So I just took my computer into the shop, as it was being somewhat of an ass, and they said there was a great possibility that my current board was faulty. I don't really care, but in the chance that I do need one, I'm asking for an opinion on a specific one I found.

DFI LANParty UT P35-T2R LGA775 P35 ATX DDR2 3PCI-E16 3PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard

http://www.ncix.com/products/index [...] acture=DFI

I've heard good things about this brand from my friends, but was looking for a second opinion. First off, the price is right, especially considering it includes a sound card (which I wanted anyways). Second, it looks kick-ass! Is there any reason(s) that I should not purchase this board? Thanks.

-Pyro

It's 2nd to none in terms of overclocking, rivaling top X38/X48 boards. However, it's not for beginners.

If you want something easier, go with ASUS/Gigabyte.

I would consider an X38/48 board. Simply because that's a very very expensive p35 board...You may even have better luck with a P45 board. I believe the world record for FSB of 724 was set with an E8500 on a Biostar P45 board. In general, you can get a better chipset from Gigabyte/Asus for the same price, or less.

This is a lot cheaper and very popular here:

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L Core 2 Quad/ Intel P35/ DDR2-1066/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard

http://www.ncix.com/products/index [...] e=GIGABYTE

Otherwise you might look into this:

BIOSTAR TPower I45 Breaks FSB World Record with 725MHz on e8500

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ower%2bI45

http://www.hardocp.com/news.html?n [...] FzdCwsLDE=

What about it makes it for advanced, just for curiosity's sake?

What are some of the advantages of the X38/X48 over the P35? Price is not really as issue to me, as I have some wonderful little reasons in my head to justify all this

It is a very good board and if you get it you will be very satisfied with it.

The main advantage of the x38/48 boards is the ability to use crossfire with 2 true pci-Express x16 slot where the p35 they are 16 and 4.

As far as being too complicated for a beginner (bios) it is fairly complicated but only so far as a person wants. You can use with as many options just set to default like any other board and tweak what you want, there is no real need to set all the options just like any other board it just has more than most.

One thing I do like about this board that I have not seen on other brands is the ability to keep all power saving options enabled and have a higher vcore for OCn.

Idle


Load


Also the LT version is cheaper and the only difference is the motherboard cooling.
http://www.motherboardpro.com/DFI- [...] p-369.html

Look at the ASUS P5E. It is the X38 Chipset and has a PCI-E soundcard and is cheaper.. $1

http://www.ncix.com/products/index [...] cture=ASUS

This board is the Maximus Formula without the LCD poster and the Clear CMOS, Power, and Reset buttons.

1Haplo

Alright, thanks for all the help everyone. One more question (Me forgetz =S). You can still use nVidia cards on these boards, correct?

EDIT: Also, the ONLY difference between the UT and LT version of the MoBo is the cooling?

Yes to both. Nvidia cards will work fine just no sli since you need a Nvidia chipset for sli. The only difference is the motherboard cooling between the two, the UT has a heatpipe connecting the sinks and a transpiper while the LT has the same pwm and nb sinks with no heatpipe and a different sb sink.

Here are links to each product pics from Newegg.

LT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Show [...] otherboard

UT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Show [...] otherboard

Alright, thanks to everybody who has helped.

http://csd.dficlub.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3765