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Motherboard Upgrade Question

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4od

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
Location
Westchester, NY
After buying a 775-Dual VSTA as a transitional board into the world of dual core, and now having my e6400 running at about 20c idle, i'm furious that this ASrock POS starts having trouble around 310-315 FSB, and i am truly unsatisfied with my laughable 2.5 ghz OC. To get to the point, i am going to buy a new motherboard as soon as i round up the funds, basically 2-3 weeks.

So heres the story (don't look at the sig, a bit outdated) <- EDIT: Updated sig

ASRock hunk-a-junk :mad:

e6400

XMS 184-pin DDR PC3200 2x512 1gb

PCI-E XFX 7900 GS

LSI 20320-R SCSI Controller

WMP11 Wireless adapter


Do you think it is possible to find a decent conroe-supporting motherboard that also supports old school DDR memory?

If not, what is the best combination of conroe supporting motherboard and DDR2 RAM that would come to a total price around (or under) 250$. The budget isnt super flexible, but could be brought up a good 75$ if necessary.

OC is very important to me, i've never had a computer that didnt have a CPU bottlenecked by a sub-par mobo, and i wan't to change that. Good voltage control, as well as proper RAM dividers is an absolute must.

Thanks is advance

P.S. - Anybody have luck with this mobo?
 
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The asrock DDR board didn't make it to the US market so, unless you know someone in asia that can help you out with the 865 chipset board, Ill have to recomend a cheap DDR2 board. btw.. it might be lack of voltage limiting your OC on that board.. there is a pad mod guide over at VRzone articals section (just click on prosessors on the left and scroll down)

these wont hold you back.. they both have more FSB and frequency then you'll need 500+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138037

and these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820150053

that comes to a little under your DDR2 combo buget so you should have enough for shipping and handling :)
 
Just wondering, how does the tforce OC?

And would 50$ be worth it to get the 650i Asus board for future quad-core compatability, as well as SLI compatability?
 
it OC's very well, for alot of people but consistancy migh be an issue for high FSB (but you only need around 450FSB so you should be cool)
If I was to upgrade, it would be to get a mobo with Matrix raid, and I havn't seen the deluxe model of the Tforce in the US (the only one within striking distance of your budget with Matrix raid)

yea yea.. you have scsi, but SATA raid on matrix raid is something else, you should check out the sticky in the storage section ;)

I don't know if the i650 OC's for beans yet, that and its an NV chipset (should come with a caution lable for advanced users only)

And there are many arguments that SLI and crossfire are only usefull for either the best cards out, or a wicked bargan that might happen once in a blue moon. selling your old card and buying a better single card will nearly always win out price/performance wise.
 
Good point on the SLI, with DX10 cards probably going mainstream in the next 6 months or so, i doubt i'll want to buy TWO 300$ or so cards if i only need one to play all the cutting-edge games.

450 should be enough for me, and i saw a mention of 505 with an e6400 on newegg... could be BS, or it could be a chance for me to be in the conroe 4ghz club :drool:

Thanks a bunch for your input greenmaji, i feel a hell of a lot more confident now that my purchase is approved, or basically picked out, by a respected senior member.

The money rounding up has already begun, just sold a kiddy toy i got for christmas 4-5 years ago for 50$ (eBay), best part is my mom wants me to clean out my closet, so she does everything possible to make me selling old toys easier, and she gets super discount shipping through her workplace (IBM R&D)
 
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No problem.

You need to push the Vcore pretty hard to get 4Ghz, 1.65ish and a very good air or better and very cool room temps would help (with air).

btw.. your SCSI controller is PCI-X, might as well ebay that while your at it (going retail is about ~$155)
 
If i ebay my SCSI conroller, i'd have to replace my blazing 15k RPM drive... but still, that whole SCSI setup cable, controller, and drive was a bit over 400$ retail, you think i could ebay the whole thing off for like 200-250, then buy a nice SATA drive and use the leftover to help afford the mobo/RAM?

i do have a nasty old 20gb 5400 RPM IDE thing lying around... maybe i could use that until i have money for a decent hard drive...
 
when I looked up the model number I got PCI-X cards, wich wouldnt work in the motherboard I picked out for you OR the one your using now.. so Im wondering what the heck you have right about now.

