Intel X38 Chipset: Porsche with Handbrake On

[sailer]

The X38 is going to be a complete flop IMO.

When equiped with DDR2 ram, I would agree. But I see the X38 having good potential when pairing with DDR3 ram. But DDR3 ram needs to come down in price, which also means that a lot more of it needs to be available.

 

[cyph0r]

How can it be considered a 975X replacement? 975X was a WORK STATION chipset that supported ECC memory. X38 is targeted at over clockers and gamers.

So, instead of targeting people that want quality and stability, it is targeted at kids that want more speed. The reason people overclock is to save money by buying a cheaper CPU and then overclocking it to get better performance than the expensive CPUs.

The X38 is going to be a complete flop IMO.

YEAH because the goal of gamers and overclockers clearly isn’t quality and stability..........

You are SOOO Right.... in fact dang you just gave me the greatest idea for a birthday present for my 5 year old brother... I mean clearly this board is for kids.............

Yeah over clocking the expensive CPUs is just unheard of and ridiculous................

 

[nukemaster]

You should get a replacement then! Mine can do well over 1333. I got mine at 1500 with an E6600.

What revision do you have, i know they added more voltage later on?

I had always assumed the cpu but when i got a new one that assumption went away...

In the end i just got a GA-P35-DS3r and I was set . Has all the features I need and nothing i don't (Remote for the p5w was useless since it controlled app vol and not system. There was also no good way to navigate DVD menus for something claimed to be Digital Home..) Not to say the P35 does not have its quirks....

Either way. i still have the board....so volt mod time....

 

[tgstyle]

I'm just wondering when they will drop PCI slots all together...
and go with PCI-E 16 slots for all the slots.
look how long it took to drop the 16 bit ISA slots.

I don't have a use for PCI anymore.. but then again I'm probably a minority

They still haven't rid us of the floppy drive connector... What makes you think PCI is going away any time soon?

Let the 80s live on!

Edit: A couple more things... What about PS/2 connectors? I mean seriously who buys a PS/2 mouse or keyboard these days? Plus while im at it... Does anyone really use the onboard audio if your an enthusiast? If you want the best hardware you won't use it... I would like to see a board with no backwards compatible connections or onboard audio... Latest greatest only please!

 

[wingless]

CAN WE PLEASE SEE SOME CROSSFIRE BENCHMARKS?

If they say that Crossfire and SLI will work well on this chipset then I for want to see some damn benchies ASAP. There were NONE in that long review!

 

[huron]

I'm hoping the X38 will mature more as the market catches up and as BIOS revisions continue to be released.

Yes, it supports PCI 2.0, but isn't the other great feature that it will have unlocked multipliers? Wasn't that one of the main selling points?

Yes, I am happy I didn't wait for this board. I'd be a little upset at having to wait for more and more revisions to be made.

 

[drysocks]

Quoting MadHacker and tgstyle.
"I'm just wondering when they will drop PCI slots all together..."
My sound card is PCI. Is there a PCI-e sound card?
"...They still haven't rid us of the floppy drive connector ..."
I still have a floppy too. Can I get rid of it?
"...seriously who buys a PS/2 mouse or keyboard..."
I have used my PS/2 mouse and keyboard for my last three computers.
"...use the onboard audio if your an enthusiast..."
I agree. But again. Mine is PCI.
" ...board with no backwards compatible connections or onboard audio... Latest greatest only please..." I would actually buy that the next time around. Even get a new mouse/keyboard. But wouldn't we want to keep one PCI? I do understand why PCB makers put as much on there as possible. I think it's wishfull thinking ... How about this in a mATX format. I don't use onboard video!

 

[rammedstein]

Our decision to standardize on the P35 chipset a few months ago is looking better all the time. It's so hard to know ahead of time which chipset is going to perform and which isn't anymore. Nice review and muchly appreciated. I'm sure glad we didn't bet the farm on the X38. 😀

I think the ATI slamming is justified. While ATI's 2900XT may perform almost as fast as a 8800GTX/Ultra, the 2900XT also uses twice the power. The power comsumption makes the ATI solution considerably more expensive over a year, instead of less expensive. No thanx ATI.

Anyway, with current games/apps and current hardware there's no real benefit to SLI/Crossfire, other than benchmark bragging rights. I guess if you're into that sort of thing and have money to burn, it's a moot point. Obviously reviews aren't written for these people though. They're written for the average user or enthusiast. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm sorry but that is flat out wrong about the powr consumption, so what if it may draw MORE power, it still won't cost more than a gtx over a year period,

cheapest 2900xt here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814241056 is $359,
cheapest 8800gtx here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127281 at $479
that is a $120 price difference, that is about $10 a month, now for some reason i don't think that card could spend $10 on power in a month alone, since power is about (overestimate) $0.4 /kwhthat means the card would ahve to be on for (assuming it is 200W)..... ect

 

[DXRick]

YEAH because the goal of gamers and overclockers clearly isn’t quality and stability..........

