Asus P45 Mobos?

[VHockey86]

I've been looking at building a new Intel Quad-core (yorkfield) based desktop to replace my aging AMD64 3200+ System.

I've had kind of a hard time picking out a motherboard. There's just so many Socket 775 based boards going all the way back to 965 chipsets. It seems now intel has a huge range of chipsets, P35, P43, P45, X48....and some others.

The P45 seems like a good choice for a mid-range desktop?

After looking at the chipset on newegg there seems to be a ton of motherboards too but I haven't had much success finding recommendations and reviews for the current offering with a Yorkfield system.

Normally I just use an Intel board when I used an intel chip but their mobos seems reasonably expensive and didn't have particularly great reviews on Newegg.

I've bought quite a few Asus boards in the past and been happy with them. I notice they have the P5Q lineup of boards based on the P45 chipset...The last time I put a computer together the only thing you really had to choose from for a particular manufacturer was a basic mobo and then perhaps a deluxe version. Asus on the other hand has like... 9+ versions of the P5Q board.

Has anyone used any of the P5Q boards and have any recommendations? I was trying to figure out the differences between the board without having to look at all the detailed specifications 1-by-1. Even Asus' website doesn't really have a page comparing the boards that I could find.

On an unrelated note. What RAM speed should I be running with a Yorkfield processor? The board supports up to DDR1200 but that seems pretty hard to fine. What would be the "stock" DDR2 speed to run alongside the 1333MHz FSB on the processor?

[KarmaKiller]

P45 boards are a good budget choice. I personally haven't used any, but I've read tons or reviews on the chipset itself.
They are solid boards so far by most peoples standards. Also, P45 boards hold the record OC for a E8500 and a E8600. I believe they are close, if not at the top of the list for Q9xxx CPU's also.
If your a OCer, and like Intel chipsets though, I would recommend either a P45 or a X38 board.

As far as differences, some of the Asus P5Q board supports DDR3, others are just DDR2. Another difference is just the number and kind of expansion slots. Some have two or even three PCI-E slots. Others have a mix between PCI, PCI-E 1x, PCI-E 16x, and so on. So make sure you pick the right board with the right expansion slots for you. Some prefer more PCI-E 16x, other just normal PCI, so on..

As far as the RAM question, things have changed a little.
You don't have to link up your RAM to your FSB anymore. Boards with decent OC options willl let you set RAM speed to whatever, then it'll automatically change the divider to land the RAM speeds close, if not exactly to what you set.
But the "stock" speed for 1333FSB would be 1066Mhz.

My recomendations for a board:
Newegg.com - ASUS P5Q LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - ASUS P5E Deluxe LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - DFI LANPARTY DK X38-T2RB LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - ASUS P5K DELUXE/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

[VHockey86]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up going with a Q9400 and the Asus P5Q Pro.

I'll post back with some comments after it arrives in a few days.

[KarmaKiller]

Maybe run a couple of benchs also.