*BEST* mobo for o/c'ing 1.6A

[DrZone]

I know that the i845D chipset is the best. I'm looking at the ASUS P4B266.

There are alot of cheaper boards from MSI and Soyo but i dont really trust them. I plan to take the 1.6A to 2.0Ghz+ and i would like the most stable solutions. I'd like to hear any experiences you might have had. Thanks !

 

[DrZone]

and i need RAID !

 

[John]

Look here

 

[DrZone]

Thanks for the link. I think i read that one over before. But i'm looking for a bit more...

 

[oldfart]

EPOX 4BDA or 4BDA2+

 

[DrZone]

interesting choice.. i've been reading about the MSI 845 Ultra-ARU. That board seems to have it all.. and a SOLID overclocker.

 

[oldfart]

EPOX is a much better board. Has PCI/AGP lock feature, 3:4 mem ratio, better Vcore adjustments. MSI has more bells and whistles, but not nearly as good an overclockers board. See what the guys @ HardOCP forums have to say.

 

[DrZone]

<< EPOX is a much better board. Has PCI/AGP lock feature, 3:4 mem ratio, better Vcore adjustments. MSI has more bells and whistles, but not nearly as good an overclockers board. See what the guys @ HardOCP forums have to say. >>



Thanks for the advice. All i really want is a promise raid function on the board. And MSI's seems to be the only one with that. And btw, that lock feature is great. Wouldnt want to damage any PCI goods !

 

[gsethi]

with MSI, you wont be able to increase the voltage over 1.6v. also look into the giga-byte board, thats what i am getting tomorrow ;-).

just heard that the only rebooting problem with the giga-byte, the fix is on the way......so....its your decision.

 

[pulse8]

<< with MSI, you wont be able to increase the voltage over 1.6v >>

I have my ARU at 1.65v.

 

[oldfart]

Every board I looked into had some little issue except the EPOX. No reboot issue, no Vcore issue, no USB port issue. The PCI/AGP lock and the 3:4 mem ratio above 133 FSB sold me. I'm not a RAID user. The EPOX comes with HPT 372 which allows use in non RAID config unlike the Promise which is RAID only.

 

[CraigRT]

why don't you read a few reviews, gather some facts.. and find out which board best suits your needs, whilst being a good overclocker..

to ask other people, you are going to get answers all over the place, and never be able to decide..

 

[308nato]

I have the 845 ARU. Running at 140fsb (2.24) at 1.575v. People poo poo this board all day long because you can't set the dividers, voltage only to 1.65v, blah blah and blah. Well, if you want extreme overclocking I wouldn't recommend it. If you want a stable board with a lot of features that work and are useful, this is it.

I have zero issues with the board. But, what the hell do I know... I just use it daily.

 

[oldfart]

140 FSB with a 1/4 divider is no big deal anyway. PCI is 35 MHz which is not a problem at all. If it were stuck @ 1/3, 46 MHz PCI would be an issue. Does the MSI have 3:4 mem option?

 

[308nato]

<< 140 FSB with a 1/4 divider is no big deal anyway. PCI is 35 MHz which is not a problem at all. If it were stuck @ 1/3, 46 MHz PCI would be an issue. Does the MSI have 3:4 mem option? >>



The MSI board has no divider options. The pci/agp folows the fsb. It resets to default at 133 which is why you should go for 133 out of the box with this board. Some say it resets again at 166 but others say it doesn't. Memory options are in bios for auto, 200 (1.1) or 266 (1.33). 1.33 is only valid up to 123fsb. At 124 and above it defaults to 200 (1.1) even if you have it set at 266 (1.33). A future bios update may address this.

So, at 140, my memory is at 140. I have 1 stick Corsair 512 XMS2400 which can go much higher than 140. If I back the fsb down below 124 and set memory at 266, my Sandra mem scores are more than impressive. At 140 set to 200 they are almost 400 points lower. I don't have them with me (at work). To a hardcore overclocker, this scenario sucks I guess. It doesn't bother me as all the FPS play just fine.

