BYS2

I am making a new computer and the motherboard i am thinking of is the Asus P5K premium (P35 chipset) Link

But there are a few issues i am worried about:

1. Asus P5K Premium motherboard only has a PCI-E x16 expansion slot, but my Asus 8800gts (G92) video card uses PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot. I have read that PCI-E 2.0 is backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.1 and i should just be able to plug the video card in without issues. But i'm just wondering if there will be any performance degradation at all from using doing this. I understand that the video card won't use up all the available bandwith anyways, but is there any possible problems with doing this? I have not yet looked at the actual interface and protocol differences between the 2 standards but i would assume there are some differences which might create problems. Also, i heard that PCI-E 2.0 is NOT compatible with the older PCI-E 1.0 or PCI-E 1.0a and many people have problems with this especially with older chipsets. But i do not know if my motherboard uses PCI-E 1.1 or the older 1.0 or 1.0a. Should i get a X38 mobo instead of this P35 one? X38 supports PCI-E 2.0 for sure so that would resolve this. The X38 mobo that i would get is the ASUS P5E Link. The price difference between the X38 and the P35 i mentioned above is $50.

2. Asus P5K mobo says it supports 4X ddr2 1066 but from reports that i have read, there are issues with using 4 X 1gb sticks of 1066 ram. Mobo memory controller can't seem to handle all the mem banks being filled. Although i've read that it runs 4 sticks of 800mhz ddr2 fine, i have seen numerous reports that 4 sticks of 1066 does not work and the mobo downclocks the ram to 800mhz instead. Futhermore, you can't OC it. Anyone have any definite confirmation on this issue?

Thank

[-0MEGA-]

To the first question, yes you can use PCI-E 2.0 cards in a 1.1 slot. I'm running a 3870 on my P35, which is a 2.0 card.

As for the second question, I can't say for sure, but I had 4x 1GB sticks of XMS2 DDR2-800 memory, and I was able to overclock it to DDR2-960 speeds, at lower timings. I also has the P5K Deluxe.

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Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.83GHz
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
ATI HD 3870 GDDR4 @ (840/2332)
4GB (2x 2GB) DDR2-850
500GB SATAII HD w/16MB
SilverStone 750W +12V@60A
3DMark06: 11593

firsttimebuilder

I have all 4 slots loaded up and im fine

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FTB
pm me for any questions on sub ambient cooling
Q6600
X1950XT
P5K DLX
2GB Muskin 5-4-5-12 ddr2 1066Free Website Hosting!

colt1911

I'm using the same mobo and gpu and have had no problems at all. I'm also running all four slots with memory in dual channel with no problems. I had to set my voltage manually and my timings and thats all. I have my Q9450 at 3.2 on stock vcore and running very stable.

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XP Pro 32bit and Vista Home Premium 64bit
Asus P5K Premium Black Pearl
Intel Q9450 w/ Zalman 9700 cooler
Corsair XMS2 PC 6400C4 DDR2 -800 ( 4 gigs )
Evga 8800GTS 512mb ( G92 ) w/ Acer P221w 22" LCD
Seagate 500Gb 32mb cache Sata 2
WD 500gb 16mb cache Sata 2 w/ WD 250 Sata 2
2 Asus Sata DVD Burners
Ultra Aluminus Full Tower w/ Antec Neopower 650 watt PSU
Asus Xonar 7.1 Pci card w/ Logitech Z5500 speakers

alchemist83

asus r currently the masters of MB's, cos there stable and reliable.

u wont even see any difference between pcie 2.0 and 1.1.

cos it'll work!

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Core 2 Duo E6550 @ 3GHz
ASUS P5K-E/WIFI P35
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz
Samsung SH-S203B 20X DVD±RW/RAM/DL SATA
2 x Maxtor Diamond 21 250GB SATAII (RAID1)
Sapphire ATI HD 2900XT 512MB
Antec Sonata III & 500W EarthWatts PSU
Saitek 2600