Q6600 or E6850 ? Best mobo for Q660? - Consolidated thread

[mursaat]

@mursaat so which board did you use and what was your best results (if you can post them). Also how did you get a retail GO q6600, I thought thye werent out yet?

As I said in post #105, I'm still with the comp(s) in my sig, still waiting how these G0 result

@turtle: wow Larrabee looks promising. Also, Vienna is planned for 2009? I guess they're right (real launch 2011 then? )

[emboss]

I need more power! The Q6600 price cuts are finally here, and I'm doing my long-awaited main computer upgrade (from dual Bartons + 9800). Basically a complete core system replacement - new CPU, MB, RAM, video.

I've decided on three of the four things - Q6600, a 8800GTX, and 2*1GB sticks of DDR2-800. All the benchmarks I've found point towards about a 5% difference between high latency DDR2-800 and low-latency DDR2-1067. Not worth the difference IMO (an extra $150), and better invested in cooling (starting off with a Ultra-120 Extreme, maybe moving to water cooling if temperature becomes an issue).

The big question for me at the moment is the motherboard. There's only two things I care about on the motherboard:
1) How well it can overclock.
2) How good the network card is.
I've got a good PCI sound card, and most of the storage is offloaded to a fileserver across a 1 Gb jumbo-frame-friendly network. I can do 90+ MB/sec sustained to the fileserver (4 * 500 GB, Solaris, raid-z) and use this speed frequently. Currently, I'm using a Intel NIC in one of the 64-bit 66-MHz slots in the K7D. One thing that concerns me is that some motherboards have the NIC hanging off the PCI bus, which will choke the speeds a bit. So I'd really like the NIC to be on a PCI-express lane, and for it not to be a Realtek

Since all the storage of interest is remote, I don't care about the HDD performance, "RAID", wifi, etc. I DO care about overclocking the heck out of the Q6600! Basically, I want a minimal-feature board that overclocks well.

Oh, and it has to be cheap too

The main candidate for motherboard at the moment is the P5K (not the P5K3, as DDR3 is still very expensive here in Oz). It looks to be a pretty good fit for what I want, and at $160-$180 (AU dollars) is not too expensive. The other option is the Gigabyte P35-S3 which would save me around $40 - almost half a bottle of scotch there. The IP35 is, IMO, off the list due to the NIC being on the PCI bus. Suggestions?

[Capt_Caveman]

Search is your friend - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=151934

[Fhqwhgads6680]

Basically you want a p35 for quad core. and best budget board for that is the ds3r. I have the ds3p myself and its great, no quad to go with it yet tho... but as a budget quad oc board that is your best bet!

And as far as cooling goes, since you are in australia, I'd get a hold of Kayl for a good single stage. These quads are heat monsters.

[emboss]

Yeah, I was figuring P35 was the way to go, but wasn't sure if there were any gotchas with the cheaper boards (pretty much every review/thread concentrated on the missing "extras" which I don't care about).

You say the DS3R is the best option - does it overclock any differently that the S3? Remember, I'm not interested in the onboard RAID. The only spec differences between the DS3 and the DS3R are the R having the ICH9R (matrix RAID support) and two extra SATA ports, and the only difference between the DS3 and the S3 being the "ultra durable" caps (just marketing cruft IMO). So to me, it appears that the S3 will do just a good of a job as the DS3R, and save me $40. Unless there's something I'm missing?

The only thing which concerns me with the S3 (and indeed most P35 mobos) is that it uses a Realtek 8111 which is basically useless for me, and would require finding a good PCI-e network card.

As for phase change ... at least for this build, I think I'll stop at water. It's going to be running 24/7 in my bedroom and I'm not sure I could put up with a small fridge running all the time


edit: You know the funny thing about this thread ... it contains next to no useful information for selecting a MB for a Q6600.

[strange|ife]

i'am confused is G0 supposed to be comnig into retail as of today/ or by monday? or will it be like august?

I want to order one from mwave next week

[jkresh]

strange|ife G0's are out now but most of the chips are b3's, so you can check the numbers on mwave (currently they are b3's) or try to get luck with newegg, or preorder with tank guys (only guarantee), or if you have a fry's or microcenter or someting local you can always look through their inventory and see if they have any G0's.

Still trying to decide, striker vs p5k or some other p35 board, or if x38 is out in the next two weeks. Main issue is highest fsb possibly with my watercooling (though switching to an apogee gtx over my storm) and with my memory (might switch out the 2gigs of ocz and go with another 4 of the patriot so its all the same, but only realy need just over 4 gigs in general so 8 would be kind of silly). I am wondering if the unlinked memory on teh striker will make more of a difference for me then the higher likely maximum fsb of the p5k (since I cant see getting it over 450fsb with water anyway (on anyboard), 4ghz would be great, 3.6 or higher would be pretty good).

