Best Conroe Overclocking Motherboard For £100?

DarkShadow

DarkShadow

DarkShadow

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As per thread title, I'm looking for a good clocking MB for my soon to be E6600 CPU!

I'm on a strict budget of £100.

These are the motherboards I've been looking at for the prices I've found them:

Gigbabyte DS3
Gigabyte DS4
DFI Infinity 975X (This weeks offer £96)
Asus P5B-E

Recommendations please! It'll be my first time overclocking properly (one would be crazy not to with these cpu's!)

Thanks :)
 
The DS3 is a good overclocker, I'm a newbie too but it's great that there's tons of information on how to overclock the DS3 on this site. It's really easy! I had the choice of buying another motherboard yesterday but I bought another DS3. That's how good it is! But if you want to do crossfire then the DS4 is probably better.
 
BlkNoel has just done 4GHz on air using a P5B-E (thread here) so that may become the new board of choice? The DS4 is a very good board and that is what I went for after using both S3 and DS3 in the past.

I just noticed that you are looking to overclock an E6600. My advice wouldn't change much except to say that all the Core2Duo's tend to top out the same - between 3.3 and 3.6GHz on air. Unless you really need the 4Mb cache then you may be better going for an E6300 or E6400 and saving or spending the difference on better RAM?
 
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Can't really go wrong with any of those boards...

my personal vote would be for the DFI Inf but its a tweakers :D board... the asus is probably the most consumer friendly and the DS3/4 very good clockers. But when you've got it all set correctly the DFI is probably the highest performance board of that selection.

I'd also reccomend the E6300 for overclocking, for one you don't have to play with multies to get the RAM performance up nicely (as the FSB would be higher at the same clock speed as an E6600 on normal multiplier)
 
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Rroff said:
Can't really go wrong with any of those boards...

my personal vote would be for the DFI Inf but its a tweakers :D board... the asus is probably the most consumer friendly and the DS3/4 very good clockers. But when you've got it all set correctly the DFI is probably the highest performance board of that selection.

I'd also reccomend the E6300 for overclocking, for one you don't have to play with multies to get the RAM performance up nicely (as the FSB would be higher at the same clock speed as an E6600 on normal multiplier)
Click to expand...

Always thought the 975X Chipset was better for clocking the E6600. That would mean the DFI, not sure how it does though, best to search or start a thread in the mobo section.
 
For 6600 get a 975 board. At or above 400 FSB (3.6ghz from a 6600) the 965's are slower.
If you were clocking a 6300 then P5B-e or P5B "vanilla" would be the best options :)
 
a lot of mixed voices here, genuinely confused on what to get :(

Have to order my kit by Tuesday evening, any more input?

WJA, take a look at my thread over at CPU's and Memory please ;)
 
if your looking for the best overclocking board for conroe then it would be the DFI Infinity 975X with the latest beta BIOS (final isn't as good for OCing) however it does have some uh unique "features" that take some working around...

oh and I know you want to get it all ordered soon - but you might want to wait for the rev 2 of this board, hopefully coming out soon, as it supposedly fixes some of those annoying little issues.
 
http://aten-hosted.com/images/36.jpg thats my max fully stable with load temps < 60C - been higher but not tested for stability (load temps 60+ which I dislike)

had it up beyond that* (booted into windows at 4.1gig - 455*9 (as per raja's settings, NB mod, etc.)) but the idle temps were too high to even bother with priming, etc. on air - it might have been 100% stable who knows, as 3.00gig is more than fast enough for me I don't run it any higher for normal use, but nice to know the chip still has some leg room when it gets a bit older.

*this was a suicide run on my old board, which has since died... whether thats coincidence or not dunno...
 
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dark_shadow said:
a lot of mixed voices here, genuinely confused on what to get :(

Have to order my kit by Tuesday evening, any more input?

WJA, take a look at my thread over at CPU's and Memory please ;)
Click to expand...

Pick 1 item (CPU/mobo/ram) then build the rest of the system around that. Once you've got 1 bit set in stone, the rest can be easily decided :)
 
My ds3 does 3.2ghz with a 6600 400 fsb x 8 multi with 1.35v.

If i were you id get ds3 + any 2gb 6400 ram + 6400 cpu + tuniq tower cooler for an easy 3.2ghz if u want to go higher get a 6600 cpu instead = 400x9=3.6ghz.

You cant go wrong by copying me :D
 
This is the question I'm asking myself. E6300 or E6600? Which MB, 965P or 975X? And which RAM?

The real cost difference is the ~£100 extra for the E6600.

For under £100 we have the 965P based: Asus P5B or Gigabyte DS3 and the 975X DFI Infinity. How to choose?

I'd be hoping from over 3GHz so than would mean >430MHz(!) FSB on an E6300 and >333MHz on an E6600. Is significantly over 400MHz readily doable with 6400 RAM? Does running the RAM slower impact the performance much?
 
I'm in the same situation as the guys above. Think i'm going to go for the Corsair 6400 C4 ram, E6300 but unsure on the board. Was going to get the ds3 but theres been some people saying the boards they have received aren't posting and having to be rma'd, so sounds like it could be a bad batch thats out. So its either wait see if another batch comes in, or go for another board.
 
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £123.99
(£145.69) £123.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £124.99
(£146.86) £124.99
Sub Total : £347.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
Vat : £62.34
Total : £418.55

or if your a little flush

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £147.99
(£173.89) £147.99
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £177.99
(£209.14) £177.99
Sub Total : £424.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
Vat : £75.81
Total : £509.02

The difference between the two systems would be next to nothing, the second system would be slightly easier to overclock cos of the x9 multi upto 3.6ghz
First system would do 3.2ghz easy 400x8=3.2ghz might start to struggle to get 3.6 though
 
So you say the DS3 is the best choice for both the E6400 and E6600?
What's the advantage of the GeIL RAM over the OcUK stuff?
 
Most people get very good overclocks 3ghz minimum with both 6300,6400 and i get 3.2ghz with my 6600 on a ds3 this board does 400mhz fsb easy never needed to go over 400 as my 6600 has a x9 multi =3.6ghz for my cpu, most conroes wont go over 3.6ghz without serious volts + water cooling.
The geil ram has tighter timings 4,4,4,12 as standard and can overlock better the ocuk ram is 5,5,5,12 at stock but might do 4,4,4,12, and it wont overclock as well as the geil but if u stay at 400mhz that wont matter, so geil ram will be slightly faster at stock than the ocuk stuff.
 
unless your really tight for money I'd stay away from geil... good budget RAM, can give good clocks, but failure rate is somewhat higher than other makes.
 
What do you guys think to the Asus P5B Deluxe for the E6600? Paired up with say some 2GB of geil low latency RAM?

It's recieved a gold award in Custom PC's Dec edition.

Cheers :)

OC_A64 said:
For 6600 get a 975 board. At or above 400 FSB (3.6ghz from a 6600) the 965's are slower.
If you were clocking a 6300 then P5B-e or P5B "vanilla" would be the best options :)
Click to expand...
The P5B is a 965 board, how would it be slower?
 
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