Full parts list on the SCSI setup and Ill see what I can do for aproximating ebay value and what HD's to replace it with/or not (and if it would help performance at all)
 
PCI-X was an attempt to improve the performance of PCI slots, but it only caught on on a few server boards. Many companies realized that few people would buy a PCI-X card unless they had the right slots, so they made PCI-X backward compatible with PCI, but you can't take advantage of the extra bandwith. Laymans terms - PCI-X cards work with PCI slots

Hitachi Ultrastar 36.7gb 15k RPM SCSI drive

Generic round 3-point ultra 320 68-pin SCSI Cable

LSI 20320-R PCI-X to SCSI adapter

thats all i have, i had been thinking about saving up for a second drive to put into RAID 0, but i never really cared enough to try it.
 
could you run some benchmarks on that drive so I can see how its performing set up in the PCI slot like that?

ATTO 256Kversion, HDTune and HDTach just for fun.
 
Heres my HD Tune scores, i did it last night but was too tired to post them

Transfer Rate
Minimum-65.5MB/sec
Maximum-83.2 MB/sec
Average-78.1 MB/sec

Acces Time - 5.6 ms

Burst Rate- 64.0 MB/sec

CPU usage 1.2%


Just wondering, how are those scores (how do they compare to a SATA rig)?
 
I get the following on my e6400 rig @ stock speed.

Transfer Rate
Minimum-82MB/S
Maximum-160MB/S
Average-132MB/S

Access Time-11.95ms
Burst-179.4MB/s
CPU usage-5%

That on a 2x320GB Sgate Perp RAID 0 SATA Array.

I'll run a test on the single Maxtor 300GB SATA drive I have hooked up to the same system later and post that up.
 
your seeks are going to be pretty hard to beat.. you might want to check with someone that has a 16mb cache Raptor (or Raid0'd raptors).

but the transfer rates and the bursts looked to be bottlenecked by the PCI bus
 
Hmm.. i right now have a little under 300$ bucks in my hands...

I really don't want to go through all the trouble of selling the SCSI rig and buying a SATA HD, but will the performance gain be worth the trouble? (from a pure gaming point of view) will there even BE a siginificant performance gain?

I was eyeing THIS hardrive, mainly for the 16mb cache at such a low price point
 
I like this one for budget SATA drives
160GB platter dencity and 2 heads per platter (one for each side)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145129

And firmware optimized for single user preformance.

but.. to get similar seek times.. a similar sized 16mb Raptor would be more approprate.

only way to improve the seeks on a 7200RPM is Matrix raid, they say 8.5ms, if thats even close you MIGHT be able to sqeeze it down to 7ms on the Raid0 array.
 
ne1 know when the tforce 965pt deluxe is coming out?

or maybe i should just buy a better board that has matrix raid...


1 more question, is it worth saving for another gig of RAM, or should i use that money for a better mobo?
 
Its actuall model name is Biostar TForce 965P Deluxe.. and its out elsewere but not online in the states so :shrug:

It depends on your overclocking goals wich motherboard you pick that has matrix raid, you can check up on how well the current revision of the Abit AB9-Pro is doing to see how well it will match up with your 8 mulitplier. Only 100% safe bet would be the P5B-Deluxe non-wifi for your multi, the Asus P5W-DH would come close (both matirx raid capable)

btw.. I just found something funny.. your current motherboard supports matrix raid http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157096

and all C2D motherboards that have matrix raid at newegg <-- hyperlinked newegg.. its a big link
 
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The conroe xfire isn't my mobo, just a similair one that ASRock also makes...

i'm not sure i want to go through with all the troubles inherint (sp?) with switching hard drives, so i'm basiacally planning to just get the best mobo and RAM for the money... and i think that if it can get 450 FSB without any aftermarket cooling, the tforce is the right mobo for me....

And for the RAM, i saw 1 GB of OCZ DDR2800 for a bit over 100$ with MIB, would that be better than the Firestix?

also, is it better to buy 1 1gb stick or a dual channel set (2x512mb)?
 
The firestix are D9GMH.. the Ocz are Elphia most likely.. Id go for the D9's if ever thinking about 450FSB+
 
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