You are SOOO Right.... in fact dang you just gave me the greatest idea for a birthday present for my 5 year old brother... I mean clearly this board is for kids.............

Yeah over clocking the expensive CPUs is just unheard of and ridiculous................

So, you will buy this board over the higher end P35 ones that support SLI AND better overclocking abilities? How can you even claim that the X38 chipset offers better quality and stability if it does not support ECC memory? Did you even read the article this discussion is for?

The X38 adds PCIe 2.0 and CrossFire support, which is for gamers. I fail to see how it adds additional quality and stability over the better P35 boards. Where is the benefit for those (like me) that want a good work and gaming platform? I would see benefit if it at least supported DDR2 800 ECC memory or DDR3 ECC memory (if it ever happens).

 

[bydesign]

I like the point about the north bridge. Got news for you guys north bridge cooling doesn't improve significantly overclocking unless you get it significantly below ambient. Now that you have the new board you should try it for yourselves and post the results, maybe it will be different for the X38...

Based past performance I don't think DDR3 will matter much. In fact unless latency and price are dramatically improved DDR3 will be passed over. Unless of course it's forced on us like Rambus with Intel future processors.

While I'm think that the conclusions are correct in this case about X38 I have to say that the talent Tomshardware have found greener pastures.

 

[zenmaster]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/21/energy-efficient_computing_options/page5.html#single_graphics_cards

When compared to the GTX, the 2900XT may not actually use that much more power. Depends on the use.

It uses LESS power when not gaming, which anyone who spends much on this forum clearly does. That and browsing P*rn. While gaming, it clearly uses more, but it may balance out. Especially if you are only intense gaming 25-33% of the time. Even then it would take alot of gaming and only gaming to be a big price difference.

Not saying ATI is the clear choice, but to say that ATI XFire is stupid and pointless is way off base. Especially since this site has not done any benches with the latest drivers which have really changed the results that these cards show.

 

[justinmcg67]

One of the worst articles I've ever read at Tomshardware. Complete BS.

 

[mrbbq]

Hmmm i thought P35 boards supported pci 2.0... Does it?

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/06/06/p35_supports_pcie_2/1

 

[Luscious]

dbl post

 

[Luscious]

Very premature evaluation and conclusion.

NB/SB cooling is not new at all - heatsinks and waterblocks for them have been on sale for years. Once you remove the motherboard heatpipe, they are no more difficult to install than a CPU heatsink. You would have to be pretty stupid to crush a chip die.

Also, your gaming benchmarks seem to be inconsistent. I am used to seeing Doom 3, F.E.A.R. and Oblivion.

I agree with the others here, you should have taken crossfire for a spin.

Just my $0.02

 

[cyph0r]

So, you will buy this board over the higher end P35 ones that support SLI AND better overclocking abilities? How can you even claim that the X38 chipset offers better quality and stability if it does not support ECC memory? Did you even read the article this discussion is for?

The X38 adds PCIe 2.0 and CrossFire support, which is for gamers. I fail to see how it adds additional quality and stability over the better P35 boards. Where is the benefit for those (like me) that want a good work and gaming platform? I would see benefit if it at least supported DDR2 800 ECC memory or DDR3 ECC memory (if it ever happens).

... :lol: ...ROFL .. :lol: .seriously .... :lol: ....ECC....... :lol: ... P35 doesnt even support ECC either so how is that relevent? Also WHY in the hell would any overclocker/"enthusiast"/gamer want ecc memory? dont even try to say "quality and stability" cause thats a load of crock.... ecc is purely for the server market and thats it. Also Just because it doesn't officialy support SLI doesnt mean the board cannot be forced to work with SLI. THG has done a story on enabling SLI on NON-SLI boards if you dont believe me.

also buddy ecc = slower
and memory errors are verry rare BTW

and no I will not be buying THIS board... Just wait for the review of the Asus Maximus Extreme. A REAL X38 Motherboard...

 

[systemlord]

YEAH because the goal of gamers and overclockers clearly isn’t quality and stability..........

Staying off drugs is a good thing. I don't know why you would make an eggheaded statement like that so I'll asume your just an inexperienced noob. My OC is 48 hours Orthos stable, never had a crash yet.

Don't quit school just yet.