BTW, this board comes with MSI's oc utility "Fuzzy Logic". I don't use it, but, you can do this. Using Buggy Logic, you can only oc to 133fsb. You can choose 123fsb and 266 mem. After enabling this, the mem will stay at 266 up to 133 fsb if you take it there using the software overclocking. I just don't like the silly racecar dashboard crap.

EDIT: Also, another cool feature of this board is the "WatchDog" boot thing. If you choose something OCwise that won't work, bios resets to the last known good setting. If you really F it up, it will go to default settings. I have yet to look for the clear CMOS jumper. More boards are using this now and its more than useful.

 

[pulse8]

308Nato:

If you want to get away from the 1:1 divider at higher FSB speeds, get a program called CPUFSB.

Set your memory to 266 in the bios and your FSB at 100. Load this software and set it at 140Mhz. My Sandra memory scores went from around 2070 to 2700MB/s and it's totally stable. I've run Prime95 for about 20 hours and even did some intense After Effects work with no problems.

You should be able to get even further with your memory. Mine is Mushkin Basic PC2100.

Good luck!

 

[oldfart]

This is why I think the Epox is clearly the best 845 board. The PCI/AGP lock feature locks the speed @ 33/66 at any FSB 117 and above. With the 3:4 mem timing, you can get a very significant performance increase since the P4 is so mem bandwidth dependant. Even just running 133 FSB with 3:4 timing will get you 355 DDR Vs 266 1:1. 150 FSB is 400 DDR Vs 300 1:1. Of course, you need good mem to do this. I have the board, and 512 Meg Samsung PC2700. The 1.6A should be here today (I hope).

 

[DrZone]

Thanks for all your posts. I'm leaning towards the MSI board because of features amd availability in my area. If the ratio resets at 133Mhz FSB that's fine for o/c'ing - just not extreme overclocking.

 

[308nato]

<< 308Nato:

If you want to get away from the 1:1 divider at higher FSB speeds, get a program called CPUFSB.

Set your memory to 266 in the bios and your FSB at 100. Load this software and set it at 140Mhz. My Sandra memory scores went from around 2070 to 2700MB/s and it's totally stable. I've run Prime95 for about 20 hours and even did some intense After Effects work with no problems.

You should be able to get even further with your memory. Mine is Mushkin Basic PC2100.

Good luck! >>



Thanks!

 

[Athlon4all]

Abit TH7II-RAID coupled with Samsung PC800 RDRAM. This setup is nearly guaranteed to hit 533fsb at least and PC1066 speeds, and this setup, while may not overclock the CPU as high as a 845D setup, it will be faster. In other words, a Abit TH7II with a 1.6A @ 2.1 and PC1066 RDRAM will beat a 1.8A @ 2.4 on 845D/SiS 645 using PC2700 or PC2100 DDR (and it'll top a SiS 645DX with DDR400 as well)

 

[Mahamoti]

Any preference on Abit TH7-II vs Asus P4T-E? I'm going for a 'mild' o/c on a P4 1.6A... just want 133FSB with (effectively) PC1066 RDRAM. I'd like to keep the PCI/AGP clocks standard. From what I've seen, either of these boards can do this quite well. Note: I'm not lookin for RAID, just picked up a 100GB Western Digital SE drive, plenty fast enough for me .

 

[DrZone]

I heard that you get the most overclocking success with the DDR boards.

 

[Mahamoti]

It looks to me like the DDR boards o/c the processor better, but the i850 boards w/RDRAM perform better in benchmarks because of the higher memory bandwidth. If all I wanted to do was see how fast I could clock the processor, I would consider DDR. Guess I'm one of the few that still supports RDRAM technology... I think it was ahead of its time.

 

[pinkorag]

DDR boards do get to higher clock frequencies without a doubt. However overclocking on a rdram board will just destroy the ddr even if it as a higher clock rate. DDR just isn't enough bandwidth for P4(it's getting closer with ddr333 and ddr400 but it's still not rdram levels). If you got a 1.6A and just oc'ed fsb to 133 you will have better performance than a ddr board with a higher fsb and clock rate.

 

[DrZone]

I would opt for RDRAM too. But i hate the fact that u have to buy that ram in PAIRS !.. double the cost !