Best mATX conroe capable board for sensible money

Kezmo · 2 Oct 2006 at 12:59

The GIGABYTE GA-965GM-S2 has been available to buy in the us since last week and theres a lot of uk sellers showing it on there websites

Voltage · 2 Oct 2006 at 13:14

its even worse than the asus.

Rick_Barnes · 2 Oct 2006 at 18:26

Abit SG95 is listed on OCuk, anyone found a review or thought about it?

Tute · 2 Oct 2006 at 23:49

Rick_Barnes said:
Abit SG95 is listed on OCuk, anyone found a review or thought about it?

* Duo to SiS 662 chipset specification, SG-95 can only support CPU of FSB800MHz

If i'm reading it right, looks like this one is a no-go as well.

Tute · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:01

WJA96 said:
Er.... It's switched off upstairs and I'm sitting listening to the radio with the cat on my lap. It was quite happy at 366 FSB before tea, so that's where it got left for the evening. Some people just get new computer stuff to play with too often eh?

Another update from you please sir

Been checking the boards all day in the hope you'd confirm that this board is the ONE we've all been waiting for.

WJA96 · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:11

Not to try and sound like a laid-back international jet-setter, but I'm actually sitting very comfortably in the lobby of the Park Hotel in Euskirchen, Germany having had a hard day 'entertaining' 5 of my customers at the Nuerburgring race circuit. I'm tapping away happily on my Orange SPV M5000 and waiting for the guys to come down for dinner prior to exploring the nightlife of Euskirchen.

I'm back in front of my home PCs on Thursday. Sorry to keep you in suspenders...

FirebarUK · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:27

Anyone looked into the MSI 945GZM3-L ?
Someone mentioned to me that it was Core 2 compatible.

edit;

According to the Intel North Bridge 945-family chipset spec, this board supports CPU of FSB 800MHz at maximum by default . However, you may let your board running at FSB 1066MHz (Core 2 Duo CPUs) by overclocking and adjusting the CPU FSB frequency in the BIOS:
Enter BIOS setup menu and go to [Cell_Menu] --> [Adjust CPU FSB Frequency]. There you can adjust the value to [266] for the Core 2 Duo E6xxx series CPUs. Please be noted that this is over-spec, and this overclocking behavior is not recommended and guaranteed.

Guess that rules it out for overclocking?

Tute · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:30

WJA96 said:
Not to try and sound like a laid-back international jet-setter, but I'm actually sitting very comfortably in the lobby of the Park Hotel in Euskirchen, Germany having had a hard day 'entertaining' 5 of my customers at the Nuerburgring race circuit. I'm tapping away happily on my Orange SPV M5000 and waiting for the guys to come down for dinner prior to exploring the nightlife of Euskirchen.

I'm back in front of my home PCs on Thursday. Sorry to keep you in suspenders...

Wow. Life's a beach eh?

Take care 'o yourself, and have fun!

Tute · 3 Oct 2006 at 22:34

FirebarUK said:
Anyone looked into the MSI 945GZM3-L ?
Someone mentioned to me that it was Core 2 compatible.

edit;

According to the Intel North Bridge 945-family chipset spec, this board supports CPU of FSB 800MHz at maximum by default . However, you may let your board running at FSB 1066MHz (Core 2 Duo CPUs) by overclocking and adjusting the CPU FSB frequency in the BIOS:
Enter BIOS setup menu and go to [Cell_Menu] --> [Adjust CPU FSB Frequency]. There you can adjust the value to [266] for the Core 2 Duo E6xxx series CPUs. Please be noted that this is over-spec, and this overclocking behavior is not recommended and guaranteed.

Guess that rules it out for overclocking?

I'd say so, if a board needs to be overclocked to run a Conroe at stock, it won't go much further. I'd be surprised if that board could hit 300FSB.

Rick_Barnes · 4 Oct 2006 at 13:06

Tute said:
* Duo to SiS 662 chipset specification, SG-95 can only support CPU of FSB800MHz

If i'm reading it right, looks like this one is a no-go as well.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

WJA96 · 4 Oct 2006 at 22:12

OK - I got home this evening at 9pm, kissed the wife hello and got straight back down to overclocking - that's how much I'm committed to you guys!

First the good news. It clocks - 410 x 7 = 2870MHz from an E6300

Now the bad news. It's not booting any more after 410 because my RAM isn't fast enough.

There are 3 RAM dividers to start with - 400, 533 and 667. If you leave the RAM set at 533 (my RAM's speed) it clocks OK until about CPU FSB of 330, then it dies. By setting the RAM divider to 400 to start with, I've managed to do 410 CPU FSB, but the RAM now thinks it's 820 MHz, which tells you just how good Corsair Value RAM is. OK - I've had to slacken off the timings to 5-5-5-15-20, but it's still doing 40% over it's rated speed. There is no RAM voltage adjustment

So - at stock volts on the RAM, the chipset and the CPU I've got a 1GHz overclock. I'm quite pleased with that.

With 667FSB RAM or 800FSB RAM, I'm certain that clocks in excess of 3GHz are definitely possible.

Tute · 4 Oct 2006 at 22:54

I keep reading your post over and over trying to understand.

Let me get this right. You set it to 400MHz, and the RAM runs at 820MHz? How? You just told it to run at 400MHz no? Surely that's the point of a divider?

I'm sure i'm just being stupid but please clarify this for me.

prism · 4 Oct 2006 at 23:45

No, his FSB is at 410, not 400, thus 820.

Tute · 5 Oct 2006 at 00:40

prism said:
No, his FSB is at 410, not 400, thus 820.

There are 3 RAM dividers to start with - 400, 533 and 667.

But the RAM now thinks it's 820 MHz.

I didn't mention FSB - I was talking about the speed of the RAM. As WJA96 doesn't appear to be running the RAM on a RATIO divider, the value surely shouldn't change compared to FSB speed. He's just stated - the three RAM divider choices are 400, 533, and 667.

So why is the RAM speed changing with FSB? Surely that's not right?

WJA96 · 5 Oct 2006 at 04:59

You have 3 choices of initial RAM speed. After that, the RAM increases speed linearly with the CPU. And yes, it's not running at 820, it's actually running at 688MHz.

Sorry for the confusion.

FirebarUK · 5 Oct 2006 at 12:31

I'm awaiting the Abit 965G based board, should be out this month.

Voltage · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:06

me too, OCUK get it in!

Massive Attack · 5 Oct 2006 at 14:51

just rmaed a faulty asus p5b-vm and got a new one back

i wanted a refund so i could get a better newer board when they come out :mad:

prism · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:01

I stepped off the mATX wagon. Maybe for now, maybe forever.

Seeing as there won't be any decent mATX Intel board soon, and especially Asus for making such a crappy BIOS, I went with a Gigabyte DQ6.
Using my current case for it, a Silverstone TJ06.

Too bad, really hoped this would be a fun ride...

Massive Attack · 5 Oct 2006 at 15:06

prism said:
I stepped off the mATX wagon. Maybe for now, maybe forever.

Seeing as there won't be any decent mATX Intel board soon, and especially Asus for making such a crappy BIOS, I went with a Gigabyte DQ6.
Using my current case for it, a Silverstone TJ06.

Too bad, really hoped this would be a fun ride...

me too m8 matx sucks i was hoping for a refund on my board so i could get a DQ6 aswell but no i get a replacement