Motherboards that support c2d and ddr ram?
- Thread starter Energize
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 Jul 2004
- Posts
- 20,344
- Location
- Stanley Hotel, Colorado
Timings dont really help, its about bandwidth with dual core and speed of course. Asrock do ddr and maybe asus. The asrock boards are budget boards but generally considered good for the money, theres threads on this forum about it
Abit IP-95:
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=329
Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA (and the older 775Dual-VSTA):
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA
Asrock 775Twins-HDTV
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Twins-HDTV R2.0&s=
There are others too.
These are articles on Anandtech about Core 2 and DDR performance, pretty well known around here:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2813
Both have the same conclusion, the performance hit is not a lot...
Tetras said:
The performance of this is WOEFUL. Avoid if you can.
Can I add the ASRock 775i65G as this uses the very quick Intel 865 chipset and actually gives excellent performance with DDR RAM and an 8x AGP graphics card.
Cairnsey said:
Stephen B sold me his because he went with the reviews on the OcUK website and thought he was getting a bargain overclocker. As it turns out it doesn't overclock and the reviews on the website are either malicious rubbish or just plain made up. Anyway - I bought it to build my Dad an mATX machine to replace his Biostar 200N. It had NForce2 graphics, 1Gb of Corsair PC3200 and an Athlon XP2600+ in it. It wasn't the fastest machine ever made but it did SuperPi in about 43 seconds.
The machine I built up had the same RAM, a PCIe 6600 graphics card (not turbocache) and an E6400 in it. The SuperPi time? 35 seconds! I stripped out the processor and used the 775i65G instead with the same RAM and the onboard Intel Extreme Graphics and the SuperPi time dropped to a more acceptable 26 seconds which then dropped to 23 seconds when I overclocked the E6400 to 2.4GHz (the maximum possible as the BIOS only goes to 300 full stop).
As far as I'm concerned the IP-95 is a very slow motherboard indeed. It only runs single channel RAM and that's possibly the reason for the appalling SuperPi, but even so, I can't think of a better way to smother a Core2Duo than to use one of those motherboards.
I have a modified 775i65G, it can be a very fast board. With a C2D you will be running a 200MHz strap on the i865 which is a shame as you loose effective PAT from booting a 133MHz strap - but it's still a good platform.
The only thing i don't like about it is that AsRock have cut corners where they realy shouldn't have.
A few suggestions would be don't put power hungry memory (i.e. TCC5/TCCD) in it, dont use more than 2 x 512MB (only has 2 DIMMs anyway) and don't push the memory hard. The biggest fault of the board is centered around memory voltage regulation. It has poor VDIMM regulation and uses series termination for all transmission lines, not active termination (Vtt) as most boards do.
It can do some overclocking. I didn't bother too much with it but did have some short lived fun:
I wouldn't recommend it as a 24/7 board, the build quality is 'ok' but the design is hairy. Too budget...
The 4CoreDual-VSTA is a much better board for safe 24/7 use, especially if overclocked. Performance is a little lower than the 775i65G but there's no such thng as a free lunch i guess
The only thing i don't like about it is that AsRock have cut corners where they realy shouldn't have.
A few suggestions would be don't put power hungry memory (i.e. TCC5/TCCD) in it, dont use more than 2 x 512MB (only has 2 DIMMs anyway) and don't push the memory hard. The biggest fault of the board is centered around memory voltage regulation. It has poor VDIMM regulation and uses series termination for all transmission lines, not active termination (Vtt) as most boards do.
It can do some overclocking. I didn't bother too much with it but did have some short lived fun:
I wouldn't recommend it as a 24/7 board, the build quality is 'ok' but the design is hairy. Too budget...
The 4CoreDual-VSTA is a much better board for safe 24/7 use, especially if overclocked. Performance is a little lower than the 775i65G but there's no such thng as a free lunch i guess
Very interesting Starfall - but I 'll bet that even at 4.4GHz that Celeron still had a 40 sec+ SuperPi time 
How have you modified the board? My father is pretty handy with a soldering iron and he's not frightened to do major surgery on a £29 motherboard.
