Best non DFI board for overclocking (single PCI-E only) ?

Soldato
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As title, if I am not worried about dual card support for either brand, which is going to be the best non DFI board for overclocking ?

I was looking at the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra, not too badly priced and reviews seem favourable for OC ... but then the board I have had rave reviews and isn't that good :(

So any opinons on the MSI board, or other recommendations ?

Before anyone asks, the reason I dont want DFI ,is firstly I dont like the RMA arrangements, and secondly the price ;)
 
Soldato
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Well Thats good to know I wasn't far out :)
I think the main prob with my current board is lack of voltage (only goes up to 1.4 plus 10%) and the fact I cant get T1 @ 500DDR on my Corsair PC4000, not sure if that entirly the mobo, but it is a reported issue I think (current mobo is A8R-MVP).
 
Soldato
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The ASUS A8N-SLI Premium is well worth the *little* extra. You may not want SLI now, but whos to say you might not want it in 6 months. Also its a totally passive board and comes with eight sata ports!

If you cant cough up the extra then the ASUS A8N-E is a very capable board. My mate has one running 315HTT which is respectable!

Basically get the Premium, its a bomb proof mobo!
 
Soldato
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I know, I just sold one :)
No ... I have been down the SLi and Crossfire routes, one fast card is anough for me :)
 
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I bought the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra when it was in this week only a few weeks ago to go along with the X1800XT that was on sale as well. Its been a great board so far, rock solid. Im running an X2 3800+ @ 250 x 10 1.45v and Corsair 1GB DDR XMS4400C25PT @ 250Mhz, 1T. Seems a decent enough board to me.
 
Soldato
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After initially deciding to live with the current board ... i changed my mind today and ordered the MSI Neo4 and a nice WD 250 gb 16mb sataII HD to go with .... just hope it likes my Corsair pc4000 :o
 
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I'm running an MSI Neo 4 Ultra and it's a great board. Stable as they come and it's running my 3000 winnie at 2.55Ghz on stock volts. Has more features than you can shake a stick at, 7.1 audio, firewire, 6 usb ports + 2 more internal headers, 8 SATA ports.

Not much more to say about it, thats a good thing I suppose!
 
Soldato
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Ahh, Bliss :) T1 up to DDR520 at least (not tried beyond yet) and only 1.4 v to get prime stable 2.6 on my Opty 175 (actually 1.4 plus 3.3% in bios but CPUZ reports 1.392-1.402).
When I get chance I might see how far this Opty and the Mem will go ... but so far so good :)
 
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Should've got the MSI K8N Diamond Plus (although £140). The reviews are great and it's overclocking abilities (bios) match the DFI boards. Love it!!
 
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Soldato
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Sorry to buy in here, but I have also just received the MSI K8N Neo4-F. It will replace my K8N Neo2 Platinum ( Closest boards I can find but PCI instead of AGP )

Anyway, with all my NF3 Boards, that have 4 SATA Ports, I have found that 2 are locked and 2 are unlocked... I have also found that when this is the case, the 2 SATA ports that are near the CPU are locked, the others that are in a nice position, are unfortunately not.

The 4 Sata ports on this board are all together, so does this mean that thay are all unlocked or all locked, or is it the same as the others... I dont know?
 
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Epox 9npaJ sli here - with out additional raid or firewire (still have nvraid 4 sata II ncq ports, lots of USB port, alc850 audio). I run it at 300fsb 24/7 for 4 months. Had a 146 at 3Ghz with 1.625v, but dropped it down to 2.7Ghz 1.6v with lower noise fan on xp-120. Ram voltage up to 3.2v and supports quad SLI with 2nd to last bios.

In reference to the post above, I dont know what a locked sata port is.
 
Soldato
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Dont know what locked is?

Well, ok, how can I explain this easily then?

Right, the PCI slots have a setspeed of 33MHZ right.

The AGP Port has a speed of 66 ok?

Well, if you overclock a PC, then you push the FSB higher right? ( Lets ignore the Multiplier for now )

Ok, so lets say your CPU is set to an FSB of 100, then the PCI Bus is exactly one third of that CPU's FSB and the AGP is two thirds....

In reality, the PCI is 33.3 and the AGP is 66.6 and this 100FSB is actually 99.9.

Now, lets say that the FSB is pushed up to 110, then the PCI will be at a third of that, which is a lot more than 33.3, its actually 36.6, and the same with the AGP... Thats now gone up to 73.2

So, as you see, you are now overclocking your PCI and AGP Cards now too!


Well, with a lot of motherboards, they lock the Buses, so that the PCI slot stays at 33.3 and the AGP stays at 66.6

Well, on the MSI NEO2 Platinum, and the DFI LanParty 250UT, they have 4 SATA Ports, and 2 of those ports are locked at this 33.3 and the other 2 are not.

So, when you overclock using those 2 boards ( And many others mind you ) then you need to avoid using SATA ports 1 & 2 otherwise you will actually be sort of overclocking any hard disks conected to them.

I have tried to make that simple, but I can give you a more thorough explanation if you wish?

Thats basically what I meant by locking the SATA Ports?

Another thing to note, is that in my DFI LP250UT I am running 4 SATA Drives, and 2 are one the motherboard, and another 2 are using a SATA PCI Card, because if I used the other SATA Ports on the board instead of the PCI Card, I would have a lot of corruption and data loss, but as it is, I am able to take the CPU up to 2.6 fairly easily and even beyond that, but its a bit flaky TBH.
 
Soldato
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I know full well what a locked pci bus ect is just never heard of someone saying the sata port itself is locked.

You are talking about nforce3 boards? The OP is asking for the best overclocking board excluding DFI, so at least nforce4 should be chosen.

Epox does a good variety of board, the 9npaj sli was cheap enough for me, but there will be a model with only 1 pci-e slot.

I actually went Epox for nforce4 due to the shocking bios disaster the nforce2 models were. From the limited posts Ive read about dfi nforce4 its still just as flakey.

Epox is reliable however. It cold boots and doesnt through a wobbly if u overclock too far. Even the bios savior I bought for nforce2 fitted the board, and came in handy after a bad flash.
 
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megatron said:
I know full well what a locked pci bus ect is just never heard of someone saying the sata port itself is locked.
QUOTE]

Yes, I assumed you would know, I was surprised to think that you didnt. My explanation was a bit poor too, but I find it hard to explain something thats so simple to many.

The Sata ports are not locked as such, but the Sata ports are on the PCI bus, which may or may not be locked!!! - And on some motherboards I have, 2 of the 4 Sata ports are locked in at 33.3 and the other 2 are not, so they overclock, causing instability, so, on that score, yes, the Sata ports may or may not be locked.

This is all I wanted to know.



megatron said:
You are talking about nforce3 boards? The OP is asking for the best overclocking board excluding DFI, so at least nforce4 should be chosen.

Ok, yes, those 2 are NF3 Boards... I have a few that do this locked / unlocked jobbie.





megatron said:
Epox does a good variety of board, the 9npaj sli was cheap enough for me, but there will be a model with only 1 pci-e slot.

Its been a while since getting an Epox TBH, so I cannot comment on them. I have to say that MSI for me have been nearly every bit as good as DFI for clocking, and are half their price, or less!

Hence me askign about the Neo4's Sata ports.

This board only has one PCIE slot... It also has 4 PCI slots too, but the top one is so close, that even with a wafer thin PCIE card that I have, it would leave 2mm for the air flow???- I dont think so! - I am not using the top PCI slot.
 
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