Best mATX conroe capable board for sensible money

[Tute]

Sorry - but I can't do MSN - I'm on a Windows Cellphone (Orange M5000) but my e-mail works if you don't want to talk openly.

I do seem to have fixed the problem - the board actually came in 4 bits; the motherboard, the northbridge heatsink, and two (broken) heatsink pins.

I was going to ask if you knew if it would run without the heatsink, however I scrounged a couple of pins from an old nForce 3 motherboard I had lying around, luckily they fitted.

******* Vista won't install though.

 

[musx64]

mmmmmmmmmm, does not look good so far ! , no seriously did you not consider rma'ing it.

 

[Tute]

mmmmmmmmmm, does not look good so far ! , no seriously did you not consider rma'ing it.

All is well! 333x9 = 3GHz and still climbing. Stock volts.

[Edit] WJA96, do you not use MSN at home?

 

[musx64]

Tute = How far have you got on your abit so far, any chance of some piccies.

ta.

 

[WJA96]

All is well! 333x9 = 3GHz and still climbing. Stock volts.

[Edit] WJA96, do you not use MSN at home?

Only under duress and you're assuming I'm ever at home! I might see how expensive a laptop would be here as the Hotel has free wireless access and C&E are unlikely to ask for taxes on a bloke bringing a laptop back through customs! Who buys a laptop on holiday?

 

[Tute]

Tute = How far have you got on your abit so far, any chance of some piccies.

ta.

I stopped at 3GHz as the rig was slowly cooking itself - was hitting the low 70s under Orthos. A bit of cable tidying and it's now mid-60s under load which i'm perfectly happy with.

Screenies of the overclock or of the case?

 

[Supercow]

Sorry guys, really dont wanna read through the whole thread
Can you please tell me which Mobo you guys "decided" on.... that ius the best performer of the current MATX lot?

 

[WJA96]

Sorry guys, really dont wanna read through the whole thread
Can you please tell me which Mobo you guys "decided" on.... that ius the best performer of the current MATX lot?

No - you have to read the whole thread - it's like earning our respect by suffering our dull, often worthless, "discussions" before you discover that all the current mATX boards are pants.

Darn it - gave the game away!

 

[Tute]

No - you have to read the whole thread - it's like earning our respect by suffering our dull, often worthless, "discussions" before you discover that all the current mATX boards are pants.

Darn it - gave the game away!

The Abit isn't pants.

It's not amazing, it certainly won't blow you away, but it's far from pants.

 

[Badger_grr]

what sorta games are the onboard gfx capable of on the abit board? a bit of css maybe? how about bf2, is that too much i assume?

 

[WJA96]

The Abit isn't pants.

It's not amazing, it certainly won't blow you away, but it's far from pants.

OK - If I could give you a straight choice of a DS3P in mATX format for £80 or the Abit mATX for £40 which would you pick?

Compared to the equivalently priced available ATX boards, all the currently available mATX boards are poor clockers. Unless you want to tell us something about the Abit we've all been dying to hear? I had one, it just managed 350FSB and I thought "~?* this for a game of Dominoes" and sent it back. Abit QuadGT - does 525FSB with an E6300. Now, that's overclocking!

 

[Tute]

OK - If I could give you a straight choice of a DS3P in mATX format for £80 or the Abit mATX for £40 which would you pick?

Compared to the equivalently priced available ATX boards, all the currently available mATX boards are poor clockers. Unless you want to tell us something about the Abit we've all been dying to hear? I had one, it just managed 350FSB and I thought "~?* this for a game of Dominoes" and sent it back. Abit QuadGT - does 525FSB with an E6300. Now, that's overclocking!

I'd take the DS3 - no doubt. However, we don't have that luxury.

The Abit is certainly the best of a fairly poor bunch.

Pants is something i'd reserve for the P5B-VM, or maybe the Asrock, although that's a little unfair as it's a perfectly stable board.

The Abit isn't as great as any of the 680i/650i boards, or the P5B-D/DS3. But what it does do is allow a fairly reasonable level of overclocking, the likes of which we haven't seen before on LGA775 mATX.

 

[musx64]

I stopped at 3GHz as the rig was slowly cooking itself - was hitting the low 70s under Orthos. A bit of cable tidying and it's now mid-60s under load which i'm perfectly happy with.

Screenies of the overclock or of the case?

A bit of both please

Tute m8 just a quick question :

I noticed on your old sig - you was running Pc6400 memory on your asrock, is my thinking right, that I could run the same memory on my asrock - but would have to run the memory divider on 333mhz for it work.

Just looking to future proof somewhat, as I wonder what performance boost would I see over PC5300 ---> PC6400.

 

[Tute]

A bit of both please

Tute m8 just a quick question :

I noticed on your old sig - you was running Pc6400 memory on your asrock, is my thinking right, that I could run the same memory on my asrock - but would have to run the memory divider on 333mhz for it work.

Just looking to future proof somewhat, as I wonder what performance boost would I see over PC5300 ---> PC6400.

I just got the RAM as it was reasonably priced, in the Asrock it was running PC4200 (i.e at stock).

It's now running PC5300 as it's at 333MHz and it's still fine on stock volts. No instability whatsoever. I haven't yet got around to seeing if I can tighten the timings though.

 

[Supercow]

Right... so, if you dont give a monkey's about overclocking, just a good solid MATX board, which would it be.

Reason I'm asking, is coz im thinking of flogging my whole shuttle system, and going for another SFF case, because I want a 8800 AND a free PCI slot, i can fit a tv tuner card in... etc.

tad ot: but which case would you reccomend, I quite love the aesthetics of the Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black

 

[WJA96]

Right... so, if you dont give a monkey's about overclocking, just a good solid MATX board, which would it be.

ASRock 945G-DVI.

Reason I'm asking, is coz im thinking of flogging my whole shuttle system, and going for another SFF case, because I want a 8800 AND a free PCI slot, i can fit a tv tuner card in... etc.

tad ot: but which case would you reccomend, I quite love the aesthetics of the Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black

I like the Silverstone SG-01, but I had a V300 and it's very nice too. I ended up having the 'front' as the side and the 'side' as the front as I know where I like my optical drives to pop out of

 

[Tute]

ASRock 945G-DVI.

Nothing wrong with either that or the Abit, both solid stable boards, but the Abit packs more features.

I think it comes down to if the buyer wants the extra features, if not then the price of the Asrock wins through.

 

[Rick_Barnes]

read your DS3 thing for £80, and envisaged WJA sitting in his shed, with £70 motherboard, charging £10 for a 'trim' with a hacksaw. LoL

 

[peetee]

Right... so, if you dont give a monkey's about overclocking, just a good solid MATX board, which would it be.

Reason I'm asking, is coz im thinking of flogging my whole shuttle system, and going for another SFF case, because I want a 8800 AND a free PCI slot, i can fit a tv tuner card in... etc.

tad ot: but which case would you reccomend, I quite love the aesthetics of the Lian-Li PC-V300 Aluminum Micro ATX Mini Tower Case - Black

8800 with a none overclocked CPU? Might see a bottleneck there like
I look at my pc-7 and wish i still had a shuttle in it mind core2duo & 8800 just makes that somewhat impossible, aswell as 3 HDDs

 

[musx64]

8800 with a none overclocked CPU? Might see a bottleneck there like

can you explain why ?