Motherboards 775 mobo advice to start OCing

Hi,
I am slowly upgrading my pc and am now in the market for a new mobo for my Q8200.
i am getting windows 7 and found a 750i sli on ebay for a good price as i heard it was a good mobo to start (learn) OCing. i dont want to spend to much as i know the 775 is getting phased out and will prolly be in the market for something better next year. i have heard compatability issues with this card and win 7 which worried me.
I have bought a beefy akasa 850w psu as i intend to add another hd5770 to the one i got earlier this year. any advice would be great

specs:

-Q8200
-foxconn diego-s mobo (stock)
-4gb ddr2 ram (2x2gb) (stock)
-radeon hd5770
-akasa powermax 850 psu

this was originally a premade but it lives in a new case now
will be getting some new ram too so would like a mobo with 4 slots

Taa very much.

 

I haven't put it together yet but I will likely be using one of those same CPUs in a Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174244

The recent slew of Gigabyte mobos are reported to overclock well. Apparently the Q8200 isn't a great chip for oc'ing but hopefully we can both squeeze a little more out of it.

 

If you can pick one up cheap enough I would recommend the Asus P5K Premium. It may be a bit more than you are willing to pay though. Overclocks fantastically. Mine is now making up the base of my media centre with an E6600 that I'm building.

 

Suprisingly your doing almost exactly what i did, with very similar parts. Except mine is a q6600, i got a Biostar Tpower I45 mobo, which is a great overclocker, off these forums actually

 

I've also got a Biostar Tpower I45 with a Q6600. Indeed it is a nice overclocker but I've had 2 of them die on me in the last year (both swapped by Scan) running a fairly reasonable 3.4Ghz. I'm not saying they all do this (I'm probably just unlucky!) but with hindsight I probably would go with the ASUS.

 

If it is not too much for your budget, the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR apparently overclocks very well: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155486.

 

On another note, from what I read across t'internet, the key thing you need for overclocking quads is good, clean, stable and plentiful power from the m/b.

From what I recall, lots of phases is the way to go as upping the vcore, for example, has to be multiplied across all 4 cores in terms of power utilisation. Not all m/b's are good at providing the stable power required to apply an overclock across all four cores. More power phases means more money though.

Maybe someone better qualified than me can eleborate, assuming I have got the right end of the stick.

Fingers66

 

If you are going to populate all 4 memory banks on the motherboard, please be aware that this can sometimes limit the overclock values your going to be able to reach as well.

I've got my Q6600 running at 3.6 Ghz (450 Mhz * 8) with 4 Gb and if I try and run it with more RAM installed it all goes Pete Tong and only likes to run around 3.2-3.4 Ghz.

I'm pretty sure I could squeeze a bit more from the CPU on my DFI motherboard, but in all honesty for what I use the PC for at the moment, 3.6 Ghz is fast enough to handle the puny, pathetic workloads I throw at it

 

Good point Lee..

btw, sorry to have to use an Ebuyer URL but Scan don't have that m/b listed.

 

thanks for the help guys. so i have narrowed my choice down to a few boards; firstly i got a good deal on 4gb of geil black dragon pc2-6400 so i will prolly be doing away with my stock memory after lee's note. i have to come down to these choices for a mobo:

Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L iP43
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174244

ASUS P5Q SE PLUS iP45
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152574

ASUS P5N-D nForce 750i SLI
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142585

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR iP45
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155486

the last two are slightly the wrong side of 70 quid but i may be swayed if the difference is grand. i also found Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L iG31 which has an astounding price and rave reviews from buyers so i thought i would consider it in for a first time oc board but i wonder what you really get for that price

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152225

as i say, i am a noob at this oc'ing malarky. so any comments are appreciated.

taa

 

I was lucky enough to grab a EP45-UD3P a while back, and it's an excellent OC'er.

I'd say go for any of the P45 boards, the P43s are somewhat limited and the 750is(while awesome for SLI capabilities) can get a wee bit toasty sometimes.

 

yeah, im getting swayed into spending the extra cash on the gigabyte p45 board. but would like to know if there is that big a difference between this and the asus p45 board. i.e which is easier to oc and generally what justifies the 12 quid difference.

from what i hear the gigabyte board is a dream but i have not found out much about the asus one, but it's defo down to these 2.

 

I've used asus boards a lot in the past and I find their bios easy to navigate and overclock. Not too sure about gigabyte been a while since I've used one, but hear they're solidly built boards.

 

Biostar TPower I45 is good, got my E8400 over 4Ghz with few voltage tweaks and the bios is pretty easy to use

 

i cant find it anywhere, but everyone seems to concur

 

Amazon has a couple from sellers, otherwise maybe Ebay, keep looking around because there will be a number of people upgrading to i5/i7 and looking to sell on 775 OC mobos

 

thanks, for some reason didn't check amazon, but ebay had nothing. ended up taking the biostar as its priced between the other two and has xfire potential as well as good reviews.

ty all

 

Asus P5K-E gets my E8400 4ghz, can push it to 4.3ghz but 4ghz is enough.

 

Nice choice, you will have to mention how you get on with it

 

will let you know. i am sure that i will be on these forums crying when my first oc attempts go tits up. thanks for the advice. now only problem is that the deal on that memory fell through as one was fried so its prolly going to cost me more :S

taa