Motherboard recommendation for new 45nm Intel CPUs

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david25
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Motherboard recommendation for new 45nm Intel CPUs

Post by david25 » Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:28 pm

Hi everyone,

The performance of the new wolfdale chips has got me interested
in intel desktop systems again;

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

Can anyone recommend and efficient MB for this new chip, I've found
some data in a past post, that 945/965/p35 boards are the most
efficient

viewtopic.php?t=44444

Does anyone have any newer data?

I'm only looking for 2 sata, 1 x pci-x16, 4gb ram support, OC not important, just looking for the lowest idle power consumption with a e8200 chip.

Thanks

smilingcrow
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Post by smilingcrow » Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:18 pm

The more recent 65nm chips under-volt very well so it’s possible that the 45nm chips will have some decent headroom also. If you want to go down that route I’d recommend Gigabyte as they seem to go as low as 0.5V in just about all their boards these days. This will definitely help keep the idle power draw lower.

wim
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Post by wim » Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:29 pm

does anyone know how to decipher gigabyte's naming scheme, i am trying to choose a motherboard and its very confusing there are lots of models and when you use the comparator seem to be very little or no differences between some of them, for example

GA-EP35-DS4
GA-EP35C-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3P
GA-EP35-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3

the only particularly big difference seem to be that one of these boards has dual PCI-e x16. why so many different model names, what does it all mean?

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:35 pm

this xbit labs article explains it really well.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainbo ... -ds3l.html

david25
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Post by david25 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:30 am

smilingcrow wrote:The more recent 65nm chips under-volt very well so it’s possible that the 45nm chips will have some decent headroom also. If you want to go down that route I’d recommend Gigabyte as they seem to go as low as 0.5V in just about all their boards these days. This will definitely help keep the idle power draw lower.
Thanks, what you expect overall power consumption to be with a Gigabyte board?

djkest
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Post by djkest » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:03 am

wim wrote: GA-EP35-DS4
GA-EP35C-DS3R <<<<<<<-------THIS ONE
GA-EP35-DS3P
GA-EP35-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3
The DS3R is the cheapest one with "Ultra Durable II" power saving features, so that is probably what you want, unless you need firewire. I just got one, from newegg, and it came with E-SATA ports as well.

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Post by smilingcrow » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:10 am

david25 wrote:Thanks, what you expect overall power consumption to be with a Gigabyte board?
The lowest that I managed when using a G33 board with the IGP was 50.5W with a Core 2 Duo E4500 (0.992V) at stock speed and 48.5W with a Pentium Dual Core E2140 (0.93125V) at stock speed. They were both M0 revision chips which I think is still the latest.
If you add an ATI HD 2400 Pro it would add another 7.5W or so.
The system consisted of a Silverstone 300W ST30NF, 500GB Samsung SATA, SATA DVD-RW, 2x1GB DDR2-800.

david25
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Post by david25 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:08 pm

smilingcrow wrote:
david25 wrote:Thanks, what you expect overall power consumption to be with a Gigabyte board?
The lowest that I managed when using a G33 board with the IGP was 50.5W with a Core 2 Duo E4500 (0.992V) at stock speed and 48.5W with a Pentium Dual Core E2140 (0.93125V) at stock speed. They were both M0 revision chips which I think is still the latest.
If you add an ATI HD 2400 Pro it would add another 7.5W or so.
The system consisted of a Silverstone 300W ST30NF, 500GB Samsung SATA, SATA DVD-RW, 2x1GB DDR2-800.
Thanks, do you reckon it could be reduced another 2/3watts
with a e8200 looking at the xbit figures?
Or did your undervolting reach that?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

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Post by smilingcrow » Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:20 pm

david25 wrote:Thanks, do you reckon it could be reduced another 2/3watts
with a e8200 looking at the xbit figures? Or did your undervolting reach that?
Undervolting reduced the idle load by 2.5W AC but I don’t know what the Xbitlabs figure relate to. It’s the law of diminishing returns so even if the 45nm under-volt well I can’t see the savings compared to under-volted 65nm being that dramatic.
The choice of a very efficient power supply at low loads and a WD GP SATA drive should have more of an impact.
Gigabyte is touting a new power efficient range that seems to shut down some of the power phases at low loads that’s worth exploring. I haven’t seen any hard data on that yet.

