what's a good micro atx board for overclocking an E4300 core 2 duo cpu?

[Phokus]

I was going to build an atx tower, but now i'm thinking of going micro-atx to save space. What's a good mobo to get for this? Thanks.

 

[keeleysam]

The Abit F-I90HD is a great board.

 

[Zap]

Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R

Too bad they don't seem to be for sale yet outside of Asia. However, they ARE coming. These are the IGP version of the new Intel "Bearlake" chipset. They "officially" support 333/1333MHz FSB and the guy posting at the link above got his up to 450MHz. One limitation is that with a 200MHz CPU like the E4300, the lowest multiplier for RAM is 5/4 (533MHz) so at 400MHz the RAM is pushed to DDR2 1000 levels already. This means 3 things:

1) Get faster rated RAM
2) Hope for a BIOS update that allows 1/1 ratio
3) Do BSEL mod and hope it works

Other than this and other upcoming boards with these chipsets, the Abit is the current king at around 365MHz (if the board you get doesn't die on you like what happened to so many people). A lesser possibility is the ASRock ConRoe1333-DVI/H which uses the 945G chipset. Though the chipset only supports up to 266/1066MHz FSB, ASRock claims it can do 333/1333MHz FSB as a factory overclock, and a reviewer at OCWorkbench got his to 350MHz. I ordered one last week from Mwave for around $75, making it a really budget overclocker for hitting around 3GHz. It's a tossup on whether the extra money is better spent on a board that can do a higher FSB or a chip with a higher multiplier like the E4400.

 

[Phokus]

thanks for the info guys