Best mATX conroe capable board for sensible money

Its_Me · 16 Sep 2006 at 14:03

Its a big chance, PCI locks can be fixed by BIOS , but usualy a board revision.

Rick_Barnes · 16 Sep 2006 at 15:42

how sure are you theres NOT a pci lock?

i thought it was as standard as onboard audio these days!

WJA96 · 17 Sep 2006 at 16:47

It's the easiest way of limiting the overclocking on a motherboard. Intel are putting huge pressure on the motherboard manufacturers not to allow mega-overclocks and, on the lower price motherboards, they are using it as a point of difference against the expensive 'enthusiast' boards.

Its_Me · 18 Sep 2006 at 17:12

WJA96 said:
It's the easiest way of limiting the overclocking on a motherboard. Intel are putting huge pressure on the motherboard manufacturers not to allow mega-overclocks and, on the lower price motherboards, they are using it as a point of difference against the expensive 'enthusiast' boards.

Got any evidence of this ? or is it a rumour ?

TBH the low end boards are usualy crippled by sub standard components other then the chipset anyway, but what we are after is a mATX board, with good clockign options - it will come and the price point will reflect it.

WJA96 · 18 Sep 2006 at 20:05

Its_Me said:
Got any evidence of this ? or is it a rumour ?

The bit about disabling the overclocking features has been going on since the 915/925 chipsets. ASRock and ASUS call the lack of a PCIe lock 'feature' AI Overclocking or Untied Overclocking depending on the board. It 'protects' the user against over-overclocking by limiting the overclock. What it boils down to is the PCIe and FSB clocks are linked and can't be locked independently.

WJA96 · 18 Sep 2006 at 20:06

Rick_Barnes said:
how sure are you theres NOT a pci lock?

i thought it was as standard as onboard audio these days!

I'm not 100% - but you can download the manual and look at the BIOS options. It's not there. That doesn't mean it's not there, but I reckon the manuals are not usually that inaccurate.

Paramount · 18 Sep 2006 at 20:14

I've just bitten the bullet and ordered the Asrock to accompany a 6300, 2gb of 533, and a 1900xt. My current system is an AMD 2500+ with a gig of ram and an x800xt, so I've needed to buy new everything apart from the HD, that hurt the wallet. Trying to find excuses to justify the purchase, because to be honest I don't really need a new PC, I just want one. Curses.

Its_Me · 18 Sep 2006 at 20:24

The P5B series is a series, just becuase ASUS have brought it to the SFF does not mean they intentionaly crippled it.

its hardly a 'value line' board.

I would imagine the lack of PCI lock is a feature, more of a querk.

I was actualy asking for evidence that Itnel are putting pressure on mobo manufacturers to limit the FSB clocking - since I have read nothing on the subject.

WJA96 · 18 Sep 2006 at 21:03

I have no recent evidence that they are still doing it OVERTLY but between 2000 and 2004 there was plenty written and said about Intel asking Motherboard manufacturers to limit overclocking to reduce warranty claims. When it became apparent a couple of years back that you may as well buy a 2.8GHz P4 as a 3.6GHz (they both overclocked to 4GHz) then Intel took to removing PCIe clock locks from their chipsets. I know a few trade hardware people and I'm told that Intel don't like people buying cheap chips and overclocking them. My understanding is that all Intel processors with Speedstep are effectively multiplier unlocked downwards but the motherboard manufacturers only offer this option on the very top motherboards. Why, if not to limit overclocking on the cheap?

Massive Attack · 18 Sep 2006 at 22:33

OK guys i got my P5B-VM today and where abouts will the pci lock be and i will tell u if its there, ive not tried overclocking it yet as ive only just got it and am waiting on a decent small cpu cooler

Tute · 18 Sep 2006 at 23:29

Massive Attack said:
OK guys i got my P5B-VM today and where abouts will the pci lock be and i will tell u if its there, ive not tried overclocking it yet as ive only just got it and am waiting on a decent small cpu cooler

Should be a PCI bus frequency setting, or something similar.

Can it be set to a specific value?

mercyless · 18 Sep 2006 at 23:30

Massive Attack said:
OK guys i got my P5B-VM today and where abouts will the pci lock be and i will tell u if its there, ive not tried overclocking it yet as ive only just got it and am waiting on a decent small cpu cooler

nice one, keep us posted

Massive Attack · 19 Sep 2006 at 09:42

Well guys there is a pci express frequency which can be changed from 90-104 but nothing else

Edit: my board refuses to boot at 290 fsb so im just going to run it at stock bit of a shame as the board cost me £85 oh well

prism · 19 Sep 2006 at 09:58

Ok, crank the FSB up and use a tool to see if the PCI lock is in place or not.
I got my parts coming in today, but I don't think I will be able to test properly till at least tomorrow night.

But, like mentioned in this thread already, I can't believe there is no PCI lock per default. What would otherwise be the reason to crank up the FSB from 400MHz to 500MHz.

Massive Attack · 19 Sep 2006 at 10:03

what tool

prism · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:00

SiSoft Sandra comes too mind. Think that one can display the PCI speed as well.

Btw, sorry for the late replies butthis forums are crap at sending notification mails lately.

Massive Attack · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:14

ok downloading at the moment going to be out for the next couple of hours so i will have a look then

prism · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:27

Looks like Sandra doesn't display the speed anyway.
At least not on this HP machine with a ATI R480 moterboard.

Massive Attack · 19 Sep 2006 at 13:03

yeah couldnt find it when i looked

prism · 19 Sep 2006 at 13:11

Been searching for a tool to see the PCI bus speed, but no luck.

I am sure I used too have a tool to check those things, but that must have been years ago, during the Celeron overclocking days.