bit-tech Shopping: Intel D975XBX2 Motherboard

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Days

Strengths: This thing is absolutely loaded!

Weaknesses: none

Summary: This board supports almost every processor out there and can overclock it to the extreme. I would recommend this board to anyone looking for a new one. It's advanced technology will easily outlast the similarly priced competition.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Month

Strengths: Excellent documentation

Weaknesses: none

Summary: Excellent product with a great web site for awesome documentation and assistance. I probably could have purchased the OEM version and save more money, especially since the Intel site is so nicely documented with all the information listed in the included booklet. Matched up great with my Intel Core Duo E6850.

Rating: 4

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: Good Quality, Intel's 975 chip supports 8 SATA drives and numerous case fans.

Weaknesses: On Board audio refused to work, only had 2 PCI slots.

Summary: Worked well but found out the hard way it didn't support 1333Mhz FSB (now have a E6750 processor to resell), My XP had problems properly detecting Com1 port. Audio DEFINATELY problematic as a google search showed numerous other users with the audio issues.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 20 Days

Strengths: Supports a large number of processors. Numerous heatsinks.

Weaknesses: Lack of onboard video, standoffs and bolts for installation.

Summary: The board installed cleanly in a new ATX case, though the case only included 9 standoffs but the D975XBX2 called for 10 standoffs and screws. It would have been nice for the standoffs and screws to be provided with the board.Other than this, the board supports multiple USB devices including a 2-USB-input attachment to a card slot on the case. The board has two USB plugs, one for the attachment and one for USB on the front of the case. The USB attachment can be left off if you don't need that many USB inputs.I installed a Core2 Duo (E6700), attached two new hard drives (one IDE and one SATA), my old DVD-rom drive, 4 1-gig sticks of memory, and an 8800 GTS GPU. The new system booted without a single problem, and runs perfectly.I'm happy with this board and would recommend it.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 6 Months

Strengths: High stability, Matrix RAID 0+1, supports Viiv, includes Vista-32 drivers.

Weaknesses: On-board sound could be better.

Summary: Built a quad-core system around this motherboard and so far it has been rock-stable, not a single crash, not a single SATA problem, not a single driver problem in (6) months, almost 24/7. Intel Storage Matrix allows a mixed RAID 0 (performance, a Windows partition) and RAID 1 (mirror, a critical data partition) on the same set of two or more hard drives. On-board sound could be better, I would like to have seen X-Fi. All in all, this is an excellent workstation-style motherboard.