Been away a while: new chipsets, why bother?

[Andyf]

I'm a bit behind recent technology. I was just wondering, in a few words:

what is better about the new chipsets, (X38, P45, X48 etc), in real terms, over each other (I have P35 for instance). Do they give noticeable performance increase? What exactly (if anything) is better about new chipsets? Do any of them just support DDR3?

 

[The Zune Guy]

x38= "Enthusiast Board", Twin x16 PCI-e, ddr3
x48= Higher Binned x38, replacing the x38
p45- successor to the p35, offers Twin x8 PCI-e rather than p35's x16 and x4, PCI-e 2.0 and ICHR10(R) vs. ICHR9(R), also DDR3

NVidia
The 780i is an SLi board, replaced the 680i but it's expensive and I wouldn't buy one unless I really wanted SLi. 750i is also SLi but offers only x8 channels. Neither are as good at overclocking as their Intel counterparts.

Besides your board is one of the better ones out there, CustomPC magazine in England are always praising it

 

[Andyf]

Ahh.. thanks for the answer. Not planning on upgrading, just getting up to date. DDR3 is still crazy expensive: does anyone actually buy these chipsets?

EDIT: also, have we actually got to the stage where PCIe 2.0 makes any difference over 1.1, or is that still on the horizon?

 

[The Zune Guy]

does anyone actually buy these chipsets?

Do you mean DDR3, well not really that popular yet, bad timings and expensive although they are dropping. But as for the affordable stuff, PC3-1333 (I think), it's not much faster than cheaper DDR2 so why bother

also, have we actually got to the stage where PCIe 2.0 makes any difference over 1.1, or is that still on the horizon?

Not that I think, maybe the 4870/GTX280 "might" use it but not sure. Only main use is the fact that PCI-e 2.0 x8 links are comparable to PCI-e 1.1 x16 links, so the p45 boards' x8 links are good for crossfire

 

[veedubfreak]

For the record, x38 and x48 support both ddr2 and ddr3. x38/48 and p45 both allow for much higher FSB speeds than p35 did. They also natively support 1600 FSB chips.

 

[The Zune Guy]

For the record, x38 and x48 support both ddr2 and ddr3. x38/48 and p45 both allow for much higher FSB speeds than p35 did. They also natively support 1600 FSB chips.

By DDR3 I meant that it supported it, but not that it did away with ddr2. I forgot about 1600 FSB, but thats because they provide support as standard, most p35 boards can support this with only a minor overclock so it's nothing to worry about.
As for p45 fsb, depends on what board your talking about, the Biostar TPower would but a differnet board might not. Besides in general the difference is not much unless it's changed overnight. Not much of an upgrade but better nonetheless than p35

 

[wafflehammer]

the evga 750i FTW has 16x-16x SLI unlike other 750i boards

 

[Phanto]

Is worth a read: Intel P45: The New Chipset Lacks Progress : Eaglelake Has Landed