MiKeLezZ
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Post by MiKeLezZ » Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:18 pm

wim wrote:does anyone know how to decipher gigabyte's naming scheme, i am trying to choose a motherboard and its very confusing there are lots of models and when you use the comparator seem to be very little or no differences between some of them, for example

GA-EP35-DS4
GA-EP35C-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3P
GA-EP35-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3

the only particularly big difference seem to be that one of these boards has dual PCI-e x16. why so many different model names, what does it all mean?
This took me about 2 days but finally i got over it...

First of all: REVISION!
rev.1 - the first
rev.1.1 - bho
rev.2.0 - no more parallel/com, but more usb ports
rev.2.1 - "E" version with DES (the only difference from a GA-P35-DS3 rev.2.1 to a GA-EP35-DS3 is the updated package with DES marks)

From lowest part to highest:
GA-P35-DS3: basic (6 phases, durable, cool, etc) [3cm less from FullATX]
GA-P35-DS3R: +RAID (ICH9R) [3cm less from FullATX]
GA-P35C-DS3R: +RAID +COMBO (DDR2 & DDR3)
GA-P35-DS3P: +RAID +CROSSFIRE (16x + 4x)
GA-P35T-DS3P: +RAID +CROSSFIRE +DDR3 (no DDR2)
GA-P35-DS4: +RAID +CROSSFIRE +BETTER COOLING

Same goes for X38:
GA-X38-DS4: basic (similar to DS3P but with 16x + 16x)
GA-X38-DS5: +2 SATA +BETTER COOLING
GA-X38-DQ6: +2 SATA +BETTER COOLING +REAR COOLING +12 PHASES +LAN

X48 chipset is useless (an overclocked X38), so no list for you.


I am very tempted by GA-EX38-DS4 ..........

Which one would you recommend?
Last edited by MiKeLezZ on Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

falcon26
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Post by falcon26 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:34 pm

I just got myself the new intel e8400 cpu as well :-) I'm going to pair it with a asus P5E X38 chipset mb :-) Try asus

wim
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Post by wim » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:28 pm

yes i like asus boards, i am currently using one and have always found them to be high quality. but i have wanted to give gigabyte a try because they seem to focus on after-market boards for people building and tweaking their own machines.
from what i've read asus board won't undervolt as deeply as gigabyte bios.

thanks to david25 and MiKeLezZ for clearing up the naming scheme, that's very helpful..

are there any gigabyte P35/X38 boards which scythe ninja + rev B will not fit, because i have already ordered that heatsink..

mcv
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Post by mcv » Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:40 am

djkest wrote: The DS3R is the cheapest one with "Ultra Durable II" power saving features, so that is probably what you want, unless you need firewire. I just got one, from newegg, and it came with E-SATA ports as well.
What does that power saving feature actually do? How much power does it save in what way? And for that matter, what is the Dynamic Energy Saver technology that the DS4 has?

wim
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Post by wim » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:47 pm

djkest wrote:
wim wrote: GA-EP35-DS4
GA-EP35C-DS3R <<<<<<<-------THIS ONE
GA-EP35-DS3P
GA-EP35-DS3R
GA-EP35-DS3
The DS3R is the cheapest one with "Ultra Durable II" power saving features, so that is probably what you want, unless you need firewire. I just got one, from newegg, and it came with E-SATA ports as well.
ok thanks for your advice they have just landed in .au and i ordered one today.
now i have to buy some memory too, but theres a lot of choice because this board has 2 DDR3 slots and 4 DDR2 slots.
i used to like to match the ram to the fsb but i don't think its feasible any more , my processor is 1333MHz FSB and the DDR2 don't seem to go that high. DDR3 do but they are really expensive and the latency is 7-7-7 or something crap. actually i wouldn't be surprised if a thousand dollars worth of DDR3 actually perform worse than some cheap but lower latency 800MHz DDR2 what do you think?

