[TheWalrus]

I currently have GigaByte EP35-DS4 board. It's great, BUT:
There is ATI 4870 with massive custom made cooling (the base of default cooler + Accelero S1 with a fan attached), which takes a little bit over two slots (I think). I also need to use two additional cards - LAN and sound. The trouble is that the layout of the board is not very good and it's impossible to plug them all in. I also can't use the lower PCI-e slot for the VGA because it only is x4 type.
So I started to look for a new board. The P45-based ones caught my attention. I was further recommended EP45-UD3P which looks good, but I want to be double sure Is there anything else you would grab instead? If so, why? I must say I am not interested in DDR3 and the i7 platform.
Thanks.

[puntoMX]

Hello Walrus,

You will still have the same "problem" with the new motherboard as you are having with your current mother board, just take am close look:


left (up): EP35-DS4 // right (down): EP45-UD3P

The only good thing is the double onboard NIC... Why do you use an extra soundcard by the way?

[TheWalrus]

I believe I wouldn't because the other PCI-e slot on EP45 is x8. Keep in mind that the EP35 only has PCIE-e 1.1, while EP45 has 2.0

Soundcard, well, I hate the Realtek onboard junk. It gives me sound problems and I also bought decent speakers lately, so planning to get me Auzentech X-fi Forte.

Double NIC, yea... Realtek again. No thank you! I have Intel card and it's perfect

I wish there was a board with nothing extra. No sound, no network, no firewire, etc.

[puntoMX]

PCI-E 2.0 still won't give you much advantage and most devices will run almost the same at 8x PCI-E 1.1. I don't see what you have against Realtek besides slow downloads from there horrible site. I have the EP45-UD3P board and it's perfect in almost every way, you are right about the sound chip of Realtek, it sounds a bit cold but with some settings it's still not bad. Mind you that I just use simple computer speakers (and headphones), but soon I will go with some good self build speakers (Scanspeak / vifa) and a good amp, probably Onkio) when I move to my new home. The Intel NIC is PCI-E by the way?

[TheWalrus]

The trick is that one PCI-e 1.1 lane is 250MB/s and 2.0 is 500MB/s!

Yes, the Intel card is PCI-e. I am not touching PCI anymore in 21st century

I just don't trust onboard devices in general. The sound sucks and the network was giving me some weird BSODs - at least I assume it was the cause, because I have no problems since I upgraded to the Intel card.

This post has been edited by TheWalrus: 15 June 2009 - 12:19 PM

[Zenskas]

TheWalrus, on Jun 16 2009, 04:16 AM, said:

The trick is that one PCI-e 1.1 lane is 250MB/s and 2.0 is 500MB/s!

Yes, the Intel card is PCI-e. I am not touching PCI anymore in 21st century

I just don't trust onboard devices in general. The sound sucks and the network was giving me some weird BSODs - at least I assume it was the cause, because I have no problems since I upgraded to the Intel card.

I don't see why you couldn't get your vid card and two other PCI-e cards in the UD3P. The video card can go in the blue slot, and if the sound and NIC cards are PCI-e x1 then they could go in the two black slots behind the video card. Or if one of the cards is a x4 PCI-e card then it could go in the orange slot (even if it was a x1 card it would go in the orange slot too). In fact, you could fit all of these cards in your current mobo if one of them is short. Shorter card in black slot behind video card (which takes up 3 slots) then the other card in the orange slot. Should fit if your cards are all PCI-e.

EDIT: And if neither your sound card or NIC are short enough to fit behind the video card then my motherboard (GA-EP45-DS4) would work- video card in blue x16 slot (also taking over the two black PCI-e slots next to it), and then it has two orange PCI-e slots that work with any PCI-e card (your LAN and sound).

This post has been edited by Zenskas: 17 June 2009 - 01:23 AM

[puntoMX]

I know what TheWalrus problem is, any space under the video card has been taken up, so TheWalrus needs more PCI-E 1x sloths above the video card, plus he likes something new .

[Zenskas]

puntoMX, on Jun 18 2009, 01:51 AM, said:

I know what TheWalrus problem is, any space under the video card has been taken up, so TheWalrus needs more PCI-E 1x sloths above the video card, plus he likes something new .

Look at my board. The video card takes up say three slots then there are two orange PCI-e slots for the LAN and sound. I have recommended something new and there is still space under the video card if it takes up three slots

EDIT: And like I said, even the UD3P would work. One card in the black slot above the video card and the other card in the orange slot below.

This post has been edited by Zenskas: 17 June 2009 - 09:38 PM

[TheWalrus]

Bought the board yesterday
It has the space I need indeed, but it was CLOSE. Luckily the Intel NIC is small enough not to cover the FAN on the Accelero on VGA. I originally thought it would not fit, though. There is like 1mm space between the two.
The board is great, the heatsinks on it are a bit too hot.. Gotta figure out what's goign on - I haven't increased a single voltage.

