I have a X2 5200+ Windsor F2, and i got rid of my old MB, because of the many problems i had with it (Asus M2N-E SLI). I recently bought an Ati 4850 and i realised that my cpu has a bit of an impact on the gpu performance. The max OC i could do on my old MB was 210 fsb (but i could not modify the cpu voltage over 1.3V or the memory voltage over 1.95V). With that small increase i still got 3.5 more fps in crysis benchmark on 1280*1024, 0AA, all high, form 38.5 to 42 fps. Mq question is: Which of these 2 MB: Abit AX78 and MSI K9A2 CF would you reccomend, or another MB at the same price? I just want it to have good OC potential, i don't intend to upgrade to a Phenom, so there should be no compatibility issues, i don't need the second pci-e x16, cause i don't want CF. I just want a decent board with a good OC potential and good gaming results. I have only one hdd, and i will use the onboard sound, so the MB can lack alot of features as i don't use almost any of them. Thank you very much for any comments or suggestions. (And sorry if i made mistakes in this post, i'm not a native english speaker)
well you picked the wrong brand of CPU to overclock, AMD's AM2 range is really poor. both the motherboard you are looking at are budget boards, so dont hope for alot of performance from them! what is your current motherboard?
I know my cpu isn't a good OC-er so that's why i chose a budget board, cause i don't really hope for more than 3GHz @ 230fsb But the fact that getting 4 more fps in crysis bench, 1280*1024, all high, 0AA (from 38 to 42) by only increasing from 200 to 210 fsb, i guessed i could see another 5 more with a 230fsb OC. My current MB is a really poor Asus M2N-E sli which i need to change because of the crappy onboard sound (with one driver my microphone doesn't work, but the sound is ok, while with the driver which fixes the microphone bug, my sound starts buzzing after about 10 minute in movies, winamp or gaming). So i would choose a budget solution which would give me a decent OC and also decent fps in games as i saw there are quite big differences in fps in some games depending on the MB. I don't have the money to change my cpu/MB to intel so it's a temporary solution. So, if you could reccomend a decent MB, one of the 2 mentioned (which chipset is better for gaming) or another MB at about the same price. LE: I saw that the Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 (rev. 2.0) has SB700. Should i wait for it to appear in my country (Romania) and try to buy it. Do i stand a better chance at OC with it rather than a with a SB600 based board?
