Windows 7 Has anyone got the GA-EP43T-USB3 Motherboard and what's it like?

Highwayman

Extraordinary Member
I'm preparing to upgrade my rig and found this nice revised board by Gigabyte called the GA-EP43T-USB3 which from the technical brief is a Intel P43 chipset board that's been out for a few years that they have recently updated and slapped in a nice NEC USB-3 set of ports on. I'm wanting to continue with my Q6600 cpu as I don't really need a i7 setup for now, based on any of the games simply a better GPU will have more impact when paired up with a mobo that has the extra grunt of PCIE2 bandwidth and some Gskill Ripjaw 1600 DDR3 ram, or so I believe.

At the minute I'm considering getting a GTX-285 or something around that price range (maybe a 5850 or Fermi unless cost far more at the time), so was wondering anyone got one of the mobos? and how they performing?

Also is MICRON 1600 DDr3 any good on Gigabyte mobos? or should I stick to the G-Skill ones I mentioned?

 
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Nevermind, gone with alternate parts from brands I trusted in the past, ASUS & Kingston, along with ATI (2nd time around, let's hope the gamble is worth it this time....lol)
 
Well the part's I've ordered are:

ASUS P5P43TD PRO (Intel p43 Chipset with DDR3) sure it's not USB3, but I thought about it a while and don't have any need for USB3 as all my gear is USB2, and I've always preferred ASUS or MSI motherboards.

Sapphire 5850 (Similar dx10 performance to Nvidia 285/295 depending on the individual game, but £80 cheaper and it's Dx11) gonna miss Phys-x CUDA, but gambling that the games will start using Direct-Compute more now. Sadly it's on pre-order so gonna be 2-3 weeks till gets here, so gonna plop my current 8800GTS in for time being, should still get decent boost from the extra ram and mobo combo in the meantime.

Kingston 2x2gig 1600MHz DDR3
HYPER-X Non-ECC CL9 (9-9-9-27)
 
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Looks good.. Will you be using the Q6600 in the new set up or are you getting a new chip too?
 
sticking with my trusty Q6600 and Zalman combo.... nothing uses half the horsepower of it yet, and when it does struggle I've tested it OC'ed to 3.6ghz on my current cooling so not an issue, maybe when 8/16 cores get around i'll upgrade again, till then i7 doesnt offer enough bang for bucks to warrant it.
 
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