965 or 680i?

Y

YARDofSTUF

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 19, 2001
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Whats the better chipset for the core 2 duos?

Looking for a board for a friend in the 175 or less range.


EDIT: or the 650i too.
 
Well for that cheap it really is either a 650i or 965P

Both are good I hear, it just depends on your preference.

The biggest difference is the 650i's graphic slots in nVIDIA's SLI run 8X by 8X, where the 965P runs ATI's CROSSFIRE 16X by 4X. Are you going to use SLI? What would you use the second graphic slot for?

Many of the 965P chipsets also support 1333FSB for cpus now too. Its a toss for what your more inclined to use graphic wise really i believe. If i had to choose just on brand name, id choose intel personally, their chipsets run cool, and rock solid.
 
No SLI, he'll be using 1 video card, possibly an 8800GTS

Theres an EVGA 680i at newegg for 175.
 
If you are not running SLI, then stay away from the 680i headache. Get a 965 or 975 board and be happy.
 
Ive pretty much decided on the Biostar Tforce P965.

The CPU looks like its gonna be the 6400.

The 175 or less goal has been changed to as low as I can get it without getting a POS. lol
 
I'm runing a single 8800GTS (evga) on my 680i board and don't have plans on using SLI in the near future, but it is nice to have it as an option.

This board has been running great for me, I think they have ironed out all the bugs there were.
 
The 680i's "Dual x16 PCi-E" support is just a marketing ploy and nothing more. The 650i performs just as well with dual 8800GTX cards and there is no performance difference at all between them in that case. In fact, the ASUS A8N32-SLi Deluxe was an nForce 4-based Socket 939 board that also had full x16 SLI. It did not give any performance advantages at all. I'd look at the 650i, the 975X and the 965 as potential options.
 
Rage_3k_Moiz said:
The 680i's "Dual x16 PCi-E" support is just a marketing ploy and nothing more.
Click to expand...

"Marketing ploy", or actual specs.? Yes, other board also have this feature (although, in most cases it's actually 2 x8) but it doesn't mean that the 680i board should be disregarded because of it. The 680i is considered as a high-end board, with more ethernet connections a third PCI-e slot for physics cards and "NVIDIA DualNet Technology" (whatever that is). The 680i board is also, arguably, a better overclocker- but the differences from the 650i are probably negligable. I'm not trying to promote the 680i at all, but, equally, i don't think it should be completely ruled out of the equation.
 
My opinion is go with a Gigabyte DS3 board. I have that board and it is probably the best board I've ever owned. I like the fact that it has three useable PCI slots, because I have three soundcards.
 
Rage_3k_Moiz said:
The 680i's "Dual x16 PCi-E" support is just a marketing ploy and nothing more. The 650i performs just as well with dual 8800GTX cards and there is no performance difference at all between them in that case. In fact, the ASUS A8N32-SLi Deluxe was an nForce 4-based Socket 939 board that also had full x16 SLI. It did not give any performance advantages at all. I'd look at the 650i, the 975X and the 965 as potential options.
Click to expand...

There are some benchmarks that disprove you, I can't find them atm but they were linked on these boards in some other thread about 8x vs 16x SLI.

Also asus's 650i PLUS board uses the Nf4 sli chipset, so it does 16x Sli, while all other 650 boards do not.
 
Lyquist said:
My opinion is go with a Gigabyte DS3 board. I have that board and it is probably the best board I've ever owned. I like the fact that it has three useable PCI slots, because I have three soundcards.
Click to expand...


The DS3 interests me, but I have a friend that had some trouble with it and some of the reviews on newegg bother me. Does the DS3 use a jmicron sata chip?
 
YARDofSTUF said:
The DS3 interests me, but I have a friend that had some trouble with it and some of the reviews on newegg bother me. Does the DS3 use a jmicron sata chip?
Click to expand...

It has 6 SATA ports, 4 are on the Intel controller (good!), 2 (the purple ones I think) are on the JMicron SATA controller (problematic).

I was personally looking at the DQ6, but I've been hearing rumors of a bad batch floating around, so I'm hesitant to buy them right now.
 
Buy a board that fits your need..... any of the 965/680/650 motherboard are all capable overclockers, you just need to buy what feature you need and at the same time fits your budget..... With an E6300 I think 965 is still the best choice while the 680 is probably the better choice for 6600 and up.....

I still dont get the whole SLI thing..... Im not much of a gamer but is there really a game out there that one 8800GTX cant handle? Buying 2 cheaper cards doesnt make sense to cos for the price of 2 cheap cards, you can buy one at the same price and probably outperform it......
 
You are correct Luihed re: SLI.

I got the evga board because of the warranty (lifetime w/registered with AR/A1 boards), and great customer support. It also has one of the biggest followings so I know if I have a Q I'll be able to quickly find answers to them.

As far as SLI, I wouldn't purchase 2 cards right away, but it is an upgrade path for me if I think I might need it. I am more of a 1 good card vs 2 ok ones, esp. since its not 2x performance even though its 2x price.

