A few of us were chatting in the Coolermaster 110 thread about the ROG Impact ITX board and I mentioned that its sibling, the P8Z77-I Deluxe, was my favourite motherboard of all time. From the moment I saw it reviewed I fell in love. The discrete Digi+ VRM riser board was a world first, and Asus absolutely nailed the look of the Northbridge too. I probably didn't manage to save up for one until maybe a year after it was released, but boy do good things come to those who wait! Here she is at home in my Parvum! So, what is your favourites Bit Tech? Share with pictures!
My trusty old DFI SLI-DR. Not because of it's looks but because it was a cracking board that never let me down and ran my 6600GTs in SLI like a BAWS. RIP DFI I also had an SLI-D that I pencil modded to enable SLI, ah those were the days.
Mine was the Asus P4C800-E... After a couple of 2nd hand shop built PCs, it was my second new higher end board & my first Asus one; having built one previously around a dreadfully unstable Gigabyte socket 370 board before that. Yeah, along with it being rock solid for years, it's the board that i first started overclocking &, subsequently, water cooling on (with Asetek blocks & a Hydor L50 that became hideously loud after a while), messing with raid & scsi, & learning that components were pretty robust & whatnot. Oh & learning html & video editing & stuff - though i ended up buying a 2nd one to share the workload (a habit i've kind of kept up since), until i could afford another new high end build with the original Rampage Extreme. So, whilst i had already been programming & was irc & internet (such as it was) savvy before then, it was all about learning loads of useful stuff on a quality board that makes it the favourite one for me.
I've had a few great ones but it'd probably have to be my old Abit IP35-E board. A budget board that could hit 475MHz on the FSB and let me push a core2 E7200 past 4.4GHz on air. As awesome as newer tech like Sandy Bridge turned out to be, it really sucked all the fun out of overclocking.
Great thread idea! But it's really hard to pick just one board... I have had so many that I liked. The first board I put a lot of thought into was the Gigabyte P35 DS4, which marked my move from AMD socket 939 over to Intel socket 775. If I had to give one answer it would have to be the Rampage III Extreme; it is just an overclocker's dream for the X58 platform and it also looks good to boot. The BIOS is insanely comprehensive and there are so many tweaks to help with stability, not to mention mutimiter interface points for checking voltage with a DMM. This board gets a gazillion nerd points from me. Here it is with 6GB of Dominator GT and a lapped 990X.
I have to agree with spreadie, Sandybridge really ruined overclocking. I loved it when it was a real challenge to hit 4ghz. I remember the competitions we used to have over at the old CPC forums..... Ah the good old days! Makes me want to build a sort of retro pc just for some overclocking fun. Just like what LennyRhys has done with his love for X58
DFI LANParty NFII ULTRA It ran my Athlon XP-m 2500+ at 3200+ clocks up until the point it inevitably died, and was the first time I'd ever experimented with overclocking, it got replaced with an Abit board which whilst good wasn't the same. I wish I'd kept all my old boards tbh.
The Abit AW9D-MAX. The first high end mobo I had had, paired with an e6600 and 4GB of Corsair Dominator RAM and a Sapphire X1950 Pro
EVGA X58 Classified My first ever board and the only one to run without any sort of issue (well, I had to find some good Marvell SATA drivers, but apart from that). Got my trusty i7 920 up to 4GHz. Unicorn has it now, so at least I know it's in good hands! I now have my eyes on this: Asus Z97 Maximus VII Impact Intel S1150 Asus Mini ITX I wants me a cute little beast of an HTPC and this seems a good place to start.
Epox 8K3A First board I ever overclocked on, with the right chip it was a doddle to clock with. 1700+ @ 2.4ghz was loopy fast at the time! More recently? Gigabyte Z68P-DS3 Budget board that has always been rock solid and clocked as good if not better than any 1155 board I have had, never missed a beat. I guess I get more of a kick out of pushing low end hardware or budget boards than the high end ones, they always seem to disappoint me due to the higher expectations.
Asus P5n32 e SLI Plus Yes it runs as hot as an oven, yes only one bios release (somewhere in the middle) allowed stable overclocks, but it has taken a lot of abuse and is still taking abuse today after being used pretty much 24/7 since 2007.
That cooler would good in my Parvum being mainly white. Where did you get it Tom? Edit: Is it a Silverstone TD03 with Enermax fans?
I think I'm with flame with the Biostar Tpower i45. Board that really introduced me to overclocking using extreme cooling etc, lovely board and I've still got it at home waiting for me to sort out a lot of mess and play with it again.
It is indeed a TD03 with Enermax Cluster whites - and can confirm it looks absolutely BADASS in a white Parvum. I had a H80 previously and it was the only plasticky thing in my case - it had to go. The brushed aluminium block of the TD03 is just gorgeous and the whole thing generally is a big step up in quality from the Corsair range. I bought mine from Scan (£60 iirc) only a few weeks ago - can't see it on there now though, that's strange..... actually you are right, I can't find it anywhere at all. Yes! I'm find the Red/Black colour scheme a bit overdone but the Gene's are just to die for. The 1156 Gene III is actually my favourite of the bunch.
I was unaware that such a cooler existed and I searched for white coolers prior to my Parvum build and the Silverstone TD never showed up else I too would have snapped one up. I will keep looking.
