Blogs What makes a classic overclocking motherboard?

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/06/17/what-makes-a-classic-overclocking-mobo/

 

I think whatever element of luck there was in years past is now thankfully no longer the case. These days manufacturers are well aware that they need to make an enthusiast board that overclocks well. They're even advertised as such these days, and have features especially for the task. They will be tested to see if they do over clock well, and then sold with their own version of zomgwtf overclocking beast branding and labelling.

 

I don't know, the relatively cheap Gigabyte EP45-UD3P and UD3R can overclock better than the more expensive X48s.

Also, look at the P5Q Pro, a pretty decent but low end board, that was destructive as well. Or the Mid-range P35 Asus(P5K something w/ Wi-fi) that surpassed some of it's more expensive brothers.

I still think that perhaps there is some luck in it, but there's other factors, like the CPU batch or the types of RAM...the list goes on.

But in terms of motherboards, I think it's just a luck guess or a golden sample, and that luck still exists, I mean even within that one model, some can get up to 4.6Ghz with no volt tweaks on an E8400, but simultaneously, others can't even touch the 4Ghz mark without instabilities, volt change or not.

All in all though, I find that those "overclocking" boards are a waste of money, I mean sure, it's an enthusiast thing, but is it really needed? Not really, same goes for those open OC competitions too.

 

I'd have thought that lower-end chipsets have fewer connections, so the boards that they're on need fewer traces and layers, making the board design simpler and therefore decreasing crosstalk and increasing timing tolerances, allowing for bigger overclocks. That's why different boards using the same chipset can perform differently too.

 

The DFI nF4 lanparty series was famous for its overclocking back in the socket 939 era.



Still got mine running strong in my folks' computer.


Before that, the Abit NF7-S was another classic, I had a lot of fun with mine over the years.

 

The Commando is STILL breaking records even now, quite possibly the best Intel board of the Core 2 era..... I wish I never sold mine.

 

Fewer features + good engineering = better clocking?

The only thing those "premium" boards seem to have is more **** that nobody will ever use.

 

the nf7-s was a good board in its own right, but the epox 8RDA3+ wiped the floor with it, it was a tad cheaper and clocked like a nutter. It also had AGP and PCI locks, not sure if abit had such ability. And it automatically unlocked the multiplier.

Proof is in the testing, friend broke down his rig with a moblie 2500+ which i bought off him, before the rip down we tried a highest clock test and could only hit 2.6GHz with twin delta's doing the cooling, memory was stock speed of 200Mhz, all this running in a NF7-s.

Popped the chip out into my cheaper epox 8RDA3+ and it screamed to 3GHz, multipler set at x15, we were sure it was a record, but googling destoyed are hopes.

Either way at the time my Socket A beast could out perform AMD's new 754 chips as i had Dual channel memory over the 754 single channel failure.



True overclocking boards should be cheap and very tweakable, the uber end boards are a waste of money. Its bad enough the common average price of a 'low end' board is now £100, 5 years ago £100 was the average price of a high end board! Now graphics card have broken even the £500 mark for consumer gaming range, and motherboards seem to break the £300.

All for what, the premium we now pay on motherboards in order to squeeze some free speed, now out weighs the benefit.

We bought cheap CPU's and overclocked them because we couldn't afford the mid-range or high end version, but now the price difference between the levels of CPU's is now added to the price of the motherboards.

Overclocking has become dare i say it, to comerical, with the likes of graphics card manufactures adding overclocked versions to there product line, at a higher cost! chargering for something that is free!!!!

 

Gigabyte's GA-P31-DS3L was/is a pretty awesome board for overclocking, and you could get it for ~£45 before the pound went down against the dollar.

 

No love for the P5K WiFi?

And Remember the beastly Abit-P35 and the Legendary Nforce4 DFIs?

The best P45 overclocker so far to grace the public was the Gigabyte EP45-UD3R and the Asus P5Q series(the low end P45 ones).

 

I'd say it's all in the engineering.. but you gotta wonder if there is something to simplicity

asus did well with the intel chipset with c2d for example.. but the striker extreme using nvidias chipset turned out a bad buy.. it's probably a combo of everything- you could have probably built a mb with the very best sold state components around that chipset and have it fail against a cheap intel

 

"£150 budget model"

Man, you get paid way too much if you think £150 is a budget model! XD

 

Just because I didn't mention it doesn't mean I don't like it... I've used an EP31 and it got rave reviews, but I've never seen a P5K.

 

Complete agree. 'Overclocking' CPUs are even worse - $1000 for an unlocked multiplier 'Extreme Edition'...

 

I laugh at the notion that the best chips need to be $1000...

AMD's got it right though, their BE chips aren't that much from the regular ones.

 

Yes, it's funny. Another humerous notion is the E8400 wolfdale @ $160($190-220msrp) is faster than the $1,000 X6800 dual-core, that itself was 1066FSB. I sure do like waiting a bit for tech to progress before buying.

 

I think it's a bit unfair to compare them as the X6800 was well, the Conroe series, not the die-shrunk and more advanced Wolfdale chips.

Still though I agree, time is technology's worst enemy, and only chumps would've bought an Extreme Chip anyways.

BTW, isn't the world-record highest OC'ed CPU a P4 or a Celeron?

 

DFI have made some brilliant boards; most of them clock like absolute champs!

Anyone remember when you could unlock your multiplier by playing "connect the dots" with the tiny gold pads on top of your CPU with a pencil/conductive pen? Good times... but I must be getting old!

 

DFI as of now though have faded ever since the end of their great P35 boards.

And The connect the dots were much much much fun, still though, it was needless hassle.

Anyone remember the XP 3200+? Or the late FX-62? Those were legendary chips in their own right, albeit horridly expensive.

 

Abit IP35 Pro is should be considered as classic if you want to choose a P35 board.
also, did you know: Abit was the first one to implement BIOS based overclocking