Best P43 based motherboard for overclocking...

[Lonyo]

I'm looking at an E5200 with OCZ Gold 2x2GB DDR2 800Mhz (5-5-5-18) on a DS3R and hoping to hit ~3.5GHz, or at least 3.2GHz.

Any potential RAM/Mobo issues, should I look at getting some different RAM?

The options I am looking at (in the UK) for under £80 are:

MSI P43 Neo-F
ASUS P5QL (or SE or PRO or E)
Foxconn P43A
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L

I am assuming that apart from fewer PCIe lanes and only support for DDR2 800 and not 1066 the P43 and P45 are pretty much the same, and I don't need 2 PCIe x16 slots, so I don't feel the need for a P45 board unless I am going to struggle to hit a (lowly) 280MHz FSB on a P43.

 

[Concillian]

there is very little a board can do to make itself stand out when overclocking a processor that really only needs 280MHz FSB. There's not really any functional difference between them in terms of performance. There's really no need for even anything special in terms of BIOS options (except CPU and RAM voltage, but those are hardly special).

Buy the board with the layout you like best or the other features, or the price, whatever.

I think the P5QL-E has 8-phase power while others have 4, but I doubt an e5200 on air is going to pull so much current that it will at all benefit from having 8-phase power.

 

[zerocool84]

I have the Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L running my E6300 @ 2800MHz just fine. I would choose that over the rest.

 

[Xcobra]

I have the GA EP43 running my Q6700 at 3.4GHz...just depends on what youre looking for in a board.