Which MATX Motherboard Is best At Overclocking At Moment?

Ambro

Ambro

Ambro

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I am thinking about getting a matx motherboard and a the silverstone TJ08 case but i'm not sure which motherboard to go for.

At the moment it is either;

Asus P5B-VM Micro ATX
Abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD ATI Micro ATX

Which do you think is the best out of these or are there any other which are better? It is for a Core2Duo E6400.
 
The Abit Fatal1ty is the better clocker by a mile :)

However, there have been numerous reports of this board dieing when overclocked. Though it only appears to affect those that overclock with integrated graphics?

I think like various other Abit boards on the market, this one is also in urgent need of a new BIOS to fix unresolved issues, but it seems Abit have been a bit lazy with updates lately :confused:

Mul
 
The ASUS will do about 300FSB and the Abit about 350FSB. The ASUS has no PCIe lock, so you can forget overclocking on that. The Abit will lock both the PCIe and PCI busses so with an E4300 you may be able to get 3.15GHz and 3.5GHz with an E4400 (although as they're not actually released, that's pure informed guesswork on my part).

I wouldn't put an E6400 in either if these boards as you'll get a very poor overclock 2.4GHz P5B-VM or 2.8GHz (maybe) with the Abit.
 
I would be happy with 350mhz FSB though which means the cpu would run at 2450mhz I believe. Is that a good overclock for the Abit motherboard or should I try and get more? Also what is the PCI bus overclock for, i'm new to overclocking so am not sure about some things still. :)

(Edit) I made a mistake in the first post, I meant to say that it is an E6300 that I am going to get.
 
Ambro said:
I would be happy with 350mhz FSB though which means the cpu would run at 2450mhz I believe. Is that a good overclock for the Abit motherboard or should I try and get more? Also what is the PCI bus overclock for, i'm new to overclocking so am not sure about some things still. :)

(Edit) I made a mistake in the first post, I meant to say that it is an E6300 that I am going to get.
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The E6300 is a decent chip, but, in that board, an E4300 will be faster.

There is some wall in the Abit's make-up that stops it clocking beyond 350MHz. Pretty much all CPU's will run 350MHz so it's the motherboard that is stopping the overclocking beyond 350MHz, you should be able to hit it easily I would say.
 
To get the faster speed would I have to unlock the multiplier on the E4300 as I heard that it is not possible on the other core2duo's, or is it because the e4300 is already set at a higher multiplier?

(Edit) Also how could I get to 350mhz on the e4300, that would mean the cpu would be running at 3150mhz as I worked out it must be set at a nine times multiplier which would be a bit unstable wouldn't it?
 
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Ambro said:
To get the faster speed would I have to unlock the multiplier on the E4300 as I heard that it is not possible on the other core2duo's, or is it because the e4300 is already set at a higher multiplier?
Click to expand...

They only unlock downwards, and you don't want that anyway.

Ambro said:
(Edit) Also how could I get to 350mhz on the e4300, that would mean the cpu would be running at 3150mhz as I worked out it must be set at a nine times multiplier which would be a bit unstable wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

The stock multiplier is 9x and you will find that the CPU will run harder than 350MHz FSB, but that motherboard will almost certainly hold it back. The big difference between the E6300 and the E4300 is you will be using a much higher voltage to get 3.15GHz (maybe as much as 1.45V) so you need a good cooler (Scythe Ninja/Noctua/Thermalright Ultra-120).

If you can keep it cool, 3.15GHz is pretty conservative for an E4300, 3.4GHz is quite common and 3.6GHz has been done with water cooling. If you cool it properly, stability should not be an issue, I promise.
 
Looks like that is the best one for me to get then :) , although I just noticed overclockers has got some more which are due in soon that sound pretty good, the E4400 and the E6320, should I wait for one of these instead?
 
I would wait and see the prices on Monday or Tuesday. The E6420 is available for £116 delivered which is a very good deal. E4400's are only about £95 delivered most places and the rumour is that the E4300 will be about £80 on or after Monday.

Ask again on Monday. If I had to buy today - E6420 is the best deal.
 
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