A Good AM2 Board for OC'ing

[imported_inspire]

I ran a quick search on this forum and found nada. I'm looking to build an AM2 system and OC a 3800+ X2 up to at least 2.6 GHz (600 MHz or 30% Overclock). The original board I was looking at, an MSI K9N Neo-F, I found after some digging doesn't OC well.

I don't need SLi, and I would like to not have to spend more than $100 - do you guys have any suggestions? All the AM2 Mobo Reviews I'm finding that involve OC'ing are using like $200 SLi boards like Foxconn and Asus.

 

[996GT2]

My MSI K9N Platinum OCs very well with my 3500+. Currently I'm only doing 2.66 GHz on stock volts, but my CPU has been OC'd past 3.3 GHz, so I'm sure it could do 3 GHz stable with some more voltage. Also the criticism of its passive chipset cooling isn't too much of an issue in a case with good airflow. I have a modded CM Wave Master with dual 80mm intakes and the NB has never even come close to overheating.

 

[imported_inspire]

Originally posted by: 996GT2
My MSI K9N Platinum OCs very well with my 3500+. Currently I'm only doing 2.66 GHz on stock volts, but my CPU has been OC'd past 3.3 GHz, so I'm sure it could do 3 GHz stable with some more voltage. Also the criticism of its passive chipset cooling isn't too much of an issue in a case with good airflow. I have a modded CM Wave Master with dual 80mm intakes and the NB has never even come close to overheating.

Good info! That helps a lot more than most of the reviews - I saw a review of that board that dissed the OC'ing abilities because they only got an 8% OC out of a 5000+ - I mean, they didn't give themselves much headroom, did they?

EDIT: I've seen some good stuff on the Asus M2N-E's OC'ing abilities, too - any of you guys disagree?

 

[jgigz]

I have the abit SLI board it would have good features had the bios not been crap, they have fixed the bios to allow more mem options and the cpu options are fine atm but the bios revision 12 currently crashes the boards. I also had the biostar tforce 550 but it fails to recognize anything past 2.0ghz, dunno if they have a bios revision to fix that but if they do that would be amazing they have so many oc'ing features with that. Not sure with the msi but biostar has it to where you can save your current bios config and if you try to push it to the next level it will load what you saved as default if any errors occur. Like i said it doesnt recognize anything past 2.0ghz (even if you change the mult to 12x like its supposed to be) but if there is a bios update that would fix that it would be an amazing oc'ing board for well under 100$. If you happen to find out if the new bios does fix the cpu speed, please let me know.

Hope i helped.

 

[acegazda]

the asus m2n-e is a great looking board that is supposed to oc very well. Asus' bios are probably the best. The board is $98 and has a passive heatpipe chipset cooling system. The board accepts ddr2-800, but is pretty picky about which ones. For instance, it does not accept OCZ platinum. I'm not sure about OCZ gold... I do know that corsiar XMS2 works very well with it. All in all, it's basically the same board feature-wise as the k9n platinum, but provides better ocing abilities.

 

[customcoms]

Wait for DFI if you want a really good board. If you need it now the ASUS sounds pretty good, or the biostar if they get a new bios out.