handle the X38 conterpart.
*Only 6 SATA is usable when using IDE channel due to conflict between the 2 extra SATA and IDE.
*Last but not least the X48 conterpart does not seems to be any better than the X38-crap.
Gigabyte has not done a better job like ASUS with Rampage vs. Maximus and make it worth the wait simply because it is a better board. It would not suprice me if X48-DQ6 is just a relabled X38-DQ6 to new premiumprice to milk the market of money and give customer nothing to show for it, ASUS does that.
*BIOS support is a joke, a bunch of betacrap and one good release BIOS and a few craprelease compared to just about everybody is good on the Maximus compared to previous so don´t pretend this crap is anything eles than the crap it is.

That is just a small sample of hardwarefaliure of the X38-DQ6 that cant be fixed by new BIOS.
I was lucky mine died the famous BIOS-death and i got refund so i could get the Maximus instead for "free" or just a small amount more, but worth every singel dollar/euro or whatever over the crap from a cheap maker.
Top notch, my ass its just pure crap from a maker that dont care about customer, they just want to be the first out there with new boards to just any price, even if it is to the cost of way to high failurarate of boards that this model has (X38-DQ6). When it failure they dont even granted RMA if you are to unlucky. No more gigacrap for me anymore and i can never ever recommend the crap to anybody and i am not alone of this opinion :http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032009064&postcount=3
 
Wow, you had an unfortunate time with an early sample by the looks of it.

Mine bears no resemblance to your description, its an awesome board.
Extremely stable and highly clockable and very well built. The cooling is quite substantial.
It also recovers from overclocking crashes very gracefully by letting you back into the BIOS when the settings cannot work.
The settings you used are kept, you only need to re-enable the main setting from auto to manual.

I'm running the F2 BIOS and there are no issues with it, it works fine.
Sorry to hear of your issues.
 
Comments on both ASUS Maximus and the ABIT Quad GT talk about having to run fans on the NB & SB as they run hot. Do any of the X38 boards run cool enough to use fanless? This will be a home theatre system, it needs to be nealy silent. It will be in an Antec Designer case. The only fans will be a 120mm low speed fan at the back, and the one in the PS.

Or... has any MB that's been announced as available in the near future something worth waiting for to do this with?

thanks
 
You'd need to replace the northbridge and southbridge sinks on just about any board to make it play nice passively cooled anymore.. and I doubt you have room for a pair of Thermalright HR-05s in your HTPC case. Look in to mATX boards if that's your goal, as they're much more likely to run cool and quiet than an enthusiast grade overclocking board.
 
I have an Abit IN9 32X-MAX running just in a system much like this doing fine w/o any extra fans, could go that route again if nothing else works. Built that for my brother near a year ago.
 
I've been looking over the Asus boards a lot. All else being equal and not overclocked, which runs cooler? The Maximus or P5E, or are they the same? thanks
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top