Asus rampage formula or p5e x38 ?

Question

i`m looking into these boards. the rampage was what i intended to buy in the first place until i stumbled upon this p5e x38. the x38 mb is 100 bucks cheaper and seem to meet my needs. Although the reviews doesn't seem as good as the rampage and from what i`ve seen the x38 has many problems with the bios of some sort. which doesn't seem to hurt me since i don't go to bios that often. or will it effect me? If i have to, i would turn to the rampage, its just that i don't think its worth paying extra $100 for extra features i may or may not use. on top of that the rampage seems to be an overclockers board. which i'm not.

the main reason why i picked these boards is the x16 link for crossfire. so far its hard to find a cheap reliable board which support the x16 for xfire.

i will be adding E8400 and hope to overclock up to atleast 3.6-3.8

4850 in xfire and a 750w

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131284

Answer 1

I just built a rig with the Rampage Formula. Used 4 GBs of Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 and a couple 4870s in Crossfire. Totally rocks. Owns Crysis--all very high in Vista with DX10. Boards cheaper at Zipzoomfly.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDet...

Hottest board I've ever had and i've had a lot of high-end Asus boards.

Heres a review of the Rampage Formula.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx...

I run my E8500 at 3.8 Ghz 24/7(9.5X400--1600FSB) and over 4 when benchmarking--on exotic air and it will go a lot higher so you'll have no prob getting 3.6 -3.8 on an 8400 if you know what you're doing.

Good idea going with an x38 or X48. If you ever upgrade to 4870s you need both slots running full-blown X16 to handle the massive bandwidth of the 4870s DDR5 memory. I confirmed that with ATI before I picked the board for my build.

Here's the list of ATI certified PSUs for Crossfire:

http://game.amd.com/us-en/crossfirex_com...

Note: The pic of the board at Zipzoomfly is not  a pic of a Rampage formula but of the Striker Extreme. I notified them that they had a bogus pic but they didn't change it. I did get the right board when I ordered it thou.