Best s939 mobo for Overclocking

[skillyho]

I know it's old hat now, especially with what I'm working with and what I'm after....but...I need something that supports a wide range of tweaking in all aspects (Memory voltage and timings, vCore, HTT adjusments, multpliers, etc).

I'm putting together something for the occasional weekend travel, and while I know single-core is soooo last year, I'm set on doing what can with what I have.

So...what's the board to choose? I'd prefer any links you can provide, or better yet personal experience. Actual vendors that have said board in stock are ideal.

I'll be working with a 3200+ Venice and 1GB (2x512) of Crucial Ballistix DDR500. The cooling method will be air with a Cooler Master Hyper TX2 that I snagged from NewEgg for .99 AR.

I've really enjoyed my Biostar TForce6100 mobo and it seems to offer everything I need but they're getting hard to find (new anyway, which is what I'm after) for a reasonable price.

I'll be using a spare pci-express vcard along with a 200GB SATA2 HD, DVD-ROM, old school rosewill case (same case from the first PC I ever built, no less) and a 350WT Ultra PSU I have lying around.

I have no preference in regards to mobo form factor, but I would like 4 RAM slots.

Zap, I know you have some info.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

The ECS KN1 or ECS NF4 939 don't have a lot of tweaks, but they are great overclocking board. Vcore is too coarse for some, but you don't need to do much more than 3x HTT, set RAM divider, and crank up the FSB. Board is good up to at least 300MHz.

My main rig is the KN1 with 146 Opteron at 2.97GHz.

 

[skillyho]

I see the open box version of that on the Egg for 35 bucks....tempting. I bought 3 s478 ECS open boxes back in the day and 2 outta 3 worked so I guess I have decent odds. Does the board allow setting vMem? How high?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Just checked BIOS...3.11Vdimm max. FSB in 1MHz step. These are solid boards, but I don't have a warm feeling about NewEgg open box. 50/50 if you're lucky. Note that the NF4 chipset fan can get noisy. I swapped it with a Zalman NB cooler with a small 40mm Panaflo strapped on top for additional cooling. The board is populated with 105C OST, G-Luxon, and United-Chemicon at the main power section. Good boot time with okay sound and RAID.

 

[skillyho]

Yeah just as I was adding that to my cart I got that same feeling. Thanks for the info. Should 280 FSB/HTT @ 1:1 Mem ratio be something easily handled by that board?

Those caps seem solid as long as the flow is steady through the case, so thanks for the heads up with that as well.

 

[skillyho]

Any one else?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: skillyho
Yeah just as I was adding that to my cart I got that same feeling. Thanks for the info. Should 280 FSB/HTT @ 1:1 Mem ratio be something easily handled by that board?

Those caps seem solid as long as the flow is steady through the case, so thanks for the heads up with that as well.

If board is okay, then no problem with 280MHz FSB. I can go up to 304MHz FSB (3.04GHz)...the upper stable limit of my CPU.

 

[The-Noid]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813186037

Great board with a lot of great results. I would consider it to be a reasonable price at 65$

 

[ryderOCZ]

IMO, the DFI LanParty were the best 939 boards for clocking ram, period.

They had their quirks but they can do more than any other 939 board out there. I don't see too many for sale any more, but I just might know where you could pick one up cheap

 

[skillyho]

Originally posted by: ryderOCZ
IMO, the DFI LanParty were the best 939 boards for clocking ram, period.

They had their quirks but they can do more than any other 939 board out there. I don't see too many for sale any more, but I just might know where you could pick one up cheap

Weeeeeeeeeeeeellll you got a PM.

 

[MAC5000]

Originally posted by: Yoxxy
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813186037

Great board with a lot of great results. I would consider it to be a reasonable price at 65$

Will this work with an Opteron 165?