What I find weird is that on relatively high-end board in 21st century there still is COM and LPT connectors. What the hell for? Who would connect some prehistorical devices to computer built on such board? Oh well.

[Zenskas]

TheWalrus, on Jun 18 2009, 05:50 PM, said:

Bought the board yesterday
It has the space I need indeed, but it was CLOSE. Luckily the Intel NIC is small enough not to cover the FAN on the Accelero on VGA. I originally thought it would not fit, though. There is like 1mm space between the two.
The board is great, the heatsinks on it are a bit too hot.. Gotta figure out what's goign on - I haven't increased a single voltage.

What I find weird is that on relatively high-end board in 21st century there still is COM and LPT connectors. What the hell for? Who would connect some prehistorical devices to computer built on such board? Oh well.

Which board did you end up buying? The DS4 or the UD3P? What are the temps of your motherboard? I know my DS4 runs pretty cool and so should the UD3P as it has lots of heatsinks around the board plus extra copper in the board itself. Some very minor amount of people still use those old connections but they are not on the I/O panel on the back so they stay out of the way anyway.

This post has been edited by Zenskas: 18 June 2009 - 02:19 AM

[TheWalrus]

Ah. I grabbed the UD3P. I've got pretty decent case with plenty of room for airflow - Antec P182 with 120mm Noctua as outtake FAN. CPU is passively cooled and the massive Thermaltake barely gets warm even when the CPU is overclocked.

[Zenskas]

TheWalrus, on Jun 18 2009, 06:27 PM, said:

Ah. I grabbed the UD3P. I've got pretty decent case with plenty of room for airflow - Antec P182 with 120mm Noctua as outtake FAN. CPU is passively cooled and the massive Thermaltake barely gets warm even when the CPU is overclocked.

Nice case BTW (wish I had one). How warm is the system temperature exactly?

[TheWalrus]

Well, I don't know! But the inside of the case is definitely not hot at all. The air flowing out of the case from both the Noctua and PSU is barely noticeable to be warm. If at all. It's just the **** heatsinks! I will try to remove the stupid covers. Anyway, the system seems stable so far - but I haven't gone through any testing yet. Will see what will overnight session of Prime95 result in.
I also hope to get stable 500FSB this time (previous P35 would give me BSOD above 485 here and there).

Gonna post a pic or two just for the hell of it (plus I gotta show off with the case )

And thinking of it I have huge bag of old CPU/VGA/whatever coolers, so I might go creative and make something better than the stock sinks.

[TheWalrus]

I am not sure if there is a sensor checking general temperature on the board, but this is what the whole thing looks like in idle state (praise remote access to home PC ):

[Tripredacus]

Those temperatures don't look that bad. Do you have a lot of room in the case? You may have an airflow problem with all that stuff crammed in there.

[TheWalrus]

Someone told me that this board tends to set voltages ridiculously high on auto settings, so it might be that. How do I figure the numbers though? There are like million different settings.
CPU is still cool btw. It's the **** board itself.

[puntoMX]

It sets the voltages a bit above the specs but that's for CPU voltage termination and chipset, nothing to worry about.

By the way, can you post a picture of the buildup set?

[TheWalrus]

A little above?! I almost burned my finger briefly touching the heatsinks on the northbridge and mosfets! Ouch!

This is how it looks like (**** crappy limits on uploads, had to kill the quality):
(oh and the stuff on the CPU cooler is milk I once managed to spill on my pc, lol)

This post has been edited by TheWalrus: 18 June 2009 - 11:12 PM

[Zenskas]

The temps on your mobo look fine and are only a few degrees higher than mine (and I live in a cold part of the world) but I have dropped the voltage on my north and southbridge by 0.1V which you could try as well. If you really want you could cable tie a small fan to the northbridge

TheWalrus, on Jun 19 2009, 03:11 PM, said:

A little above?! I almost burned my finger briefly touching the heatsinks on the northbridge and mosfets! Ouch!

This is how it looks like (**** crappy limits on uploads, had to kill the quality):
(oh and the stuff on the CPU cooler is milk I once managed to spill on my pc, lol)

That hot? Unsure why...try my suggestions in previous post.

This post has been edited by puntoMX: 19 June 2009 - 02:04 PM

[TheWalrus]

I set the temperatures in BIOS manually as suggested elsewhere, and it didn't help. I even went to default clocks and set everything to normal, that means default values. Still hot as hell! Like, wth! The mosfets aren't that much of a problem, they are supposed to be hot, plus they are right next to the Noctua blowing out, but I am worried about northbridge. that's MCH, right? I might add another Noctua to the front of the case and experiment with some intake airflow, but since it wouldn't be in line, I doubt it'd help.