Intel X38 Chipset: Porsche with Handbrake On

[sholling]

It looks like the release date has slipped from 9/24/07 to probably 10/11/07 and I'm seeing prices of $285 to 340.

 

[Carling]

I have 2 x HD2900XTS 1Gb @ 825mhz can anyone say which would be the best motherboard for them to sit in, an X38 or a P35 type?
Im going with ddr2 memory. Would an Asus Blitz Forumla be better for me @ x8 x8 or say this X-38 board?
Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.

 

[cptmac]

Wow. It will wear you out reading about X n P35's. Remember the 386 and the 486. Damn, I was so excited to buy my first 486 from Dell for
$ 2,200. And then Circuit City had the 200, was it Gig? Man, we are so spoiled. If I smoked dope, I would smoke dope. Lord, we should volunteer for a two year mission in Botswania. Come home and your brothers computer would say " What's up, want a dubee?"

 

[DXRick]

cyph0r,
I am running a 865P board now with a P4 3.0. That is why I am looking at the latest developments. I have no idea how frequent memory errors are or if ECC is needed or if I will ever want a board with ECC. I do not know if Intel has decided that ECC is only needed for servers. I do not know for a fact that ECC makes a board more stable.

What I do know is:

■The 975X chipset supports ECC RAM. It is a workstation board. Many enthusiasts did buy it. It is outdated now.
■Microsoft tried to make ECC support a requirement for Vista certification but later decided against it.
■Intel MACs are made with ECC RAM.
■People are buying server boards with Xeons to use as workstations (probably for 64bit reasons?).
■Dell's high end workstation computers use server/workstation boards with Xeons.

If you don't like the momma crack, stop acting like a child. Your opinion that ECC is worthless in workstations and desktops flies in the face the other things I listed above and does not disprove my comment that the X38 does not really replace the 975X, regardless of all the other cool things it adds.

Your know-it-all attitude makes you sound more like a teenage fan boy than anything else.

 

[rhysee]

Gosh , this review came out far too early !!, crazy .. Tomshardware .. slap on hand for bringing so much negativity out before X38 is out of the WOMB!!!!!..

 

[systemlord]

I have 2 x HD2900XTS 1Gb @ 825mhz can anyone say which would be the best motherboard for them to sit in, an X38 or a P35 type?
Im going with ddr2 memory. Would an Asus Blitz Forumla be better for me @ x8 x8 or say this X-38 board?
Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you.

The X38 has two 16x PCIe slots, so yes it would be better than two 8x slots.

 

[gwolfman]

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
http://www.tcmagazine.com/images/news/Hardware/ASUS_Maximus_Extreme_01.jpg
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
http://news.ferra.ru/images/187/187364.jpg

I like the placement of the USB and FireWire headers on the board.
Why can't everyone more them close to the front!?!

 

[gwolfman]

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....

I'd have to get back to you on the rev if you really want to know. But, from what I know, the older revisions allowed max 1.65V on the NorthBridge. Mine can go up to 1.85V with the right BIOS, but I have mine set only to 1.65V. Still, if you can only get up to 1.65V, maybe it's the older rev silicon that's making the difference.

 

[TeknoJnky]

Hi.

Regarding X38, I am looking forward to seeing both ddr2 and ddr3 comparisons with a gforce 9 series... you know, the one that is preported to have pcie v2 and ~1 gig of ram.

I am guessing that both should be in the channel at approximately the same time, which should provide the synergy to grab both for 4th quarter builds.

 

[rammedstein]

finally someone showed me a good review, thanks to the person who posted the link to the ocwb review, it is great, and they actually showed REAL ocign results, i expected 600fsb, but not 630! omg, thats some nice work there

 

[sholling]

The GigaByte GA-X38-DQ6 started shipping today. I ordered mine about 10am this morning and the Egg shipped same day. I'm seeing prices from $270-310 so far.

 

[randomizer]

What a shocking price. Not at all worth it.

 

[nukemaster]

about the same as what the P5W DH was too....and i replaced it with a p35 ds3r

 

[randomizer]

I will never spend more than $170 on a motherboard.