If I find that a second would hugely increase my ability to game for things like Crisis or Alan wake, then I'll think about adding a second.
 
In case it was not answered above ( I did not see it )

The DS3 does use the jmicron chip to provide SATA raid and ide ports. A lot of people have had issues because they do not understand the best way to utilize this chip, I have one on my DQ6 and it works very well.

BTW this chip is widely used, if you get a board with it:

Use the latest drivers from jmicron, do not use the ones provided by the board manuf or windows update.

Be sure to install the F6 preinstalltion driver during windows install, even if you dont intend to use raid, takes 10 seconds. This ensures you have the ACHI drivers and can run in native SATA mode instead of your nice 3.0GBs SATA drive being run in "compatibility" mode with PATA drivers with no NCQ or other advanced SATA driver effeciencies.

The above is the single greatest install mistake made with these boards, regardless of board manufacturer. Buy a damn floppy if you have too, use it, rip it out and put it in a drawer.
 
BillParrish said:
In case it was not answered above ( I did not see it )

The DS3 does use the jmicron chip to provide SATA raid and ide ports. A lot of people have had issues because they do not understand the best way to utilize this chip, I have one on my DQ6 and it works very well.

BTW this chip is widely used, if you get a board with it:

Use the latest drivers from jmicron, do not use the ones provided by the board manuf or windows update.

Be sure to install the F6 preinstalltion driver during windows install, even if you dont intend to use raid, takes 10 seconds. This ensures you have the ACHI drivers and can run in native SATA mode instead of your nice 3.0GBs SATA drive being run in "compatibility" mode with PATA drivers with no NCQ or other advanced SATA driver effeciencies.

The above is the single greatest install mistake made with these boards, regardless of board manufacturer. Buy a damn floppy if you have too, use it, rip it out and put it in a drawer.
Click to expand...

BillParrish - this is only if you actually intend on using the JMicron controller right? If I get a DQ6 and only intend on using the ICH8R chipset SATA, do I have to do the F6 to load any AHCI drivers or anything?
 
BillParrish said:
In case it was not answered above ( I did not see it )

The DS3 does use the jmicron chip to provide SATA raid and ide ports. A lot of people have had issues because they do not understand the best way to utilize this chip, I have one on my DQ6 and it works very well.

BTW this chip is widely used, if you get a board with it:

Use the latest drivers from jmicron, do not use the ones provided by the board manuf or windows update.

Be sure to install the F6 preinstalltion driver during windows install, even if you dont intend to use raid, takes 10 seconds. This ensures you have the ACHI drivers and can run in native SATA mode instead of your nice 3.0GBs SATA drive being run in "compatibility" mode with PATA drivers with no NCQ or other advanced SATA driver effeciencies.

The above is the single greatest install mistake made with these boards, regardless of board manufacturer. Buy a damn floppy if you have too, use it, rip it out and put it in a drawer.
Click to expand...

Thats good to know, thanks! You also reminded me to get a floppy drive, always forget to order them. :D
 
luihed said:
I still dont get the whole SLI thing..... Im not much of a gamer but is there really a game out there that one 8800GTX cant handle? Buying 2 cheaper cards doesnt make sense to cos for the price of 2 cheap cards, you can buy one at the same price and probably outperform it......
Click to expand...

SLI is for extremely high resolution and detail. A single 8800GTX can't drive a 30" LCD at native res, max settings, with great framerates in any of the most recent graphic-intensive games. SLI is only needed for high resolution graphic processing.

SLI is bad as an upgrade path unless you plan on upgrading to a larger (24"+) monitor. There will always be a better single card solution otherwise, and you could always sell off your old card to help offset the cost of the new card.
 
I tried going the SLI route for future upgrade potential and it didn't work out well either. I paid a small premium for an SLI capable motherboard and when it time to go SLI, Nvidia had stopped making the chip for my card.

I was also faced with buying another old generation card to increase my performance or buying the latest generation single card for even more performance. My card still had some value on the used market, so the choice was either sell it while it has some value or pick up another old card and be left with 2 completely worthless cards for the next upgrade cycle.

I have to agree with the post above... SLI as an upgrade doesn't make much sense. I would only buy SLI if I needed the power of 2 cards from the beginning (i.e. to drive super high resolutions, or some poorly coded game that I happened to loved).
 
Another time where SLI might be a feasible upgrade path is if nVidia make a particular good pair of cards which complement each other, giving a lot more performance than the next best card.
 
Mansize_tissue said:
Another time where SLI might be a feasible upgrade path is if nVidia make a particular good pair of cards which complement each other, giving a lot more performance than the next best card.
Click to expand...


i had 7900gt sli when the 7xxx cards first came out, and for the same price as a gtx you got much better performance. there were a couple other instances with the 7xxx cards where this happened. i dont think it works out this way with the 8xxx cards, tho. my 2 8800gts cards were around $200 more than the gtx when i bought them.
 
I suggest you sell both GTS for really cheap and pick up a GTX, then later on you can buy another GTXand have a kickass gaming rig....... If you do decide to take my advise, let me know cos Im looking for a really cheap GTS lol.....
 
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