Well, here it is. Ordered the GigaByte GA-P35-DS3L from DC and got it in two days!
I have to tell you though that is has been a long time(almost two years) since I've messed around with other mobo's than my good old 680i.
First off let me mention a few of my findings here... This BIOS seems weird to me. I plugged in all my equipment and it started up without any issues! It noticed everything properly right away. Now upon entering the BIOS(version F7) I begin to ask myself...where are all the options???
No memory tweaking options? Strange memory divider system? Voltages are hard to read, besides the fact that they have a HUGE droop!!!
If I set my vCore to 1.45...I end up getting 1.41....and that will go down to 1.39 under load! I just hope it's not the same with the other voltages setting options! And hot....no I must say
HOT that the NB gets....I burned myself! And that was on standard settings....nothing OC'ed yet!
So then the overclocking part starts... The E6850 I have is not a real good one...it will run up to 3.850GHz on this board but is not real stable at that point. On my old 680i it did the same...but that boards is now on its way for a RMA session. 3.6GHz so far is stable but what I don't understand is, my temps remain nice and low...28C idle and 48C under Orthos load, so how come if it gets any higher than that it will not remain stable?
And what should I do to make my RAM run as fast as possible eg. 1150MHz under 5-4-4-8 timings without taking away from the CPU overclock?
Did anybody use EasyTune 5 Pro? Works rather well I must say. Actually in general the board works rather well....but it just seems strange to me after using my 680i for such a long time. If someone with a similar board could post some OC settings than that would be helpful!
THX Guys!