Best mATX conroe capable board for sensible money

Gommsta · 27 Aug 2006 at 14:56

Hi,

I've done a search but nothing conclusive came out of it.
What is the best microATX conroe capable board I can buy at the moment for up to about 70 quid. I can only wait about 2 weeks maximum so has to be something "out there" now.

I was looking at the ASUS P5VD2-MX, i know its VIA chipset but it seems to tick other boxes ok. I'd be looking to put an E6300 in it.

Opinions?

Thanks

Gommsta

Tosk · 27 Aug 2006 at 17:02

the Asus P5B-VM Micro ATX looks ok

1 to 3 days wait tho but thats bin like that for a week now

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Asus_177.html

and its a G965 / ICH8 chipset, duno if its any good at OCing. bit pricey for
matx board as well.

Gommsta · 27 Aug 2006 at 17:09

Agreed that board looks nice but 91 quid is a push for me at the moment :/

Something i'm not really "up" on is board chipsets. What should i be looking for? 965? 945? What are the main differences?

Tosk · 27 Aug 2006 at 19:02

yea Gommsta, that chipset seems to be the best on the market for core 2 duo

i wouldnt pay that much to, maybe 70 quid but thats still a lot for a matx
board

WJA96 · 29 Aug 2006 at 06:30

I don't understand these 'bit much for an mATX board' comments. If it has all the features in less space, then why shouldn't something smaller cost the same or more than a full-sized ATX motherboard. On that way of thinking Shuttles should cost peanuts. And we all know that's never going to happen

shadowscotland · 29 Aug 2006 at 12:16

Most people are saying the 965express chipset is the best for OCing the Allendale's with the new 975 better for the conroe's.

the 965 comes in three flavours - p965 (proformance) - G965 (graphics - which btw are really poor need separate GPU) and Q965 (business - extra connectivity and guarenteed life cycle)

no mATX or uATX boards with P965 yet or 975 for that matter

- some P965 are out now, with the Q965 out soon (not soon enought)

mATX board don't have room for everything but the rise in premium SFF systems is giving manifactures excuse for premium prices. I know you can't wait, but mATX prices should fall when Asus have serious compertition on the shelves (ABIT, DFI and Gigabyte all have good SFF boards due out soon)

Massive Attack · 29 Aug 2006 at 13:14

Tosk said:
the Asus P5B-VM Micro ATX looks ok

1 to 3 days wait tho but thats bin like that for a week now

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Asus_177.html

and its a G965 / ICH8 chipset, duno if its any good at OCing. bit pricey for
matx board as well.

Thats the board i am waiting on, its by far the best conroe MATX board around

Arc · 30 Aug 2006 at 22:26

Its a bit of a problem at the moment because choice for MATX Conroe boards is limited. The newer ATi boards should be out soon as will the Nvidia boards (planned for next month).

Give it two months and we'll have plenty of choice.

Gommsta · 31 Aug 2006 at 14:52

WJA96, you're dead right. It does make no sense. I need to decide whether i'm building a performance machine or not and if so then i'll need to pay performance money.

Aside from the newer 965 boards that Asrock Conroe G945-DVI seems to do quite well and is not much money. Problem i see is with low FSB though as i'd be looking to mate it with an E6300.

hmmmmmmm

Paramount · 31 Aug 2006 at 17:41

Gommsta said:
Aside from the newer 965 boards that Asrock Conroe G945-DVI seems to do quite well and is not much money. Problem i see is with low FSB though as i'd be looking to mate it with an E6300.

hmmmmmmm

Same problem I've got. It'd be a crime to buy an e6300 and not violate it. But theres no matx boards capable of this really at the mo. I've been waiting ages for one, you would have thought there would have been a good performance mobo ages ago, but no.

Massive Attack · 31 Aug 2006 at 21:07

Paramount said:
Same problem I've got. It'd be a crime to buy an e6300 and not violate it. But theres no matx boards capable of this really at the mo. I've been waiting ages for one, you would have thought there would have been a good performance mobo ages ago, but no.

im hopeing the asus P5B-VM is as good as the P5W DH for overclocking, i have a 6300 too and its so annoying because i cant overclock it with the gigabyte board i have at the moment

Tute · 1 Sep 2006 at 14:17

The review of the Asrock 945 board on Anandtech was disappointing. I mean, no Vcore options! What were Asrock thinking?

Putting an order in one week from today for the parts I want, and it'll be based around the P5B-VM, that board looks the dog's danglies.

WJA96 · 4 Sep 2006 at 09:26

I've just downloaded the ASUS P5B-VM manual and the BIOS options are pretty poor on that board too;

1. The CPU FSB only goes up to 400
2. You can't lock the PCIe BUS frequency separately from the CPU FSB so it'll crap out at 300, just like the ASRock ones.

It's not very surprising that the ASUS and ASRock systems are so similar, really, given that ASUS is ASRock's parent company.

Paramount · 4 Sep 2006 at 11:12

Disappointing. So the most we'll beable to clock a 6300 to is 2.1ghz?

WJA96 · 4 Sep 2006 at 11:22

That's how I read it.

Gommsta · 5 Sep 2006 at 17:28

oh "bother"

So in that case theres very little point paying the 90 quid for the asus when the asrock does the same job for 50?

I suppose we need to wait and see some benchies and see what that fsb will do in reality.

Tute · 5 Sep 2006 at 19:16

I'm starting to lose faith in there being a good mATX Conroe board - might just go with a full ATX system instead.

nolimit · 5 Sep 2006 at 21:11

thats what i did.

couldn't wait any longer and fed up of trying to squeeze everything, noise, temp blah blah.

Massive Attack · 5 Sep 2006 at 21:49

**** it

, i was going to get this board for the rest of my rig

Paramount · 5 Sep 2006 at 22:08

I think ill just go for the cheapest now, the Asrock, then upgrade again later. You're still going to have an awesomely fast PC.