[Emerica]

Still trying to decide, striker vs p5k or some other p35 board, or if x38 is out in the next two weeks. Main issue is highest fsb possibly with my watercooling (though switching to an apogee gtx over my storm) and with my memory (might switch out the 2gigs of ocz and go with another 4 of the patriot so its all the same, but only realy need just over 4 gigs in general so 8 would be kind of silly). I am wondering if the unlinked memory on teh striker will make more of a difference for me then the higher likely maximum fsb of the p5k (since I cant see getting it over 450fsb with water anyway (on anyboard), 4ghz would be great, 3.6 or higher would be pretty good).

Get the P5K over the Striker, but if it was me buying a board right now I would definitely go with the Abit IP-35 Pro. ~$40-50 cheaper than the P5K.

[jkresh]

anyone have an idea as to when the asus blitz formula might be out (seems like a good option if I end up with a p35 board)

[fire]

I'm building a WC'ed rig for gaming, and have been waiting for the Q6600 price drop. However, upon more reading, I find a bunch of folks saying that for gaming, it's better to just get an E6850 instead of dickering with the Q6600. Is this true? I figured the extra cores would make it superior...I guess not?

Also, what in the world is all this hubbub about D0 stepping? I've no idea what that means, but a bunch of folks say not to buy the chips right now becuase they have D0 stepping, and it's bad. Then a bunch of other threads seem to say it's great. What's the story? Does the Q6600 have this D0? I know the one on Newegg does. Does the E6850? Is it bad/good?

[chriskurn]

I believe the Q6600 is better for gaming. Crysis, UT3, to name a few will use all 4 cores. I don't believe a few mhz can help as much as 2 more cores.

G0 is the reference to the stepping of the processor. The G0 Q6600 which will ship soon will OC better and run cooler than the current B3 Q6600.

[MaK2000]

The E6850 is G0 and seem to be clocking quite well. The Q66 G0 ESs are clocking very well. We will just have to see if the retail Q66 G0 will do the same. Just a waiting game or get the B3. They clock well. They just get hot.

[dr-ali]

LOST PLANET FIRST GAME FOR 4 cores
looking to the lost planet benchmark :



Q6600 (G0 or B3) is better than E6850 G0 for new softwares (Game, 3D rendering, Convertion, compression
and more)

[ChaosMinionX]

Do we even have results of G0 Quadcores beyond ES? So I wouldnt say its completely fair to say that these chips are going to bury B3 quads in terms of temperature and max clocks... Im still waiting to see something beyond ES quads benches.

[crossg]

Do we even have results of G0 Quadcores beyond ES? So I wouldnt say its completely fair to say that these chips are going to bury B3 quads in terms of temperature and max clocks... Im still waiting to see something beyond ES quads benches.

Yep I agree I have seen nice clocks but no real world tempratures under load.
I happen to know someone that is testing a QX6850 (ES) and that thing runs at 60 deg c (Cores) with all four cores at 100 % stock speed (Artic freezer pro cooler which isn't the best) but that is still hot for stock speed.

[railmeat]

the only problem with tank guys is that they will get cpus late july mid august thats to long for me

agree tank guys always arrive late with preorders,like as much as 2-3 weeks later.resulting in u paying $300 for a chip then 3 weeks later its $250 etc..

[ownage]

Q6600 or e6850?, q6600 offcourse.
But dualcore is still good.
game producers have to make games which are playable for most people, mostly nubs. And nubs run conroe's at stock speeds, for example 2.13ghz. Then a 3.6ghz dualcore should be good enough, even for future heavy games which are quadcore optimized. But 230 euro for a Q6600 is just a steal.

[T2k]

Basically you want a p35 for quad core. and best budget board for that is the ds3r. I have the ds3p myself and its great, no quad to go with it yet tho... but as a budget quad oc board that is your best bet!

How is it any better than Abit's IP35?

[ownage]

the normal p5k has about the same price as the DS3R. I prefer p5k, but for 15 dollar/euro more you have the P5KC, which has DDR2 and DDR3. So i think P5kC is a great futureproof quadcore OCer.
IP35 is also a great board tho.

[michaLcoughliN]

ide liek to see s0me results on both c0res clocks.

I still waiting arrival of my E6850 =/ if i dont like it i dont know what to do :o hahahha.

bahh so impatient i just want my new rig

[jkresh]

For people still waiting on motherboards anandtech should have a roundup of 680i and possibly p35 boards using newest bios's with a qx6850 and q6600 G0 sometime next week.

[fire]

Apparently Newegg is selling G0's now - at least according to the comments. Read them to see. Their price is slowly coming back down, too. Might be reasonable by next week.