what are some good brand of memory i haven't bought any in years? OCZ? kingston? corsair? geil?
also, is there any performance difference between getting 4x1GB or 2x2GB? because i am looking at some 4-4-4-12 DDR2 800MHz but for some reason it is about $50 cheaper to get two 2x1GB than one 2x2GB pack. why isn't it the other way round, there's more materials going into 4 stick of ram after all... ?

mcv
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Post by mcv » Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:43 am

wim wrote: what are some good brand of memory i haven't bought any in years? OCZ? kingston? corsair? geil?
also, is there any performance difference between getting 4x1GB or 2x2GB? because i am looking at some 4-4-4-12 DDR2 800MHz but for some reason it is about $50 cheaper to get two 2x1GB than one 2x2GB pack. why isn't it the other way round, there's more materials going into 4 stick of ram after all... ?
I've been wondering about the same thing. Apparently there's something harder about a 2 GB stick, or something. I see very few 2 GB modules on QVLs. They seem to be rare and expensive, which is a problem, because I was originally planning to start with 4 GB and keep room for an upgrade to 8 GB. Now I'm wondering if I should just fill all slots with a 4x1 GB kit.

As for brands, according to some it doesn't matter much. I hear less bad stuff about Kingston and Corsair than about OCZ and GeiL, but it's all anecdotal.

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Post by smilingcrow » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:10 am

wim wrote:i used to like to match the ram to the fsb but i don't think its feasible any more , my processor is 1333MHz FSB and the DDR2 don't seem to go that high. DDR3 do but they are really expensive and the latency is 7-7-7 or something crap. actually i wouldn't be surprised if a thousand dollars worth of DDR3 actually perform worse than some cheap but lower latency 800MHz DDR2 what do you think?
The FSB is actually 333 (1,333 = 333 x 4) which equates to DDR2 667 (333 x 2) if you require matching the FSB and RAM clocks.

mcv
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Post by mcv » Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:13 am

That doesn't mean memory faster than 667 is useless, does it?

I mean, brand new processor and the slowest DDR2 memory available at the moment, surely that can't be a good match, right? Isn't 800 or 1066 much better?

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Post by smilingcrow » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:39 am

mcv wrote:That doesn't mean memory faster than 667 is useless, does it?
I mean, brand new processor and the slowest DDR2 memory available at the moment, surely that can't be a good match, right? Isn't 800 or 1066 much better?
You will get a benefit from using RAM that is faster and/or has tighter timings, but for many applications the performance gain is small to negligible. Games often benefit more than most applications types.
To maximize the benefit of faster RAM you should increase the FSB and if possible run the RAM synchronously.
The point I was making earlier is that to run the RAM synchronously you need to match the actual clock speeds of the FSB and RAM and not the headline speeds.
E.g. PC2-8000 RAM = 500MHz clock, but as it’s double data rate the effective speed is 1,000MHz. This matches a FSB of 500 which as it’s quad data rate has an affective speed of 2,000.
You can get DDR2-1000 CL4 fairly cheaply which would be a good match for a FSB of 500, provided your motherboard and CPU can cope with that. Intel’s Quad cores don’t like very high FSB so will not manage 500 FSB.

Of course all this extra performance comes at quite a cost in power consumption terms and can reduce performance per watt significantly as you chase those last few percentages points of performance.

mcv
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Post by mcv » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:49 am

smilingcrow wrote: The point I was making earlier is that to run the RAM synchronously you need to match the actual clock speeds of the FSB and RAM and not the headline speeds.
E.g. PC2-8000 RAM = 500MHz clock, but as it’s double data rate the effective speed is 1,000MHz. This matches a FSB of 500 which as it’s quad data rate has an affective speed of 2,000.
You can get DDR2-1000 CL4 fairly cheaply which would be a good match for a FSB of 500, provided your motherboard and CPU can cope with that. Intel’s Quad cores don’t like very high FSB so will not manage 500 FSB.
But the E8200 and E8400 have a quad data rate of 1333, which means the FSB is actually 333 MHz, and DDR2-667 is the perfect match, right?
Does that mean DRR2-800 is a waste of money, or can I get my FSB up to 400 through overclocking?
Of course all this extra performance comes at quite a cost in power consumption terms and can reduce performance per watt significantly as you chase those last few percentages points of performance.
Yeah, overclocking doesn't really appeal to me, but kinda expected I was supposed to be looking at DDR-800 at least.

