Best mATX conroe capable board for sensible money

[WJA96]

From reading this thread I'm getting the impression that SFF + overclocking is a non-starter. That about it, or have I got the wrong end of the stick again?

With Core2Duo? Yes. You're about right. With almost any other processor then you can overclock extremely well. My own personal favourite mATX board EVER is the Abit LG-81 which could be used to overclock almost anything Intel and Socket 775 to double it's stock speed.

I'm currently having a great time with an ASRock 775i65G mATX board which has allowed me to overclock my £22 Celeron 2.66GHz to 4.08GHz using some £40 GeIL Value RAM from the member's market.

But I've had 6 Core2Duo compatible mATX boards now from £29 to £90 and none of them have overclocked properly, which is starting to annoy me. I'm looking at getting an E4300 for this ASRock as it has a maximum FSB of 300, but it does have PCI and PCIe locks which would kind of imply that I should be able to get 2.7Ghz out of an E4300. The downside is that it's DDR RAM and AGP graphics (9800XT for £20 off MM though )

 

[***F1ZZY***]

What about the BSEL pin or pad mod for conroe?

Can set an E4300 to 9 x 266 default, so no oc for mobo or pcie?

Lots of info on the web , especially XS.

Most people not m-atx though.

Anyone here tried it? For sure it works, just that some mobos have a few issues recognising CPU, but easy to reverse the mod.

Then even without pci lock, most mobos can get to 300fsb = 2.7Gig on modded E4300 - As long as you start at 266 and NOT 200 fsb.

The way I see it, the BSEL mods are screaming at m-atx boards, otherwise little value on full sized boards that can lock pci and do 400fsb.

Just need a list of compatible m-atx boards now....

Anyone tried?????

 

[WJA96]

Just need a list of compatible m-atx boards now....

Anyone tried?????

Nope. Off you go though...

 

[***F1ZZY***]

A few exerpts from this thread

Matx E4300 clocking BSEL @ XS

the only matx which works for the moment with the 4300: asrock 775i65g

> DDR and AGP though...mmmm

E4300 works fine with ASUS P5L-MX (945G) at FSB 1300MT/s = FSB 325MHz = CPU 2.93GHz.

>that's more like it

The BSEL mod works on Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H + e4300!

>Oh, thats enough......... Finally a fix!!!!

Read the Xs thread yourselves for inspiration.

 

[***F1ZZY***]

Ironically abit fatal1ty f-i90hd WITHOUT BSEL mod hit 333 on unmodded E4300???

Check out user pvhk's overclock

 

[Tute]

Having read the whole thread over at Hardforum, i've decided that this is certainly a board to watch out for.

No adjustable CPU muliplier at all, except when using an X6800. That means no lowering it either unless you go for a really expensive CPU.

One of the users there has already released a beta BIOS, unlocking more options, and claims that he can reach 370FSB with it.

Apart from that, there's really good scalable options regarding voltages etc.

If OcUK got these in, I would order one straight away. It would mean busting through the 300FSB barrier on the Asrock.

Oh, and both PCI and PCIe buses are locked. But the board seems to struggle above 350FSB, with users reporting an FSB wall.

 

[p4radox]

Having read the whole thread over at Hardforum, i've decided that this is certainly a board to watch out for.

No adjustable CPU muliplier at all, except when using an X6800. That means no lowering it either unless you go for a really expensive CPU.

One of the users there has already released a beta BIOS, unlocking more options, and claims that he can reach 370FSB with it.

Apart from that, there's really good scalable options regarding voltages etc.

If OcUK got these in, I would order one straight away. It would mean busting through the 300FSB barrier on the Asrock.

Oh, and both PCI and PCIe buses are locked. But the board seems to struggle above 350FSB, with users reporting an FSB wall.

I've been following that thread too. It's not perfect, but it's by far the best on the market. Hopefully some more beta BIOSs will appear.

 

[WJA96]

If OcUK got these in, I would order one straight away. It would mean busting through the 300FSB barrier on the Asrock.

Oh, and both PCI and PCIe buses are locked. But the board seems to struggle above 350FSB, with users reporting an FSB wall.

I could get 350 on mine, but the place I got from had been bragging about how it was going to be a top overclocker. It wasn't actually any better than the boards I'd had before, so I sent it back.

