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What would be the best, stable OC board now without SLI/CF?

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Mastiff

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2003
Location
Norway
I'm gonna build a new HD-DVD/BluRay HTPC, and I'm a bit hesitant when it comes to the motherboard. I have seen the threads praising the EVGA 680i, but since I don't need SLI that may be overkill. Besides I would like more than 2 regular PCI slots (I use them for sound cards, amongst other things). Also if there's something with hardware assisted decoding it's of course interesting. But I don't expect to find anything with a VGA output good enough to playback HD, so let's stick with the full ATX boards without built-in graphics card. Also I have all the room in the world (Stacker case), so bulky stuff doesn't worry me. And I will probably keep the water cooling I'm using now for my Socet 775 single core Prescott 3.2 @ 3.75 (and up to 3.9 when I need extra power). But above all it has to be rock solid. One bluescreen is ten to many! :bang head I have very good experience with higher end Asus and Aopen, but I'm open to any suggestions.

So let the suggestions flow! Thanks in advance!
 
well p35 would be my first choice, but if you're using a prescott, it isn't gonna match up well, I'd probably go to a 965 based board, poss a p5b deluxe
 
Sorry, no! I'm not gonna keep the Prescott! I'm gonna go with a new dual core, it's only the water cooling that will survive this upgrade! :)
 
Asus P5K series or Abit IP35 series. The new X38 chipset motherboards should start arriving later this month, but they will be expensive.
 
Thanks! I am looking at both of those. I really like established brands, and by established brands I mean brands I have overclocked myself with good results! ;) So those are very high on the list. I do love the Aopen i975Xa-YDG with T2500 that I have in my carputer, but that's too old now. Very easy moderate overclock (to FSB 200). And I have taken Asus P4P and P5AD2-E mobos to the limit (3.0 and 3.2 @ 3.9). And my Abit IC7-Max3 has no problems going 3.0 @ 3.9 either. So those are the Big Three for me.

If there's no objections it will be either an Abit IP35 or Asus P5K board. So now I just gotta see which one. I guess that the difference is mostly bundle and stuff like built in WiFi, right? Or are there any real differences when it comes to overclocking?
 
in that case, I'd look at a p5k series board or hold out a week or 2 and wait to see what the x38 boards have to offer
 
Hey, I wanna stay with the A-list brands, of course! :D And I'll have to read up on what X38 is. But I will do that. Thanks again!

Edit: OK, I have read enough. Expensive memory and main difference PCI-E 2. So I'm gonna drop that thought, it's not worth it for my application since I will only use one graphics card and nothing else that's PCI-E. So no S-ATA Raid or stuff like that.
 
If you're sticking with only a dual core, any of the P35 options your looking at are great OCers and will easily break 500MHz FSB without mods. You might also consider the Gigabyte line, they have some really nice boards. At this point you should really be basing your decision on feature set.
 
Thanks! It seems I'm gonna go quad, Q6600, since that's very well used by PowerDVD Ultra. And I have actually managed to find a source for the P5K-E model, it seems that it's gonna be my choice. With water cooling on CPU and GPU and good fans for the chipset (the computer is in an equipment room next to the home theater, so I can use a few fans before I hear them) it should be possible to get it moving pretty well. :)
 
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