I am planning to upgrade my PC soon to a SB set up. Currently these are the parts I am thinking about upgrading to: CPU: i7 2600k Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5-B3 RAM: Corsair DDR3 Vengeance, 1600, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V HS&F: Noctua NH-D14 These are all fine, but I am concerned with the motherboard. I know it's a good motherboard, but I think it is a little out of my price range for the non-extreme type of over-clocking I am planning. (Around 4.5 GHz) The main reason I went for this motherboard is that it has 3 case fan headers which would cover all of the fans in my P182 case. If it wasn't for that I would have gone for the GA-P67A-UD4-B3 as this is more than adequate for all my other needs. Around £60-£70 more just for an extra fan header is a bit much to swallow though. With the amount of people on here that test many different motherboards and are much more tech savvy than me. Is there another board that anyone knows about at around the price, performance and reliability of the UD4 but with the extra fan header? If not I will probably save the cash, get the UD4, and put up with the fan on the rear of the case running full pelt all the time. It will still be quieter than all three Silent Typhoons running at full pelt. I should mention that I will not buy ASUS motherboards due to a very bad customer service experience I had with them, and by extension I won't touch ASRock either. The second bit of advice I need is regarding CPU temps. What is a safe temp to run a 2600K at for a permanent 24/7 OC?
have just changed my mothereboard from a ud4 to a ud5. only as the ud4 let go. now my max overclock on the ud4 was 4.7 it hit a brick wall at this speed and would not go further. now on the ud5 i have hit 5.2 but did not go any further as it would of required monster volts. have dropped it back down to 5.1 to be on the safe side. have used about 5 ud4 on builds for friends and they all have performed great bar mine shitting its pants. the only reason i went to the ud5 was scan was out of stock.
Do you need the extra multi threaded performance the 2600k offers over the 2500k? If not there is £80 or so you could save. I believe the MSI P67 range have 3 case fan headers although I can't remember their exact locations. Could you run a fan controller instead of forking out for the more expensive motherboard (which judging by your post won't offer you anything bar the extra fan header)?
I live in a flat that gets extremely hot during the summer, so I know I'll not be able to push the CPU to it's limit because of high ambient room temps to battle with from the get go. Which is why I estimate that I'll only get around the 4.5 mark out of the CPU and also why I am asking the safe temps to run a 2600K at 24/7. Otherwise I would go for the UD5 as I could push the CPU further as you have indicated. I've never been a fan (haha) of trying to draw more power from a socket than it is designed to provide, but thanks for the idea. Yes I do unfortunately. I do a lot of rendering work so the extra threads help. I'll have a look at the MSI boards. I always forget about poor old MSI, and they have come so far over the last couple of years too. I'm not to worried about the position of the headers, I usually have to do some creative cable routeing for fans as most motherboards have two headers near the lower front of the board and only one at the upper rear - the exact opposite of the P180 series. My funding will be coming out of the 'House' funds. i.e. the cash is controlled by 'she who must be obeyed'. Thus I can talk her into a motherboard which is essential to running the PC, but will have a hell of a job convincing her that a fan controller is a needed piece of equipment. XD EDIT: I have had a look at the MSI boards and the one that is most interesting is the P67A-GD65 B3. After checking up on it though, I have found it suffers from a weird idle BSOD problem (http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=183670). That is a slightly older article though and this issue could have been resolved with the later Bios updates, or even a board revision. Is anyone running one of these boards that can comment? EDIT 2: Actually the more I read about this board the less I like it. Looks like I am going to be stuck with the UD4 with a noisy fan, or fork out the extra for a UD5. Anyone have an answer to my other question about safe temps?
I have an MSI p67a-gd53 and that is a great overclocker and I am pretty sure it has 3 fan headers but using a splitter doesn't do any thing bad. :thumb
as long as you dont go over 80c while stressing it youll be fine. mine normally sits at 35 idle and 75 when pushing it. but then i am using high voltages. if you want to run it at 4.5 youll be fine with temps. my mate has his at 4.6 with a STOCK cooler and he hits about 70c
Looking at the specs at MSI's site it actually has 4 system fan headers in addition to the CPU header. If you are not having any problems then the cold bug must have been fixed with the B3 chipset. Having read up on it more, the old chipset (pre B3) had this issue quite a bit and not limited to MSI boards, but the B3 revision seems to have cured it. I think between that and your experience I'll go for that board. Edit: Just noticed you said the GD-53 and not the GD65. I'll take a look-see at that mobo. Thanks for that. I have been trying to find out for a couple of days, but no-one seemed to have a real answer, just guesses ranging from 60 degrees, to approx 95 degrees when throttling kicks in - which cant be good.... Aye, but I bet during the middle of summer you're not starting out with an ambient room temp of 40-45 degrees.
Just buy a fan controller? A £20-30 lamptron will be more than adequate, and then you get everything you want, while still saving some monies.
you could also save some money by ditching the vengence ram and just go with the xms3 stuff. no difference bar the heatsinks
The XMS3 sticks run at 1.65 volts, while the vengeance runs at 1.5 volts and the CAS is 24 on the vengeance and 27 on the XMS3's. I'm not that strapped for cash, just have an issue justifying fan controllers, and 60ish quid for a fan header.
they must have took them down as ive used about 6 sets. they will also run at 1866 as well so at 1600 you should be able to tighten the timings up. but you will hardly notice any difference
also you might have clearance issues with the vengence. myself i hve always used g.skill. they run great and never had an rma with them wear as the corsair ive sent about 3 lots off in the past 6 months.
That's why I went for that particular vengeance set, they don't have the fins and are the same hight as the XMS range. Thanks for that, useful.