In part exchange I got an ASRock 775i65 and an E4300 and guess what? It does 2.7Ghz without any voltage adjustments - totally stock, 300FSB (the boards maximum) using old DDR400 RAM. I got a 9800XT from MM and it's actually quite a respectable performer. With an X1950Pro in it, I'd say it would do for gaming too. Board, CPU, Graphics and RAM came to a grand total of £190 so I'm not complaining

Cheap and fast. I'd say that was what Gommsta was looking for when she started this thread?

 

[***F1ZZY***]

I could get 350 on mine, but the place I got from had been bragging about how it was going to be a top overclocker. It wasn't actually any better than the boards I'd had before, so I sent it back.

In part exchange I got an ASRock 775i65 and an E4300 and guess what? It does 2.7Ghz without any voltage adjustments - totally stock, 300FSB (the boards maximum) using old DDR400 RAM. I got a 9800XT from MM and it's actually quite a respectable performer. With an X1950Pro in it, I'd say it would do for gaming too. Board, CPU, Graphics and RAM came to a grand total of £190 so I'm not complaining

Cheap and fast. I'd say that was what Gommsta was looking for when she started this thread?

Cheap for sure, glad u happy, but surely a no brainer there...

Send back 350fsb capable board to then be content with 300fsb..wtf am I missing something ???

Also a bit boxed in now for upgrade path on that mobo with DDR & AGP, but for now, a bargain with so many peeps going the way of the c2d and ddr2.

 

[peetee]

yea, the 4300 he got aswell as a part exchange

 

[WJA96]

Cheap for sure, glad u happy, but surely a no brainer there...

Send back 350fsb capable board to then be content with 300fsb..wtf am I missing something ???

Also a bit boxed in now for upgrade path on that mobo with DDR & AGP, but for now, a bargain with so many peeps going the way of the c2d and ddr2.

OK - to clear up any confusion - I run a suite of PCs. 8 Gigabyte DS4's for SAP testing purposes, an EVGA 680i that is my 'games machine' and usually a couple of others for 'playing with'. One of the 'playing with' machines is usually µATX. I bought the Abit because I was told it would do 500FSB, which would make it reasonable value for £80. It did 350FSB and I've had £50 µATX motherboards that do that already. So, I sent it back and I gave the shop an extra £30 and I got an E4300 and a 775i65 board because I wanted to test 2 things.

1. How cheap could you upgrade an old AMD system to a decent Core2Duo system?
2. Did the Vcc Mod on the E4300 actually work?

The answer to Question 1 is; about £70 after you've sold the AMD processor and motherboard and bought an E4300 and 775i65 and the answer to question 2 is yes, it does work.

I eat, sleep, work, live and breathe computers. If you look through the various threads on here I'm talking to people about processors, motherboards, RAM and graphics cards. I can do that because I buy them, test them, play with them and then sell them on (usually at a very small loss) on Member's Market. So for me swapping a 350FSB motherboard for a 300FSB motherboard was perfectly rational because the 350FSB had been tested and found not to be adequate, which meant I got to test the 300FSB motherboard which turns out to be quite decent for the money. Most E4300's run out of steam between 2.8Ghz and 3.2Ghz anyway, and that's on £100 motherboards, so my friends and family (most of whom have aging AGP/DDR AMD Athlon XP based systems) will be getting a nice surprise when they ask for upgrades, because it need not cost an arm and a leg.

Now, if you'll excuse me - I have some playing err...work to do

 

[WJA96]

Also a bit boxed in now for upgrade path on that mobo with DDR & AGP, but for now, a bargain with so many peeps going the way of the c2d and ddr2.

OK - imagine you have a 2 year old AMD system. It probably has a reasonable AGP card and 1Gb of DDR RAM. You want to go to Core2Duo as cheaply as possible. You may or may not play games.

You sell your existing processor and motherboard for £40 after postage
You buy an E4300 and 775i65 for £130
You swap in your existing graphics and RAM and you have a 2.7Ghz Core2Duo upgrade for £90.

I do what you suggest and go the flexible upgrade route - I can't buy the 4CoreDual-VSTA as that's not an mATX board, so I have to buy another mATX board. Only none of them will get my E4300 to 2.7Ghz unless I buy an Abit I90HD Fatal1ty so now I have to sell my graphics card (maybe not if I don't have a graphics card) and RAM. I have bought good Corsair RAM, so I sell it for £35 after postage. I buy new Corsair DDRII for £55. Now my upgrade has cost me £170.

