Motherboard For E6600...Asus P5WDG2-WS Best Choice?

[choppa]

Well I'm looking at these two boards aswell out of curiosity to find the major differences. Here are pictures of the boards side by side:


Now after looking through the spec sheet for both boards WS and WS Pro, I have found the following notable differences:

• Standard has 8 SATA2-ports available, WS-Pro has 7 + 1eSATA (seems like a waste...)
• Standard board has Realtek ALC882 8-channel HD sound. Pro board has ADI 1988B 8-channel HD sound. Is there any notable difference between these two? Which one would be better in say games like Oblivion, Hitman, or the upcoming game Supreme Commander?
• Standard has the Marvell 88E8066/8062 PCI-E Dual Gb LAN controller whereas the Pro has the Marvell 88E8052 + 88E8001PCI-E Dual Gb LAN controller - does this mean that the number of PCI-E lanes the Pro takes up is more than the Std? Is the implementation of the Pro worse or better than that of its counterpart?
• Obviously the Standard comes with an optional WiFi module - is this module (if acquired) also usable in the Pro?
• Will NVidia SLI work on these board? The links show that the spec sheet says "ATI CrossFire" with the 975X chipset. Does anyone know if say a pair of 7950GX2's would work?

Another important question to those in the know - these are ATX cases. Can I mount them "upside down" in a BTX chassis? Would the heatpipe cooler on the Pro not work properly if I mounted it in a "desktop" or BTX-based orientation?

After reading the above posts, I'm even more confused. This is my "planned" system (no OC'ing, want an absolutely silent system):
- Conroe E6600
- 4GB Ram (not sure of type, want it to be 'relatively fast' so that when 4-core Kentsfield comes out, I can just swap CPUs and not get a performance hit due to low FSB)
- 1x 7950GX2 for now, perhaps a second when prices go down a bit. (Currently powering a 2405FPW but soon to power a 3007FPW).
- Areca 12-port PCI-X card + 6x 500GB Sata2 Hdd's (raid 5) [got these]

Haven't decided what type of primary drive (OS) to use yet, but am looking at an LSI 3080X-R with a pair of Cheetah 15K's. Obviously the Areca has space for another 6 drives, and the LSI would also accomodate any SAS or SATA2 drives in the future. Also not sure what power supply to use.

Any ideas?

[sierra_bound]

The non-Pro board does not have support for Conroe. If you read the description of the non-Pro board on the Asus website, it makes no mention of Core 2 Duo.

"This motherboard supports Intel 65nm Pentium D/ Intel Pentium 4/ Celeron processors."

[Trucker61]

I'm starting to get the itch again to buy this board thanks to you guys.

Same goes for me, it should be here by Friday....

[Dumo]

Nice board. I just got it yesterday. Chipset run really hot @ 1.8Vmch...Have to cool it a bit.
6800ES B1 bugged @ 370ish max. FSB boot (the rest upped with clockgen). Probly Retail B2 and Allendale are ok.



So far tried with 1:1 and 2:3...Heres out of the box with TT Big Typhoon with 1.48Vcore in bios that actualy overvolted to 1.53V.

[fhpchris]

Dumo, Which chipset block is that? the i865/875 one or the other one?

I have an 5000 rpm sunon 60mm fan on my northbridge, with a 120mmx38 delta blowing under my Typhoon.

I see temps of 27-33c

[Dumo]

@Chris...Its Danger Den Maze4 Intel, sku: M4CHIPINTEL lucite top.

[Durzel]

Does this board support Crossfire? It doesn't say so on the ASUS site or on the box (P5W-DH does), but it is the 975X chipset.....