Should I get a new mobo?

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

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22 Jan 2010
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So at the beginning of the week I recieved an asus 5850, 4gb rip jaw ddr3 1600, eco coolit cpu watercooler. This is my mobo

The idea was to replace my 8gb of 667 ddr2 so that I would be able to overclock my cpu and hopefully put off needing to upgrade for a while. I had to reset my cmos to get my board to accept the ram and in the process it managed to wipe it's MAC address information. So now I get an annoying message when I boot up that I have to manually navigate past as well as my onboard ethernet connection no longer working.

I sent a message to asrock about it and they sent me soem boot utility to reset my mac address. I've managed to get it to boot from it and it runs like it should. I can't for the life of me actually get it to change my mac address so I've kind of given up with that.

This is admitedly just a minor irritation and I could get a pci network card. However I've also found that it's just plain rubbish for over clocking espiecally with ddr3. Heres an article that basically sums up my problems http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asrock-4core1600p35-wifi_7.html

The highest I can get my cpu is 3.2ghz. Basically I'm pretty annoyed with my mobo right now and want to get a new one. DDR3 775 are aparently not very common. The only two suitable ones I could find were:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-284-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1050

Which is ridiculously expensive for a board I will have to ditch when I finally come to upgrading my cpu.

and this

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-371-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1050

Which I found elseware instock for £125 with p&p.

So I've got the option of either just sticking with what I've got, leaving my cpu at 3.2 and my ram at 800 and putting up with the annoying mac error.

Or

Spending another £125 on a new mobo. Which means I would have spent £100 ram + £60 cooler + £125 trying to save money not upgrading my cpu! On the other hand it has cross fire support :)

Should I just stick with what I've got for the time being? Or should I get a new board, so I can push my cpu further and possibly get cross fire later on? And if so, is that asus a good choice? Another point to take in is I do have the money for it right now and I might not in 6 months time as I will be at uni away from home and paying for a flat.
 
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Whatever you decide, do not buy a X38/48 board for your Q9450 as they are rubbish at clocking 45nm quads. For some reason they become fsb limited with them. For clocking a 45nm quad you need a P45 board which is why i am in the process of swapping my X48 board out for the P45 board that was in my second rig.
 
pastymuncher said:
Whatever you decide, do not buy a X38/48 board for your Q9450 as they are rubbish at clocking 45nm quads. For some reason they become fsb limited with them. For clocking a 45nm quad you need a P45 board which is why i am in the process of swapping my X48 board out for the P45 board that was in my second rig.
Click to expand...

:(

I can't find any P45 boards that support ddr3 though only P43 and x48 ones.

I think I'm gonna try and find one of these

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=303&Itemid=69

Not having much luck
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If someone knows where to get one could they send me a message in trust ;)
 
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have you tried google shopping?
lately i find these shopping search sites usually bring something decent up, even if 90% of the hits are companies/retaillers that no-ones heard of before (i took the risk and got my phenom from one of said places as they were pretty much the only place that had it in stock at launch. lucky for me they came through pretty quickly)
 
I found a couple on google shopping with availability "dispatched with 1 to 2 weeks" so I sent them messages confirm wether they could actually get hold of them.
 
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