Good mobo for O/C'ing a Wolfdale E8400

[ShaidarHaran]

So I realized the cheapo ECS 945 board I bought, while it supports Penryn out of the box it has NO overclocking option and only a single channel memory controller. Also, I'm currently running just DDR2 533 memory so I'm choking that CPU right now. I'd like to replace the board with something in the ~$100 range that has decent overclockability (at least 1600FSB) that will allow me to run the RAM unlinked from the FSB. I have already ordered replacement RAM (2x2GB Geil DDR2 800 5-4-4-12) and will just run it at native speed and then O/C the FSB to hit 4GHz+ on the CPU. I've got a Wolfdale E8400 and am also ordering a Hyper TX2 to go along with this in a midtower.

I'm looking at the Abit P35-E, Gigabyte DS3L, and just about anything else on Newegg up to the ~$200 P5K Premium. I would certainly prefer to stay down around the price of boards like P35-E and DS3L though. I don't need any wonderful feature set. Raid is irrelevant to me, all I need is a nice stable board that O/Cs well. I prefer Abit and Gigabyte boards, and will not buy from MSI. I'm open to other vendors like Foxconn and ECS as well.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Albuquerque]

Anything with a P35 or X38 chipset will be fantastic.

I personally bought a Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 for my "new" rig. I started with an E6850, and with it I was able to hit 575FSB without any additional MCH (northbridge) voltage -- straight out of the box. Shortly thereafter I swapped for an E8400, and while it overclocks higher, it also has a notable FSB wall around 500-525FSB.

I bought this particular board for the dual PCI-E 2.0 16x connectors, the dual bioses, and of course Gigabyte's standard level of stability. I love this board, and if I were going to do it all again tomorrow, I'd buy the same board.

Edit
Also thought I'd note these two things:

1. The 575FSB limit in my testing was entirely the limit of the memory; no amount of timings or voltage could get the ram stable any higher. I'm willing to bet the board has more in it...

2. I'm running four sticks of 1Gb each, so the strain on the Northbridge will be even higher because of that. My 24/7 overclock is 483 FSB (4,338 Mhz) with memory at 966 4-4-4-10 at tRd 7. Memory bandwidth on this board rawks...

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Well, I went with an Abit IP35-E. Also picked up some supporting hardware, a Corsair 550VX, a Zerotherm NV120 HSF, and a couple Scythe fans (one 120MM & one 80MM). I installed the Geil RAM and oh man is it good! Got a HUGE boost in Super Pi 1M times, down from 22.9 seconds to 15.25 seconds! Can't wait to get this all together and start overclocking. I see 4GHz and ~10 second Super Pi 1M times in my future.

 

[Davros]

thats from just a mboard change ?

 

[ShaidarHaran]

thats from just a mboard change ?

I haven't changed the board yet (just ordered from the Egg last night). That's on an NV 7100 board from ECS with just a single channel memory controller and using DDR2 533. I upgraded to DDR2 800 and those are the results. I expect another second or two to drop off when I switch to the Abit P35 board.

 

[Albuquerque]

The IP35-E is a great board, did you get the $59 after rebate deal on it? I can't remember who it was exactly, but someone had a great pricetag on that board in the last few days.

And I my E8400. The Penryn refresh of the Core 2 architecture is probably the best "enthusiast refresh" of an Intel processor since the socketed P3 Celerons with 256k cache (whatever those were called)

 

[Davros]

i assumed super pi would be totally cpu dependant

 

[ShaidarHaran]

The IP35-E is a great board, did you get the $59 after rebate deal on it? I can't remember who it was exactly, but someone had a great pricetag on that board in the last few days.

$89 + shipping, I believe there is a $30 rebate on it but I never bother with those.

And I my E8400. The Penryn refresh of the Core 2 architecture is probably the best "enthusiast refresh" of an Intel processor since the socketed P3 Celerons with 256k cache (whatever those were called)

Tualatin-derived Celeron or "Tualeron". Nice procs.

i assumed super pi would be totally cpu dependant

Nope, very memory bandwidth and latency dependent, at least on Intel platforms. They love cache too

 

[Davros]

i would of thought the data for its calculations would of fitted entirely in cache

 

[Albuquerque]

i would of thought the data for its calculations would of fitted entirely in cache

A 1M calc should, a 32M calc wouldn't. Simply changing motherboards and ram shouldn't have that kind of adverse effect, unless the 945 chipset was doing other stupid things like not recognizing the 1333 FSBSel pin and thus underclocking the CPU.

The original bios on my X38-DS4 had a similar issue when I popped in my E6850 for the first time -- it booted with a 1066FSB instead of the 1333FSB. Easy to fix with the bios settings, and it was "permanently fixed" with an updated bios.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

CPU clock was 3GHz during both runs, FSB was set @ 1333 in BIOS and multi was 9x. Verified with CPU-Z during each run.

 

[Albuquerque]

Not what I'd expect to see, hmm...

 

[dubyateeeff]

Ga-p31-ds3l

I checked out GA-P31-DS3L which seems like a nice super cheap board. My only problem is that it doesn't support the E8400 by default. Correct me if I am wrong but I will be unable to do anything with the PC except enter BIOS if the CPU isn't supported. It does say it supports Q-flash - ie flashing BIOS from BIOS - which should work, but the Q-flash PDF says you need to supply the BIOS on a floppy... I removed my floppy drive 1999! No indications that you can load the BIOS from a flashdrive. Any ideas?

EDIT: finally got the manual down (slow d/l) for the mobo which mentions flash drives and fatxx harddrives , so it is all cool

 

[ShaidarHaran]

If the CPU you place in your mobo is not explicitly supported by the BIOS it is currently running, there is a distinct chance the system will not POST.

 

[Sxotty]

Tualatin-derived Celeron or "Tualeron". Nice procs.

I never got anything since near that good 533->800MHz I think was the norm

The Athlon mobile cpus went from 1.8-->2.6GHZ though.

I haven't even tried to OC my e6700 though or anything much recently.

 

[Putas]

No overclocking options? ECS-945 I remembered had some, but bootable fsb topped at 240. Have you tried Systool?

 

[ShaidarHaran]

why the hell did I say 945? it's actually an nf7100 board. man, I looked at too many cheapo boards that day and don't even remember which one I actually got.

 

[Putas]

It would be a shocker to have Penryn ready i945 board
I second recommendation of GA-P31-DS3L (update bios first), I could not get it over 425 MHz FSB stable but for the money...

 

[ShaidarHaran]

It would be a shocker to have Penryn ready i945 board
I second recommendation of GA-P31-DS3L (update bios first), I could not get it over 425 MHz FSB stable but for the money...

The IP35-E I have now does 430x9 stable and was only $90 @ Newegg.