What mobo to get with conroe?

Kesnel said:
Ah but clock for clock the Bad Axe is slower. When people first started receiving the Asus they said it seemed snappier, now there are some tests showing that it is indeed the case.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=105418
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The guy gets 16 mins with the badaxe at speeds of 3.5ghz.

I get 16 mins 32mb super PI at 3.1ghz so his settings are not correct somewhere.
 
Air_Arms said:
Erm, its a money no object situation. So lets have a definitive choice, whats the best!
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Just because something costs a shedload of cash doesn't make it any better. I've got an ASRock 775 TWINS and and an Abit AB9 Pro and they both clock my E6700ES up to 3.6GHz at stock volts.

So that's a £40 motherboard allowing a 1GHz overclock. The Abit allows the Vcore to be adjusted, but why bother? It's £100 more to squeeze an extra 200MHz out of the chip that will probably significantly shorten it's life.

And I very much doubt you'll get a good informed opinion until there are a lot more people actually using the boards in anger.

Why not buy the £40 one to start with and then, once you've found the envelope at stock volts, buy a better one when there are a few more informed opinions about?
 
easyrider said:
The guy gets 16 mins with the badaxe at speeds of 3.5ghz.

I get 16 mins 32mb super PI at 3.1ghz so his settings are not correct somewhere.
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Probably RAM related. I'm doing 17:28 32Mp with my [email protected] in an ASRock 775TWINS and 16:02 in the Abit AB9 Pro (allows the RAM to run Dual Channel). I think if I had better RAM I could go faster, but frankly I reckon there is a long way to go yet, once we learn to fine-tune these.
 
WJA96 said:
It's £100 more to squeeze an extra 200MHz out of the chip that will probably significantly shorten it's life.
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Runnning and overclocked cpu shortens its life.I doubt that running a conroe at 3.6 or 3.8ghz would have that much of an effect.

That extra 200 mhz will no shorten the life of the cpu as running it at 3.6ghz lol

After all both are running overclocked.
 
Hey AmdPower mate.. your gonna have to change your username lol. Are do you feel dirty like me having to go back to intel lol.

We are all whores
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z

lol i will give AMD 6 months tops, and then my new name is INTELPower.

Just because something costs a shedload of cash doesn't make it any better. I've got an ASRock 775 TWINS and and an Abit AB9 Pro and they both clock my E6700ES up to 3.6GHz at stock volts.

So that's a £40 motherboard allowing a 1GHz overclock. The Abit allows the Vcore to be adjusted, but why bother? It's £100 more to squeeze an extra 200MHz out of the chip that will probably significantly shorten it's life
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was wondering could i just drop any CHIP conroe into the Ascrock TWINS?
from your post it seems to suggest that you cannot adjust voltage and that the ram runs in single Chanel?

actually i am looking for a cheap working motherboard that will not cost much and keep me till the NF5 boards get released.
 
AMDPower said:
z

lol i will give AMD 6 months tops, and then my new name is INTELPower.



was wondering could i just drop any CHIP conroe into the Ascrock TWINS?
from your post it seems to suggest that you cannot adjust voltage and that the ram runs in single Chanel?

actually i am looking for a cheap working motherboard that will not cost much and keep me till the NF5 boards get released.
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The asrock runs single channel and if its rev 2.0 will support conroe.
No vcore adjust though
 
The plus points about the ASRock are;

1. It's REALLY cheap
2. You can use your old DDR RAM if upgrading from an AMD platform or DDR2 if upgrading from an Intel platform
3. 99.9% of the additional performance is coming from the CPU so you can put a decent CPU in the cheap motherboard and you'll get most of the performance benefit without blowing the big bucks on a 'decent' motherboard as I don't think the 'decent' motherboards are out yet ;)
 
easyrider said:
The asrock runs single channel and if its rev 2.0 will support conroe.
No vcore adjust though
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Was convinced by WJA's speech and may have turned to the ASrock mobo for it's price but Single channel... blek :/
 
Single channel vs. dual channel?

You're going to have soooo much extra performance you won't notice the dual channel is missing and when you do upgrade to a dual-channel board it'll be a welcome performance boost as you'll have gotten used to the Conroe surge by that point! ;)
 
easyrider said:
Runnning and overclocked cpu shortens its life.I doubt that running a conroe at 3.6 or 3.8ghz would have that much of an effect.

That extra 200 mhz will no shorten the life of the cpu as running it at 3.6ghz lol

After all both are running overclocked.
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Yes, both are running overclocked, but the extra voltage means extra heat and therefore possibly a further reduction in lifespan. Plus it would seem sensible to me that the closer you get to the edge of the envelope, the faster the degradation occurs. But possibly not.
 
WJA96 said:
Single channel vs. dual channel?

You're going to have soooo much extra performance you won't notice the dual channel is missing and when you do upgrade to a dual-channel board it'll be a welcome performance boost as you'll have gotten used to the Conroe surge by that point! ;)
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Here's a noobish question, I know OC will depend on the FSB and without Dual channel, wouldn't that "cripple" the ability to OC further? e.g. a E6600?

I'm still learning here...
 
Not at all. On Intel systems the RAM controller is separate from the processor so you can set it to the maximum speed of the RAM and it will run at that. You won't get optimum performance because the processor may be waiting for data, but the big cache on these processors minimises that too.

I'm definitely not saying that it'll outperform a more expensive motherboard, but it does help smooth the cost of transition between AMD and Intel because (1) you can use your existing RAM and (2) someone will buy the ASRock motherboard from you for £20 in 3-6 months time - I'm certain of it. By that time, the newer motherboards will be out and at least £20 cheaper than they are now, so you break even!




By my maths anyway! :D
 
Hmm... "lucky" for me, I'm getting my pay around end of August, that's when I'll get all parts for a full system - hopefully, more benchmarks and "good mobos" are out then...

So far, the Badaxe is getting my attention and the Asus is expensive but gadget filled (I can make use with Wifi and remote to turn PC on and off)...
 
WJA96 said:
Not at all. On Intel systems the RAM controller is separate from the processor so you can set it to the maximum speed of the RAM and it will run at that. You won't get optimum performance because the processor may be waiting for data, but the big cache on these processors minimises that too.

I'm definitely not saying that it'll outperform a more expensive motherboard, but it does help smooth the cost of transition between AMD and Intel because (1) you can use your existing RAM and (2) someone will buy the ASRock motherboard from you for £20 in 3-6 months time - I'm certain of it. By that time, the newer motherboards will be out and at least £20 cheaper than they are now, so you break even!

Makes sense to me. I'm considering going intel after years with amd, but the cost of these other mobos is prohibitive atm, and the Asrock seems to fit bill perfectly feature wise (for my needs anyway) and its cheap! plus I've been building systems using these mobos for a while now and I'm impressed with the cost/performance/reliability. And it seems i can use me old memory in the meantime too.




By my maths anyway! :D
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which Asrock model you guys talking about?

i'm after Asrock motherboard that support Conroe, will support old DDR and new DDR2, with AGP and PCI-express slots, as its too early to get rid of my lovely AGP 6800GT.

but which model?

thanks
 
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