Decent P45 Board?

[486]

ASUS P5Q-E is very good board.
But be aware:
1. Software shipped with the MB is useless at best (and outright dangerous). Do not event try to install any software with ASUS label in it.
2. Do not install PC Probe I, II or any other. It is ASUS software.
3. No real RMA for any ASUS board. They either send your MB back to you (obviously not doing anything to fix the problem) or send you broken MB they got from someone else (whoever spent time and money arguing with ASUS and repeatedly sent MB for RMA).

If you want to have problem free desktop, purchase parts only from manufacturers who have Canadian RMA centers.

[ipaine]

Originally Posted by anthonee1230

That is referring to the UD3R?

Yes, that is correct. Both the UD3P and UD3R have the dual bios option.

[anthonee1230]

Alright sounds good. Looks like I'll be going for the UD3R since I don't need the extra PCI-E x16.

If my understanding of how P45 chipset is correct, if the second PCI-E x16 slot is used (on a P5Q Pro or UD3P), the bandwidth will be divded such that each slot will get x8?

[ipaine]

Correct, on the P45 its PCI-E 2.0 slots can work in either 1x16 or 2x8 configuration.

[anthonee1230]

Thanks for the help guys. The board I end up getting will most likely just be whichever one is better priced since from what you guys have told me those are both pretty much identically performing boards.

[slugbug]

Awesome board: Buy Gigabyte [GA-EP45-UD3P] Gigabyte EP45-UD3P ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 2PCI-E SATA2 RAID HD Sound 2GLAN 1394A CrossFireX Motherboard

[tyreman]

I have a P5Q and a P5QL Pro here both do a good job
I have had gigabyte as well.

That socket form is approaching its production end anyway.

[anthonee1230]

Yes, well my plan is I'm going to do this one last upgrade to P45 and a Core 2 Quad and see how long my system will last (hopefully a bit past i7 since Core 2 lasted for around 3 years).

[JD]

Originally Posted by anthonee1230

Yes, well my plan is I'm going to do this one last upgrade to P45 and a Core 2 Quad and see how long my system will last (hopefully a bit past i7 since Core 2 lasted for around 3 years).

Thinking of doing the same thing myself.

Though I already have a quad, it's just that the X38 sucks with OC'ing 45nm quads. The UD3P is apparently pretty damn good with 45nm quads so I'm guessing the UD3R should be similar.

[486]

Oh, by the way, the Q-Fan bug on P5Q-E (Q-Fan did not work properly upon wake up from S3) is still not fixed fully.
ASUS fixed the Q-Fan issue for CPU fan, but for Chassis fans, it is simply fixed to 7V after wake up and it does not change with load. Before fix it was fixed to 5V aftre wake up.
You have to give it to ASUS engineering team, upping stuck fan voltage by 2V and calling it fixed. Bravo.