best p45 mobo for q9450

[Delijohn]

Hi, i am new to overclocking but i want to play with a mobo and learn a lot! :-)
I have a q9450, a thermalright true copper, a radeon 4870x2 and 4 or 8 gb of ram.. which mobo do you suggest for higher fsb's? i know that overclocking with quads is difficult but i don't expect TOO HIGH fsb..
I am between Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, DFI DK P45-T2RS + and Maximus Formula II. Is it good to buy one of them or you have to suggest sth better?

[YMAA]

UD3P for sure. MIIF is underwhelming for the price (and can't beat the UD3P), the T2RS seems better suited to high FSB on Wolfdale.

[ReverendMaynard]

Out of those three, Gigabyte EP45-UD3P for sure.

[5ILVgearX]

I would go for the Asus, the bios is a lot easier to overclock compared to gigabyte's. But thats just me, someone who had nothing but bad experience trying to overclock and tweak gigabyte boards.

On the bright side gigabyte does have some good tech support and decent RMAs.

The Asus x48 have dual 16x so if you want to go tri-fire or quad you don't have to worry about that x8 on p45 boards.

[YukonTrooper]

ASUS's BIOS easier to overclock compared to Gigabyte's BIOS? You must be high or one of a kind.

[5ILVgearX]

Yep, Asus is easier for me :P probably because i am used to it

the +.200 Volts in gigabyte bios is kinda confusing for me

onces again i go for the x48 chipset since there real cost in price

[screwtech02]

Stay away from the MIIF, its bios is a joke, lots of "non workable" settings.

[EliTE22]

Yep, Asus is easier for me :P probably because i am used to it

the +.200 Volts in gigabyte bios is kinda confusing for me

onces again i go for the x48 chipset since there real cost in price

what??? have you used a ud3 bios??? theres no +.200 anything, you should get your facts straight, u must be talking about their older mobos

[OC Nub]

Gigabyte UD3P for quads.

[Grnfinger]

alot of UD3P fanbois here, because a board requires a little more effort in tweaking doesnt make it a crap board it just means the user is out of there league, what do you learn without any effort???
No I havent jump'd on the giga bandwagon and see no real reason too, in all honesty the DFI will kick the out of the other 2 boards and no I dont own that one ethier, the MIIF would be a contender and my choice if the bios would mature and all the options actually work thats why I have 2 for sale...gigabyte fanbois flame on.

[fatguy1992]

Yep, Asus is easier for me :P probably because i am used to it

the +.200 Volts in gigabyte bios is kinda confusing for me

onces again i go for the x48 chipset since there real cost in price

I think thats only on the really old Gigabyte boards, the new ones don't have that

[Jor3lBR]

It's simple: If you plan to run your Quad in WC and want it comfortably around 4000Mhz go with Asus, DFI, or others; if you wish to run your Quad comfortably around 5000Mhz go with Gigabyte Ep45-UD3P or Ep45-Extreme...

[EliTE22]

alot of UD3P fanbois here, because a board requires a little more effort in tweaking doesnt make it a crap board it just means the user is out of there league, what do you learn without any effort???
No I havent jump'd on the giga bandwagon and see no real reason too, in all honesty the DFI will kick the out of the other 2 boards and no I dont own that one ethier, the MIIF would be a contender and my choice if the bios would mature and all the options actually work thats why I have 2 for sale...gigabyte fanbois flame on.

really so you never used the other but some how the dfi better in your mind, what you pick mobos by color? what your max fsb? with a quad,
you are bashing two really good mobos with no facts backing you up, if u need some proof that ud3 are great with quad hit the ud3 thread

im not saying the gigbyte better all around but for quad it the best way to go

[systemviper]

It's simple: If you plan to run your Quad in WC and want it comfortably around 4000Mhz go with Asus, DFI, or others; if you wish to run your Quad comfortably around 5000Mhz go with Gigabyte Ep45-UD3P or Ep45-Extreme...