 

[cyph0r]

Staying off drugs is a good thing. I don't know why you would make an eggheaded statement like that so I'll asume your just an inexperienced noob. My OC is 48 hours Orthos stable, never had a crash yet.

Don't quit school just yet.

Dude at least read the whole thread before jumpign on someone ..Guess they didnt teach you in school to read everything before acting.. I was making that statement in responce to DXRicks statement.... It's called being sarcastic....

DXRick wrote :


How can it be considered a 975X replacement? 975X was a WORK STATION chipset that supported ECC memory. X38 is targeted at over clockers and gamers.

So, instead of targeting people that want quality and stability, it is targeted at kids that want more speed. The reason people overclock is to save money by buying a cheaper CPU and then overclocking it to get better performance than the expensive CPUs.

The X38 is going to be a complete flop IMO.

 

[sholling]

It looks to me like somebody missed something in the review. I started to buy the ga-p35-dq6 until I downloaded and read the manual. What I read was ugly. On the P35 if you use the second PCI-Express 16 (really 8x) slot then the other three PCI-E 1x slot are disabled because of the restricted (24) pipelines. That's ugly to me. I run a PCI-Express 16x video card (8800) and a PCI-Express 4x hardware accelerated RAID5 controller. Those two would wipe out all of my PCI-Express slots. Unless I'm reading this review wrong the X38 would allow me to use both plus add 3 PCI-E cards and 2 PCI cards. If this is true it almost justifies the $285 street price. I've had three P5N32-E motherboards in a row that were either DOA or died within 2 hours - each causing 3 weeks of waiting for the RMA downtime - if the X38 actually works well that will nearly justify the price.

Also note that the 'DQ6' designates that the board has all the bells and whistles. The quality of the sound is supposed to be the equal of most $100 sound cards without using up a slot. It includes a built in RAID5 controller and eSAtA adapters. It also kinda looks like you could run 4 eSATA devices in RAID5. It also looks like most if not all of the onboard SATA ports sit on the PCI-E buss instead of the PCI bus like the P35. And don't forget that the X38 lets you access 12 on board USB ports without blocking a slot. I'm seeing about $250 worth of cool bells and whistles that I would someday use.

 

[Leithfield]

An interesting review; compare the overclocking results and conclusions with that registered by OCWORKBENCH testing:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/gigabyte/GA-X38-DQ6/b8.htm

 

[cyph0r]

It looks to me like somebody missed something in the review. I started to buy the ga-p35-dq6 until I downloaded and read the manual. What I read was ugly. On the P35 if you use the second PCI-Express 16 (really 8x) slot then the other three PCI-E 1x slot are disabled because of the restricted (24) pipelines. That's ugly to me. I run a PCI-Express 16x video card (8800) and a PCI-Express 4x hardware accelerated RAID5 controller. Those two would wipe out all of my PCI-Express slots. Unless I'm reading this review wrong the X38 would allow me to use both plus add 3 PCI-E cards and 2 PCI cards. If this is true it almost justifies the $285 street price. I've had three P5N32-E motherboards in a row that were either DOA or died within 2 hours - each causing 3 weeks of waiting for the RMA downtime - if the X38 actually works well that will nearly justify the price.

That would be correct the 2 16x slots are controlled and handled by the Northbridge. The pci and remaining PCI-x slots is controlled by the south bridge. Now here is something to think about. Check out the board layout of the Asus Maximus Extreme and Formula. I think you will find them even more impressive with slot placement on the board.

Extreme

of course the 2 top slots are true 16x 16x slots are controlled by the Northbridge and the white pci-e slots are controlled by the Southbridge. They are independent from the blue also notice the placement of the PCI slots how they have so GREATLY placed that pci slot above the top pci-e slot allowing the placement of an X-FI without blocking the fan port of your video card.

Formula

 

[DXRick]

... :lol: ...ROFL .. :lol: .seriously .... :lol: ....ECC....... :lol: ... P35 doesnt even support ECC either so how is that relevent? Also WHY in the hell would any overclocker/"enthusiast"/gamer want ecc memory? dont even try to say "quality and stability" cause thats a load of crock.... ecc is purely for the server market and thats it. Also Just because it doesn't officialy support SLI doesnt mean the board cannot be forced to work with SLI. THG has done a story on enabling SLI on NON-SLI boards if you dont believe me.

also buddy ecc = slower
and memory errors are verry rare BTW

and no I will not be buying THIS board... Just wait for the review of the Asus Maximus Extreme. A REAL X38 Motherboard...

Are you too obnoxious to understand my point? Once again, X38 does NOT replace 975X. If anything, it replaces P965. For those (however few they may be) that want a work station board that supports ECC memory, which is what the 975X chipset offered over the 965 ones, and want the latest processors, they must now get a server board (like one with the 5000X chipset) and Xeon processor.

