Cheap board for overclocking E4300

RobG · 4 Mar 2007 at 21:29

Hi,

I am considering a cheap upgrade to a Intel E4300 chip. I would only be interested if I could get a motherboard for cheap enough though. Are there any good board out there for overclocking this chip to get near 3Ghz that don't cost a bomb? I would like to spend around £60 although there is someflexibility if it is worth it.

Main features I would like are:

At least 2 SATA ports
1 PCI-e 16 port (not fussed over SLI as I won't ever use it)
Decent reliability
Ability to made fanless
Possibly a gigabit ethernet port.
6 USB 2 ports

Not too fussy then. I can stretch the budget if it warranted. I have previously owned a DS3 that I used to overclock a E6300 FYI.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Cheers

Rob

Duke · 4 Mar 2007 at 21:46

Seeing as you've had the DS3 already, the S3 would be a good choice.

Gigabyte S3 is £70 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-063-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=565

Supports Intel® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo processor
Supports high performance Dual Channel DDR2 800 memory
Features PCI Express x16 for outstanding graphics performance
Features SATA 3Gb/s interface with RAID function (2 ports with RAID function supported by GIGABYTE SATA2)
Optimized Gigabit LAN connection
Features 8-channel Intel High Definition Audio

There is a big overclocking thread here if needed - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17610180

RobG · 4 Mar 2007 at 22:25

Hi Duke,

Thanks for the info. Looking at the product list on OcUK it seems that the DS3 has dropped in price since I purchased mine and is only £10 more than the S3. What benefit would the DS3 have over the S3?

Cheers

Rob

Duke · 4 Mar 2007 at 22:37

They certainly have dropped in price - I think I paid about £110-120 for my DS3 when it came out

The only difference between them is that the DS3 has solid capacitors, which mean the motherboard would generally last longer, especially when heavily overclocked. I would go for the extra if you can budget for it. I didn't mention it originally as the S3 was already £10 over what you stated