Overclocking: not as complicated as it looks?!

[glitch]

I'm having a dilemma. I need a motherboard to look after my Opteron 165/170 (could be either), OCZ PC4000 Platinum and X1800XT. I started off wanting the Asus Premium (passive cooling, optical out, SATA 2, decent overclocking abilities) moved to the Asus A8N32 Deluxe (all of the above but more of the latter) then was swayed by the DFI Expert (not passive, no Optical but SATA 2 and highly overclockable) and now I'm back to square one again.

I don't want to go loopy with the Opteron and the OCZ, but I'd like a 'middle of the road' overclock and get at least 2.4GHz out of her. If I got the memory @ 1:1 then I'd be happy, but I'll gladly tinker and see what I can learn as I go along.

Passive cooling isn't a must have, but I'd like a reasonable quiet system (OK, it'll never be silent) and the less fans I have going the better, right? Optical out might not be a big deal; while I'd like it onboard as it saves me having to buy an extra soundcard, I'll have to buy one eventually so it could be now if push came to shove.

But when we get to overclocking potential my lack of knowledge shows.

From what I've read of the DFI boards (both the Expert and the RDX200CF, if the latter is actually any cop) they are more suited to people who like to spend their weekends tinkering with the BIOS than people who want to get a little extra from their kit. As in me.

Am I right to be wary? Having only recently begun to understand the very basics of overclocking I'm worried about getting out of my depth by buying a board (DFI) that gives me almost too much scope. And am I right to think that 2.4GHz from an Opteron 165 is a 'little extra'?!

 

[Boah]

I don't want to go loopy with the Opteron and the OCZ, but I'd like a 'middle of the road' overclock and get at least 2.4GHz out of her. If I got the memory @ 1:1 then I'd be happy, but I'll gladly tinker and see what I can learn as I go along.

If you're looking at a 'middle of the road' overclock, I'd say go for one of the Asus boards. The A8N32 clocks nearly as well, if not just as well, as the DFI board, and even if it doesn't clock as well it might be a little bit more stable (stability is the key word of the Asus brand).

Am I right to be wary? Having only recently begun to understand the very basics of overclocking I'm worried about getting out of my depth by buying a board (DFI) that gives me almost too much scope. And am I right to think that 2.4GHz from an Opteron 165 is a 'little extra'?!

No matter which board you go for, the Asus or the DFI, you'll have a quality board that will clock very well. Also, no matter what board you go for, I think at first you'll find the available options in the BIOS a bit bewildering and confusing. It takes some getting used to, and there is a learning curve involved, but once you get the hang of it it's really quite straight forward.

You could probably clock the 165 further than 2.4, but it's when you start reaching the limit it gets a bit time consuming trying to tune the overall system for the last push. Many boards will give you the middle of the road overclocks, not so many will give you the option to eek out the very last drop of the CPU and the RAM.

You won't go wrong with either board, and I wouldn't worry about being overwhelmed. You should decide on features you want / need, and obviously price if that's a deciding factor.