It's nice to get some confirmation about the memory, as we tried it with a P4 531 (known good to 4GHz) as well as the E6400 and it kept falling over well inside the components specifications which we definitely suspected was the memory, but we couldn't prove it.
Do you have a 4Core-DualVSTA and can you confirm it actually overclocks core2duo's to something decent eg. 375MHz+?
Sorry for all the questions, but you seem to have the answers!
How have you modified the board? My father is pretty handy with a soldering iron and he's not frightened to do major surgery on a £29 motherboard.
It's nice to get some confirmation about the memory, as we tried it with a P4 531 (known good to 4GHz) as well as the E6400 and it kept falling over well inside the components specifications which we definitely suspected was the memory, but we couldn't prove it.
Do you have a 4Core-DualVSTA and can you confirm it actually overclocks core2duo's to something decent eg. 375MHz+?
Sorry for all the questions, but you seem to have the answers!
Replace every capacitor related to Vcore, bridge, AGP, anything that draws any significant current. It works out to about 20 caps IIRC. AsRock uses some (5?) Panasonic FJ's for Vcore but the rest are not good capacitors, i just swapped the lot.
Added some tants and ceramics to the vacant pads around the CPU and MCH too.
Dont use the on board VDIMM regulation, i replaced VDIMM with a homemade linear regulator. I think i was feeding it about ~3.2-3.4v
Put the control of VID onto dipswitches, gives you upto 1.6v IIRC. The Vcore regulator AsRock used is pretty good. If you need more than 1.6v then you'll have to cut the Vcore feedback trace and put it into a potentiometer (maybe 100 Ohms) should allow precise adjustment over VID values the controller accepts.
If you wanted to PLL modify the 775i65G that might get you into the 350MHz region on a Conroe, but thats it realy.
I dont have a 4Core-DualVSTA, but i think you'll be lucky to get toawards 400MHz on a heavilly modified board. There's some registers on that chipset which give much nicely performance IIRC, use WPCREDIT maybe, would "help" if you could get the chipset datasheet too
Added some tants and ceramics to the vacant pads around the CPU and MCH too.
Dont use the on board VDIMM regulation, i replaced VDIMM with a homemade linear regulator. I think i was feeding it about ~3.2-3.4v
Put the control of VID onto dipswitches, gives you upto 1.6v IIRC. The Vcore regulator AsRock used is pretty good. If you need more than 1.6v then you'll have to cut the Vcore feedback trace and put it into a potentiometer (maybe 100 Ohms) should allow precise adjustment over VID values the controller accepts.
If you wanted to PLL modify the 775i65G that might get you into the 350MHz region on a Conroe, but thats it realy.
I dont have a 4Core-DualVSTA, but i think you'll be lucky to get toawards 400MHz on a heavilly modified board. There's some registers on that chipset which give much nicely performance IIRC, use WPCREDIT maybe, would "help" if you could get the chipset datasheet too
Starfall said:
I showed this to my Dad and he said 'Not a problem' Bless him.
[Edit]He has just said he may have supplementary questions regarding the DIP switches[/Edit]
I draw the line (literally) at connecting two pads on an E4300 to fool it into thinking it's a E6600.
About the DIP's, you find the VID pins on the CPU mask them all with electrical tape. They are now not connected to anything.
The CPU VID pins are open collector outputs and the motherboad has pull ups to Vcc, so all you have to do is be able to switch the DIP's between open circuit and ground.
Be warned it's a lot more involved than painting the CPU package.
The CPU VID pins are open collector outputs and the motherboad has pull ups to Vcc, so all you have to do is be able to switch the DIP's between open circuit and ground.
Be warned it's a lot more involved than painting the CPU package.
Starfall said:
Yes he appreciates that - he's quite switched on for an old duffer (he makes his own valves) so that doesn't scare him. Frightens the living daylights out of me though. I don't think I'll be doing anything to my own boards, but he's really into 'improving' cheap designs - and if he fluffs it, it's only £29.
Yes, I'm fairly sure the special soldering iron is hot as we speak. It's quite funny imagining him rifling through ice-cream tubs full of capacitors muttering "I'm sure I have 471uF/63V capacitors - I bought a big bag in 1974!" 