Asus P5Q-E as replacement for Abit IP35 Pro

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DarkenReaper57

2[H]4U
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Oct 2, 2003
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Hello everyone,

I'm looking for a motherboard replacement for my Abit IP35 Pro as I seem to be having compatibility issues with my 8800GT. Even though my Abit motherboard worked with my PC for 6 months, I now get the legendary 9.0 POST code. The 8800GT works in the 4x slot, but not the 16x slot. I've tried many things to remedy the issue, including flashing the BIOS to newer and older versions. A long story short, many hours of online research later, and a motherboard RMA later, I'm pretty sure this has to do with the Evga 8800GT being a PCI-E 2.0 card, and the motherboard only supporting 1.0/1.0a. Why it worked before and fails to boot now with the video card in the PCI-E 16x slot is beyond me.

That aside, I've been researching the DDR2 P45 motherboards, and the Asus P5Q-E looks like a good board with excellent overclocking capability that doesn't burn a huge hole in the wallet. I'm looking for a board that is less than $200, and this fits that requirement. My only gripes are that all of the SATA ports are not parallel to the board, and there isn't an external quick CMOS reset switch. I can live with these small issues, though.

Does anyone else have an Asus P5Q-E/Q6600/8800GT combo and is happy with it? Note that I will be overclocking and will liquid cool the CPU and GPU using a d-tek Fuzion and Swiftech MCW60-R.

If anyone else has a different suggestion, please inform me :). Thanks in advance.
 
NLW said:
I've got one of those boards on the way (shipped today from Newegg), so I'll let you know my first impressions when I get everything set up. I was kinda in the same spot as you, and I decided it had about 90% of what I wanted, for a decent price. Getting everything would have meant a $220+ board, which I wasn't thrilled with.

There are also some pretty good reviews here:
http://www.cpu3d.com/content/view/4924/54/
http://my.ocworkbench.com/2008/asus/P5Q-E_with_QX9770/g1.htm
Click to expand...

Same boat here. P5Q-E, E8400, and XFX8800GT Zalman edition on the way..
 
OK great, if you guys would be as nice to let me know how things go for you, I'd greatly appreciate it!
 
Ive got my e8400 at 420x9 without touching any voltages, tons of bios options which is great and nb runs pretty cool, idles at 39c (I currently am using no case fans :eek: ). Also I like the failsafe bios where you just have to power down to reset if the oc fails no more tiny little jumpers yuck.

It also has CPU and NB overvoltage jumpers if you want to get crazy. I think it allows in the 2.1v range for the nb lol.
 
Hey, sorry. Damned midwest storms leading to basement flooding + two weekends of out of town guests = no time for me to complete the setup and play. Thankfully, I have had a little time to play and OC, but it's been minimal.

My first impressions are good thus far. The NB cooling is excellent, and there's just enough room for my Scythe Ninja to fit, though it was tough to get one of the pins (HATE the pushpins) in place. Stability has not been an issue at all, and I appreciate the fact that it has dual bios chips (so if bios gets corrupted for any reason, there's always a good copy on bios chip #2, which serves as an emergency backup). It makes updating bios much less stressful. The OC options are many, but not overwhelming. There's also an option to save 2 or 3 sets of OC setups to CMOS, to help make restarting easier if you like to tinker and really push the system. The board seems plenty stable for a high OC, but I haven't tried much yet as heat is my main enemy - it's over 80F most days in this room and my Ninja doesn't make perfect contact with the pushpins. I have a [email protected], but speedfan shows it at 66C under load, so I haven't pushed it further. The MB is clearly not the limiting factor here. The Q-Connector device rocks, and is an awesome solution to a frustrating part of installation. The features are quite good for the price point, IMO.

I don't really have many gripes. I was led to believe, by advertising, that the expressgate thing could be run right off the MB with no other system interaction (security, anyone?), but you actually have to install it on a HD. Boo. Layout is good, but one of the 2 PCI slots gets practically covered up by a dual slot graphics cooler, which could be bad for some. The only other wonky thing is that I cannot seem to disable speedstep. I turn it off, but then when overclocking manually, the on/off option for SS disappears from bios. So I set it to off, then OC, but when I boot into vista, CPUZ shows the multiplier falling to 6 when idle. Maybe I'm overlooking something...I'll have to check into it.

All told, the board seems great. I'll be happy to answer any more specific questions, but I'll leave i at that for now. Sorry for the delay.
 
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