OC Potential of MB: A function of chipset mainly???

[mjavid]

Hi,
After going through a number of MB reviews, though mostly P35, it seems to me that the most important overall factor for a 'moderate' OC seems to be the chipset (Northbridge) rather than the specific MB used.

Of course, if going to extremes or pushing voltages is concerned, the quality of components in the MB will matter.

Put another way, to OC my Q6600 to 3 GHz at stock voltages, could I have gotten away with a cheap MSI P35 Neo (NOT Neo-2!) rather than my IP35 Pro???!


M Javid

 

[myocardia]

Actually, the quality of the components matters alot, when overclocking quads. Quite a few people already have had cheap motherboards die on them, with overclocked quads. And when I say cheap, I don't mean inexpensive, I mean cheap components/build quality of the board. I'm sure you could have gotten away with the P35 Neo, but who knows how long the board would hold up, in other words.

 

[Boyd117]

What kind of quality and oc potential does the ASUS P5K vanilla motherboard have?

 

[myocardia]

Any Asus motherboard that costs >$100 always has good quality. And after looking around on Google, it seems the P5K vanilla overclocks just fine.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Most boards fail due to bad caps. Inductors are resistors rarely go up in smoke unless there is a design issue. 2nd failure mode is the power section. The other major components are the same regardless of brand name.

I'm not aware of any MB on the market that does not need active cooling when push hard with a quad. All the EXPENSIVE P35 boards use passive cooling. These boards still need cold air to flow over the fins to remove heat.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Boyd117
What kind of quality and oc potential does the ASUS P5K vanilla motherboard have?

I had all sorts of problems trying to keep my Q6600 stable@3.1 with my P5K. It also won't do 4 sticks of memory@rated 400 mhz with loose timings, I hate the board. I got the DQ6, and now I am stable@3.3 ! The quality components, and good cooling solution of the DQ6 make it perfect for quads.

And I killed a DS3 with a quad. Was perfectly stable@3.2 for a month, then just died totallyt, won't even post with any chip !

 

[Boyd117]

sweet deal, I only plan on having this board till the GF9's are out then its time for an upgrade