will just be from the perspective of a general users opinion of the build and some gotchas encountered.
Decided to build a new system and give my old stuff to my son (went through this last year). I started with;
Stuff for "Boy":
Intel XBX2 Rev 505
C2D E6600 clocked to an easy 3.2G
2G Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
Evga 8800 GTS 640 (stock)
Keeping for my rig:
Antec P-180B
Corsair HX620
Seagate 7200.10 320g drive
Logitech MX10000 laser and G-15 KB
Canon LIDE 90 Scanner
Samsung CLP-300 Color Laser
Bought for my "new" rig:
Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6
C2D E9850 (currently stock)
4G G.Skill DDR2 1000
MSI 8800GT (clocked to 660/1800)
Also got an Antec Sonata Designer series case (renamed P-150) with an Earthwatts 500W PSU for the boy's new case and I decided to go to 64bit
Vista since I had to re-install the OS anyway.
Got all the stuff from the Egg (with the exception of the case) one day early so I built away and here are my initial thoughts (focused on the
Mobo install since this is the Mobo forum...
Generally the install went pretty well despite a few errors on my part. The board at stock and slightly overclocked is solid. Vista 64 install
went without a hitch one even on the original F4 BIOS.
For the install the only thing I really changed in BIOS was to disable legacy serial and parallel ports and change the ICH9 SATA to RAID mode. I
left the Gigabyte ports at IDE emulation. To my suprise I didn't have to "F6" anything, because, I mixed up the ports and had my SATA DVD burner
on the Intel ports and the Seagate on the Gigabyte port (I installed with the HDD in IDE mode). Fortunately I booted fine, installed the drivers,
and switched the ports back around with no adverse errors with the exception of the Seagate operating in SATA I mode (second stupid error, damned
jumpers!). Another forum user nicely helped me fix that error and all was well
As for the board physically in the P-180 well... The P-180 is not the most friendly cable management case. I had routed all the cables to fit the
XBX2 and ended up creating a rats nest by the time I was done re-routing due to different connector locations. To add to the pain I misread the
front panel connector "map" and hooked the power switch to the wrong place, third and (I hope) last stupid mistake. The board would not power up
and, since it doesn't have am ATX power LED that I can find, I thought I might have a short so I yanked the board making the cabling situation
worse (the P-180 is a "love/hate" thing). I think that had I started the install in a fresh case with a fresh PSU things would have been better
(NOTE: getting the XBX2 into the P-150 was actually easier because there was no "pre-routing" of cables to deal with).
I've read some great reviews of the DQ6 and in my limited (only played with overclocking to this point) exposure I would have to agree. I think
the negatives I've read (e.g. doesn't play well with Vista 64bit install, is a slow performer) are the exceptions not the rule. The RAM I'm using
is not on the Gigabyte list but works like a champ and the issues I've had I can attribute to my own errors and despite those errors the board
adapted quite well to my stupidity.
That said I do have a couple of issues:
1) The "Easytune5" app seems to have a couple of issues. It asks for UAC approval on startup after a reboot and frequently fails to start. I
removed it and will use Speedfan to monitor temps.
2) The location/orientation of the SATA connectors isn't good for P-180 case owners. It is almost impossible to get to the bottom 3 SATA
connectors to "unclip" installed SATA cables due to the push clips on the connectors facing the bottom of the case where the lower tunnel is.
All on all though, after a couple of days usage I have to say I like this board a lot...
I downloaded Speedfan and will use it for monitoring...