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Post by smilingcrow » Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:00 pm

mcv wrote:But the E8200 and E8400 have a quad data rate of 1333, which means the FSB is actually 333 MHz, and DDR2-667 is the perfect match, right?
Does that mean DRR2-800 is a waste of money, or can I get my FSB up to 400 through overclocking?
With RAM so cheap and with the price difference between DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 being negligible I’d buy the DDR2-800 regardless of whether you over-clock the FSB or not. Don’t forget that you can over-clock the FSB without over-clocking the CPU speed and the faster RAM gives you more flexibility for hardly any more money even if the performance difference is often negligible.

I bought some inexpensive OCZ DDR2-900 CL4 which I don’t usually run at that speed but it happily runs at DDR2-1000 CL5 at stock voltage and it gives me options to play with more extreme over-clocking when I feel like it.
When RAM was more expensive and DDR2-800 cost and extra £40 for 2GB compared to DDR2-667 I stuck with the slower RAM.

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Post by wim » Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:11 pm

smilingcrow wrote:The FSB is actually 333 (1,333 = 333 x 4) which equates to DDR2 667 (333 x 2) if you require matching the FSB and RAM clocks.
ah.. yes, of course, thankyou

do you also know about any differences between 4x1GB or 2x2GB? in the GA-EP35C-DS3R they can all 4 run in dual channel modes (dual dual channel mode? ;)

also someone has mentioned to me about some limitation in windows where if you get 4GB of ram it won't all be visible to the OS (something to do with running out of address space in a 32-bit OS), is this a real problem..? :? i was reading about some /3GB switch in boot.ini but didn't really understand what it was all meaning

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Post by cmthomson » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:33 am

For a new system, I'd go with two DIMMs. This has some advantages: more space around the CPU heat sink (eg, a 120mm fan on a Ninja overlaps the first DIMM slot), slightly better DRAM cooling due to more spacing, and the ability to upgrade later without replacement.

The 32-bit versions of Windows can't use all 4 GB, but are able to use about 3 GB.

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Post by thegrommit » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:12 pm

wim wrote: also someone has mentioned to me about some limitation in windows where if you get 4GB of ram it won't all be visible to the OS (something to do with running out of address space in a 32-bit OS), is this a real problem..? :? i was reading about some /3GB switch in boot.ini but didn't really understand what it was all meaning
read peterb's post. In short, you'll only "see" ~3GB of ram in a 32-bit OS. Don't bother using the /3GB switch.

Schlotkins
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Post by Schlotkins » Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:30 pm

do we know how much more power the x38 takes as compared to the p35? I like the option to go with ECC.

Thanks,
Chris

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Post by smilingcrow » Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:40 pm

Schlotkins wrote:do we know how much more power the x38 takes as compared to the p35? I like the option to go with ECC.
Techreport recorded a difference of 3W at idle and 5W at load which is less than I’d imagined it would be. It’s always dangerous to extrapolate too much from one review but it sounds promising.

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Post by cmthomson » Sun Jan 27, 2008 6:54 pm

Nearly all Intel NB chips are in the 10-15W range. Don't worry about the power consumption. Choose the NB that has the features you want.

Schlotkins
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Post by Schlotkins » Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:01 pm

Thanks for the info - that's not bad at all. I have an original Bad Axe and I guess the G0 stepping Q6600s work. I keep debating to go with one of those or wait for the 45nm and do a motherboard update...

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Post by smilingcrow » Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:47 pm

Schlotkins wrote:Thanks for the info - that's not bad at all. I have an original Bad Axe and I guess the G0 stepping Q6600s work. I keep debating to go with one of those or wait for the 45nm and do a motherboard update...
I don’t think the original Bad Axe supports any quad cores.
The G0 stepping quad is quite manageable at 3GHz from a silent cooling perspective provided you have a good rig.

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Post by wim » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:05 pm

thegrommit wrote:read peterb's post. In short, you'll only "see" ~3GB of ram in a 32-bit OS. Don't bother using the /3GB switch.
thanks

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