[zsamz_]

alot of UD3P fanbois here, because a board requires a little more effort in tweaking doesnt make it a crap board it just means the user is out of there league, what do you learn without any effort???
No I havent jump'd on the giga bandwagon and see no real reason too, in all honesty the DFI will kick the out of the other 2 boards and no I dont own that one ethier, the MIIF would be a contender and my choice if the bios would mature and all the options actually work thats why I have 2 for sale...gigabyte fanbois flame on.

if you could put the p5q-dx moded bios on yours i would agree
gigabut ud3p is better than the mfII
but with the moded bios it would kick gigabut ass
the dfi kicks ass just not n00b freindly

[fatguy1992]

if you could put the p5q-dx moded bios on yours i would agree
gigabut ud3p is better than the mfII
but with the moded bios it would kick gigabut ass
the dfi kicks ass just not n00b freindly

I haven't seen a DFI mobo running a 550FSB on a quad? but yeah the T2RS when used right is better for duals.

[CryptiK]

if you could put the p5q-dx moded bios on yours i would agree
gigabut ud3p is better than the mfII
but with the moded bios it would kick gigabut ass
the dfi kicks ass just not n00b freindly

P5Q-Deluxe BIOS doesn't do anything for the M2F at all. I have tried. Also the M2F BIOS on the P5Q-Deluxe does nothing, I can assure you both boards work best with their own BIOSes on them.

OP - Since you are only using a Q9450, any board mentioned will probably take the CPU to its limit if you want to use safe vcore on air cooling. Q9450's are weak overclockers.

However if you want to get the board that can overclock a quad the best, the answer is the Gigabyte UD3P.

[YMAA]

alot of UD3P fanbois here, because a board requires a little more effort in tweaking doesnt make it a crap board it just means the user is out of there league, what do you learn without any effort???
No I havent jump'd on the giga bandwagon and see no real reason too, in all honesty the DFI will kick the out of the other 2 boards and no I dont own that one ethier, the MIIF would be a contender and my choice if the bios would mature and all the options actually work thats why I have 2 for sale...gigabyte fanbois flame on.

So...if the BIOS on the MIIF would mature and offered settings that actually worked it would be a better board?

The MIIF is a great board, I don't think anybody's calling it crap. It looks nice, it's well built, and with a better BIOS it'd really compete. But for the price it's asking the performance is underwhelming, especially since the features that drive up the price of the board don't work well.

I mean, I have a P5Q-Deluxe and it runs 480FSB without breaking a sweat. The MIIF doesn't really go far past that with a quad...with the exception of dual PCIe LAN, a useless sound card, a different cooler and an ROG sticker it's identical to the P5Q-Deluxe, which is a little more than half the price of the MIIF. They have the same chipset, VRMs, solid caps, 8x+8x Crossfire support, RAID controller, etc. People who own the MIIF will tell you the same thing, which is why there are so many more P5Q-Deluxe/Pro owners than MIIF owners. ASUS has made a few decent ROG boards...the Rampage Extreme seems to be one of the best boards for both quads and duals and holds numerous SuperPi dual core records - and was used for quite a few quad FSB records as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20II%20formula MIIF - $225
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136053 P45-T2RS+ - $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Tpk=EP45-UD3P EP45-UD3P -$115 AMIR

I mean, $225 for a board with an immature BIOS and lots of quirks backed by one of the worst customer service teams in the industry, or $115 for a mature BIOS and a stream of people running over 500FSB on quads, backed by a better-than-average service team? The DFI is a decent board too...I mean, a lot of people have weird problems with DFI and a good number of people have to RMA their brand-new boards two or three times before it finally works well, but once they get a working board it's fantastic. Everyone's said the DFI is great for RAM tweaking and I don't think anyone but the biggest DFI hater can doubt its results with high-FSB dual cores, but the UD3P has consistently proven itself the best LGA775 DDR2 quad-core overclocking board.

I don't want to call it a no-brainer, but...the UD3P is just a better option. And to call people fanboys for believing that...well, it's just in poor taste.