Then I discover that my old PATA hard disk can't be plugged in at the same time as both my PATA optical drives because my new Abit only has one PATA port. I'm getting quite narked by now as I've had to change my whole PC insides because I wanted to be able to run Office a bit faster. A hard drive swap is probably going to add £30-£40 to this so call it £200 to change. And that's assuming taht I can trade all my kit away at decent prices on Member's Market.

Yes, you would get a faster PC, and potentially more upgradeable, but most folks don't really care - they want a straightforward, cheap upgrade and for people with an existing AGP/DDR system I can't see a faster, cheaper one at the moment although I am looking for it).

 

[***F1ZZY***]

whao bro, didn't mean to strike a nerve.

Thanks for the explanations though

Your statement " you may or may not play games" is the one that ultimately decides the route I guess.

If games is important then ditch the AGP, if not, then keep it and some cash in the pocket.

 

[WJA96]

whao bro, didn't mean to strike a nerve.

No more quadruple espresso's for me that early in the morning

Your statement " you may or may not play games" is the one that ultimately decides the route I guess.

If games is important then ditch the AGP, if not, then keep it and some cash in the pocket.

Yes, that's valid, although if you accept that you'll need a new graphics card anyway you might as well just buy a 1950Pro and use that. For decent game-play a complete refresh of components will really be needed, but most of my relations don't want to spend more than £100 to upgrade

 

[peetee]

whao bro, didn't mean to strike a nerve.

Thanks for the explanations though

Your statement " you may or may not play games" is the one that ultimately decides the route I guess.

If games is important then ditch the AGP, if not, then keep it and some cash in the pocket.

no point ditching AGP if you'v got a x1950pro really.

 

[Stephen B]

well I was hopefully gonna report that the MSI g965m would accept a pad modded e4300, but my conductive paint has dried up , tried to thin it out with some isopropyl but it went all funky

I'm totally with WJA96 tho on the non existance of an matx board atm to do a core2duo justice in an overclocking perspective

picked up a sealed e4300 for 85 delivered, so another example of how cheaply it can be done, also I had a brief flirtation with an Abit IP-95 which managed about 315 stable iirc and that is a £30 odd quid board that takes ddr as well as ddr2

 

[WJA96]

also I had a brief flirtation with an Abit IP-95 which managed about 315 stable iirc and that is a £30 odd quid board that takes ddr as well as ddr2

My father has that very board and it's terrible. It does a 35 second SuperPi 1M. I put the exact same chip and RAM into the 775i65 and it did a 26 second SuperPi. It may take DDR2, but it runs all RAM single channel and the VIA chipset is woefully slow in comparison to even the older Intel 865 chipset. It's cheap (it was even cheaper second-hand iirc ), but that doesn't make it a good motherboard. It doesn't bother my dear old Dad because he's using it for Fast Fourier Transformations of incoming radio signals and it's literally 10x faster than the AMD XP2600+ he had before, but it's definitely not a performance motherboard and I REALLY wouldn't recommend it. Sorry to come on so strong, but anyone who wasn't getting a good deal second-hand really might feel quite aggrieved if they bought that motherboard. Really.

 

[peetee]

well I was hopefully gonna report that the MSI g965m would accept a pad modded e4300, but my conductive paint has dried up , tried to thin it out with some isopropyl but it went all funky

I'm totally with WJA96 tho on the non existance of an matx board atm to do a core2duo justice in an overclocking perspective

picked up a sealed e4300 for 85 delivered, so another example of how cheaply it can be done, also I had a brief flirtation with an Abit IP-95 which managed about 315 stable iirc and that is a £30 odd quid board that takes ddr as well as ddr2

for the 4300 mod does motherboard&CPU need to be able to boot the 4300 @ stockvolts 266mhz for it to work? or is it just CPU, tempted to try mine, not matx but hav been keeping my eye on this thread

 

[Stephen B]

Sorry to come on so strong, but anyone who wasn't getting a good deal second-hand really might feel quite aggrieved if they bought that motherboard. Really.

no worries, and yes I was aggrieved at the poor overclocking performance, thankfully I bought the board with a case and other bits which kind of absorbed a bit more of the final cost, I only mentioned it as it was cheap and offered ddr as well as ddr2 [admittedly only runs single channel]

but hey we've both been stiffed by false advertising but at least someone is getting the use of it as you pointed out

@ peetee
the pad modded merely makes the chip run at 266 internally instead of the original 200, so the board is fooled.

however, I have heard some boards still detect the microcode on the chip and can cause unwanted results and instability

 

[peetee]

^^ But the chip needs to boot @ 266 stock volts right?