I never said that gamers and overclockers don't want quality and stability. I simply made the point that X38 does not really replace 975X.

The Intel 975X board appealed to many that wanted stability, but it does not support DDR3 or the latest processors. It was the only Intel chipset that supported ECC memory with desktop processors.

Just because your mommy will buy you a X38 board with DDR3 memory, a QX6850 CPU, and two video cards for SLI or Crossfire, does not mean many others will buy such a rig. Most will get what they can afford and overclock that. For X38 to be marketing success, many others than just you will have to buy it.

Do you get it now? Or should I expect another obnoxious little kid response?

 

[cyph0r]

Are you too obnoxious to understand my point? Once again, X38 does NOT replace 975X. If anything, it replaces P965. For those (however few they may be) that want a work station board that supports ECC memory, which is what the 975X chipset offered over the 965 ones, and want the latest processors, they must now get a server board (like one with the 5000X chipset) and Xeon processor.

I never said that gamers and overclockers don't want quality and stability. I simply made the point that X38 does not really replace 975X.

The Intel 975X board appealed to many that wanted stability, but it does not support DDR3 or the latest processors. It was the only Intel chipset that supported ECC memory with desktop processors.

Just because your mommy will buy you a X38 board with DDR3 memory, a QX6850 CPU, and two video cards for SLI or Crossfire, does not mean many others will buy such a rig. Most will get what they can afford and overclock that. For X38 to be marketing success, many others than just you will have to buy it.

Do you get it now? Or should I expect another obnoxious little kid response?

So let me get this straight ... the 975x is more stable than the x38 because it supports ECC?.......
also you started originally talking about the 975x and then started talking about the P35 and ECC.


Oh and thanks for pulling the typical comeback of a person’s mother buying them all their hardware.


Also what are you running on a workstations that would require ECC that should be running on a server environment? Also if this is a workstation why would you want to have the ECC performance penalty? or is this really just cutting costs and it’s more like a workstation/server? Current advancements in memory has led DDR memory to be very stable. In fact memory errors are very rare nowadays. so unless you have an absolute need for ECC (I.E. Mission critical server environment) Then Ecc memory is pointless and just a performance hit.

Just because your mommy will buy you a X38 board with DDR3 memory, a QX6850 CPU, and two video cards for SLI or Crossfire, does not mean many others will buy such a rig. Most will get what they can afford and overclock that. For X38 to be marketing success, many others than just you will have to buy it.

Again This is an ENTHUSIAST board. That is EXACTLY who Intel is marketing this to. This board can not only support DDR3 , QX9650, Crossfire or SLi, AND still have enough slots and slot space left over and board horsepower to add in a X-Fi , Physx, and a Hardware raid for my 4 150gb 10k raptors and my 5 1TB Caviars.

 

[Lamb_Chop]

I do not agree with all the negativity. I was a very unhappy user of iP35 until today with constant problems and sketchy (imho) performance until today when my Asus P5K premium decided to quit on me alongside my 4 GB of Kingston Hyper X 1200 Mhz.

Because of me good relations with the dealer i was offered a 1-1 exchange on the spot for a Gigabyte X38-DQ6.

I was very hesitant due to my previous experiences with Gigabyte but after checking out the PCB design, how well thought even a simple IDE port placement is and such decided to give it a go...

I have been up and running for about 6 hours now, and I can assure anyone who has any suspicion, P35 is DEAD!

Biggest problem with P35 imo is not very stable OC'ng of the memory to 1066 or above. That is not the case for only X38 Mobo out there atm. I personally do not overclock anything, if i need a faster one, i will upgrade. But i will give it a go tomorrow and see how it fares, worst that can happen is, i blow up some CPU's or memory.

As for thrashing the reviewer. If any of you think you can do better, go ahead... As for him thrashing the ATI/AMD. For years a single fact has been true. ATI makes better processors (GPU's for you literal ones) but their software/drivers always were problematic. This is from days of Windows 95 until recently.

Now they got acquired by another great chipmaker who is lacking on the clue department about how to make drivers to run them. And as a result ATI went south from problematic to downright silly.

That is my personal opinion, you may start with your wikipedia links, spelling corrections etc. Or you can grow up...

 

[systemlord]

Dude at least read the whole thread before jumpign on someone ..Guess they didnt teach you in school to read everything before acting.. I was making that statement in responce to DXRicks statement.... It's called being sarcastic....

Excuse me for not reading everything, I'm used to people that are more mature in this forum. Lately I am noticing more and more in-mature posters.