Which Chipset - Nvidia 650i or Intel P35?

Lmandrake · Post by **Lmandrake** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:42 pm

Decided to go to intel. Bought an Asus p35 board from the Egg, it arrived DOA. RMA'ed and they gave me credit instead of shipping replacement Asus board. MSI has $20 rebates going on right now, so their 650i and P35 boards are very attractive pricewise. When I bought the Asus, I was determined to go with the P35, but I really didn't know the 650i was out there. (I also bought the Asus board for stability and quality - guess I had bad luck there.) Anyway, I am feeling frugal today, so I wonder what I give up if I to with the 650i?

Contributions, random thoughts, potshots at Hillary, Mike Huckabee or mid-eastern religions will all be accepted.

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:07 pm

It depends on what you are looking for.

I would go with the Intel P35, well I already did, but still... the 650i doesn't natively support DDR2 1066 or does the chipset natively support DDR3 (Some P35 boards have slots for those)

My personal general rule is, whenever going Intel, go with the Intel chipset.

The P35 does come with one less PATA, but many models tend to include 6 more SATA (some are still 4) Oddly the MSI boards have at most 5.

Lazlo Panaflex · Post by **Lazlo Panaflex** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:00 pm

Abit seems to be making a nice comeback w/ the IP35 series. The -E version is going for 95 bux shipped @ the Egg. There's rumors of a Dec $20 rebate, too. Then you're all set for Penryn, etc.

Asus is on my sh!t list. I have a PCIe 6800GT that recently had resistors or god-knows-what literally falling off the card into the case. F-ing crazy. 1st time that's ever happened w/ any card I've owned. What a POS...amazing that it still runs (I'm using it as a stopgap until I figure out what G92 8800GT/GTS to buy...)

Err · Post by **Err** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:12 pm

I would go with the Intel chipset. Gigabyte is making some good boards now. I've had no problems so far with my 965P-DS3.

Lmandrake · Post by **Lmandrake** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:30 pm

Too many choices out there and the last board I had that I was really happy with was an Epox. The Asus board I rma'ed was warped like a banana. I didn't really notice until I took it out of the case to return it. There is an Abit board at the egg for 90 shipped. I guess Abit isn't making crap anymore. I've owned MSI and Gigabyte boards that both drove me nuts, so I was more than willing to spend the extra bucks for an Asus. Dunno if I am willing to trust Abit again.

It is really a crapshoot I guess. The only way to really know if a board is a good choice is to invest a lot of time trudging through 100 page threads at various forums. Even the best reviews don't really tell you what it is like to own the board...

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:55 pm

Crapshoot is right. When I got my Asus P5K-E board, I almost decided to get the Abit, but I've had bad luck with Abit in the early 2000. Asus on the other hand, I've never had an issue with. In fact, I'm still using the P4PE mobo that I bought used back in 2003 until I finish getting the new rig up and running with all the software.
The new mobo that I got I've had zero issues with, except for installing the correct driver for the SATA drives.

Key Keeper · Post by **Key Keeper** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:38 pm

Hmm, I went with Asus P5NE-SLI w/650i chip and Im very happy with it. DDR2 1066?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131142

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 9:46 pm

Key Keeper wrote:Hmm, I went with Asus P5NE-SLI w/650i chip and Im very happy with it. DDR2 1066?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131142

Yeah that board is DDR2 800 also. I think it is still possible to achieve DDR2 1066 via overclock though.

Key Keeper · Post by **Key Keeper** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 10:16 pm

Yeah, It might clock that high, been a few weeks since I been in bios and cant remember if it would adjust that high. I know I ended up with 900mhz by accident but cought it before I saved.

Edit: Yeah it allows mem mhz to be set to 1066, just checked in bios. As long as "expert" setting is used for mem you can manually set mem speed. The ratio setting makes things nice for OC'n.

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:01 am

Thing is, with the P35, you can perform a better overclock since it supports faster speeds natively.

Lmandrake · Post by **Lmandrake** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:16 am

Went with p35 -

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1261&maincat_no=1

First msi board in a long time. Page 375 of some thread indicated the Abit boards did not play well with OCZ ram, which is what I got... There is probably an identical thread in some other forum for the msi.

Que Sera, Sera.... (maybe I'll play that when I am doing the install - although there ain't much Doris Day out there on hubs...)

One lesson learned - never upgrade between thanskgiving and christmas. You won't have the time...

ZYFER · Post by **ZYFER** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:50 am

Lmandrake wrote:One lesson learned - never upgrade between thanskgiving and christmas. You won't have the time...

Hehe, true. But the prices tend to be better at those times

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Which Chipset - Nvidia 650i or Intel P35?

Which Chipset - Nvidia 650i or Intel P35?

P35 all the way