Abit IP35 or Gigabyte EP35-ds3p

hexen · Post by **hexen** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:45 am

looking for a stable board (will be running a Q6600) for a DAW.
it will need to fit a Scythe Ninja revB

the Abit IP35 and Gigabyte EP35-ds3p are my final consideratons but i cant decide which one to get.

any known issues or suggestions?

figment · Post by **figment** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:29 am

Since no one else is chiming in, I'll see if I can help.

While I don't know about those specific boards, I've had plenty of people tell me that the Ninja does fit just fine in the P35-DS4, so I'd have to assume its going to fit in all the Gigabyte P35 boards. Note, however, that if you're planning to get the Thermalright bolt-through kit, some of the Gigabyte boards have CrazyCool heat sinks on the back of the motherboard that need to be removed.

For the IP35, I've seen plenty of pictures of the Ninja in the IP35 Pro, so again, I have to assume it will fit in all of the boards in the line.

One more thing to know for both boards: I believe the Ninja will end up sitting very close to the DIMM slots (The clips are within a few mms of the slots on it IP35 Pro). If you want to put a fan on the Ninja blowing toward the back of the board, you will not be able to put DIMMs with "tall" heat spreaders on the nearest bank of DIMMs.

Now, if you want to pick between them, it gets more difficult. Both of them are popular. The IP35 has uGuru which is great for fan control. The EP35-DS3P has DES for low energy usage. IP35 has an extra PCI slot at the cost of a 1x PCIe. EP35-DS3P does the opposite. I'm guessing you're getting a specialized sound card, so you don't care about the onboard. The IP35 is probably slightly cheaper.

Either will work just fine for you. Pick the one which seems to fit better.

mimp · Post by **mimp** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 4:35 am

I know some of the gigabytes have serious DPC latency problems with later bios revisions, which makes low latency audio next to impossible, so I'd go with the abit.

Cistron · Post by **Cistron** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 12:57 am

There's plenty of space for the Ninja on the IP35. I have a Mine sitting on the CPU, which has a similarly big base-plate. There is enough clearing to the electric stuff (I suspect condensators, but don't quote me on that) around the socket.

The dark raider is a good board, but either my version is slightly bugged, or the system fan control is generally not good. I have an ever so slight suspicion though, that it might have something to do with the resistor-cables that came with my Zalman fans.

evident · Post by **evident** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:23 pm

please do yourself a favor and get the IP35 Pro. It is seriously a solid board and works great with the new 45nm cpu's.

The EP35-DS3R has given me nothing but issues w/ my E8400.

Blood · Post by **Blood** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:40 pm

FYI, the abit ip35 does not have uGuru. Only the Ip35-pro in the ip35 line does.

valnar · Post by **valnar** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:23 pm

mimp wrote:I know some of the gigabytes have serious DPC latency problems with later bios revisions, which makes low latency audio next to impossible, so I'd go with the abit.

While off-topic....

Thank you for that single post! I found it referenced here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24721 ... oblem-ds3r

You sent me off in many directions looking for an alternative before I bought a P35 motherboard. This cinched my decision on the DFI LP LT P35 T2R motherboard. Every other MB has at least one problem but I can't find any with the DFI. The Gigabyte was perfect on paper until I saw your post. I can't thank you enough (audio is important to me).

-Robert

jimmyzaas · Post by **jimmyzaas** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:25 pm

Gigabyte has 6 phase pwms.. if it makes any difference..

I looked at the Abit ones alot.. cuz they are priced around the same as gigabyte... in the end.. i went gigabyte because of..

- 889A audio versus 888 audio (what;s the difference.. i dunno.. higher the better?)
- 6 phase versus 4 phase (asus is 8 phase mind you)
- 4 usb ports at the back versus 8 usb ports (i don't have room to put in a bracket)
- 8 sata ports usable

the only thing that upsets me is .. lack of dual gigabit lan.. i needed two.. with one dedicated to virtualbox.. damn it

valnar · Post by **valnar** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:14 am

jimmyzaas wrote: the only thing that upsets me is .. lack of dual gigabit lan.. i needed two.. with one dedicated to virtualbox.. damn it

Then you want the DFI board I mention above. Dual gigabit LAN and a better sound card (ALC885 > ALC889a)

-Robert

jimmyzaas · Post by **jimmyzaas** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 3:10 pm

valnar wrote:
jimmyzaas wrote: the only thing that upsets me is .. lack of dual gigabit lan.. i needed two.. with one dedicated to virtualbox.. damn it
Then you want the DFI board I mention above. Dual gigabit LAN and a better sound card (ALC885 > ALC889a)

-Robert

That is really odd. From this chart,

http://www.realtek.com.tw/images/produc ... _Guide.jpg

It shows that the 885 is in fact better than the 888s.. however, the 889 should be better than the 885 and feature more stuff.

I can't believe it came out last.. To bad the DFI costs as much as a X38 board in my area.. and the Abit costs a whopping 5 dollars more.

If we ever get Newegg prices, man that would be sweet. 100 bucks for an Abit IP35-Pro? I wouldn't even need to think about it.

valnar · Post by **valnar** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 6:02 pm

jimmyzaas wrote: That is really odd. From this chart,

http://www.realtek.com.tw/images/produc ... _Guide.jpg

It shows that the 885 is in fact better than the 888s.. however, the 889 should be better than the 885 and feature more stuff.

Interesting. I wish I could remember the review, but I seen the 885 pitted against the Gigabyte 889a and it came out better.

Edit: Found it. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/0 ... 680i_sli/7

Robert

najames · Post by **najames** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:12 pm

I do NOT have a IP35 Pro, but I have a Gigabyte 690G board with the same Realtek LAN chip on it, also running off the PCI bus. I have done extensive LAN testing and found this chip/system will receive fairly fast, maybe 45MBytes/sec, but only sends at about 18MBytes/sec, the slowest sending system I have by far.

Even with the LAN disabled on my board and inserting a known fast Intel PCI-e x1 card, this board still seems slow at LAN tasks. Other systems can send to the server at over 100MBytes/sec on Gigabit LAN.

I was concerned about this because I intended to use this as an HTPC and send a lot of video files from this PC to a server. Instead this will become my daily use "minimalistic" PC and I'll use the 5000 CPU elsewhere.