S775 MATX Mobos

jellybeard999 · 31 Dec 2007 at 19:38

I got my MATX rig a while ago, and love the silence and compact size. At the time, the mobo situation wasn't great, so i got an Asus P5L-MX which seemed the best bet.

Has the situation changed ?

I want overclockability and plenty of sata ports (4 hdds atm and a sata optical when bluray or hddvd is cheaper). Quad Core support ideally, as my current board is 945 based.

Thanks

Tute · 31 Dec 2007 at 19:46

The Gigabyte G33M-DS2R is the best all round mATX board for Core 2. It has good overclocking options, it's packed with features, and has support for the new 45nm processors due early next year.

The Asus P5K-VM is also another very good performer, on par with the Gigabyte board above. However it's a bit more expensive, which is why the DS2R is the better choice.

If you're planning on overclocking a Core 2 Duo E2*** series chip though, get the Asus. If you use one of these CPUs with the DS2R, you'll find overclocking harder due to the lack of a 1:1 memory divider, the Asus doesn't have this problem though.

If you're going quad though, just get the DS2R.

jellybeard999 · 31 Dec 2007 at 19:56

I have an E4300 at the moment, and will get a Q6600 (or similar) at some point

Tute · 31 Dec 2007 at 21:24

Gigabyte G33M-DS2R should be fine then.

With the right cooling, it should overclock as well as a full ATX board.

mattyrigby00 · 31 Dec 2007 at 21:35

the 4300 is 800fsb too so will have the same overclocking issue as the e2xxx

musx64 · 31 Dec 2007 at 21:38

yes the ds2r is good.

Tute · 31 Dec 2007 at 22:53

mattyrigby00 said:
the 4300 is 800fsb too so will have the same overclocking issue as the e2xxx

I was under the impression that only the E2*** processors suffered from this problem, and that it was down to the model number, not the FSB.