Good Overclocking SLI motherboard for E8400

alstare · Jun 16, 2008

Hey Guys, I think I killed my Asus P5N-D, and it wasn't too stable to O/C to start off. I'm looking for a SLI board (only will have 2 cards) that will take overclocking of E8400 well. Also I'm trying to keep it under $250 if possible. Did the search red good posts about non SLI boards or SLI that are way above my budget.
Thanks

Automata · Jun 16, 2008

to the forums!

The 680i or 780i would work very well. I would suggest the 780i over the 680i any day

Hardass · Jun 16, 2008

Yes sir, the evga 780i is a sweet mobo. Especially with a E8400. I have been playing with that combo this weekend. This board is so good i am thinking about getting a second.

alstare · Jun 16, 2008

Should i stick to ASUS ? ex p5n-t deluxe (780i) or for 680i: Asus Striker Extreme or Asus P5N32-E,

or go with (780i) EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 or XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI Motherboard.

and for 680i chipset they have EVGA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard - T1 Version and MSI P6N Diamond Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 680i (about 180 bucks in a store close by to me)

Automata · Jun 16, 2008

I would suggest going with the eVGA based one. I've heard bad things about the Asus 780i series, but I could have heard wrong :shrug:

Charr · Jun 22, 2008

I wouldn't recommend pairing an E8400 with a 680i; I put one in my EVGA NF68-T1 with P31 BIOS, and it wouldn't run 1MHz above stock.

I have also heard good things about the eVGA 780i, that would be a good choice.

ChinStrap · Jun 22, 2008

charr, you know p32 bios on 680i is made for 45nm duals.

siresword · Jul 21, 2008

hi guys, kinda reviving an old thread, but thats a good thing right?

i want to upgrade to an e8400, but i'm on a little bit of a budget, and i want some advice on motherboard chipsets for the 45nm c2d's.

i originally had chosen an evga 680i board (~$179.99?) and i thought that it was sufficent, but i've heard that a 680i board wont be able to push an e8400 as far as it needs to go. on other threads i've seen people vouch for the older p35 chipsets and they said that 450x9 was no problem for a good p35 board.
i would like to be able to oc my system, i'm basically looking for a good mobo under $180 (is it doable? :'( ) that'll let me hit 4.0 (without too much trouble - i hear that's not hard to do on air?) with an e8400. i want to put 2x2gig sticks of ram in the board and run vista 64 if anyone's wondering.

my question is:
which chipset will really let me get performance from an e8400? is all that nvidia ESA stuff garbage? i know you can tune your ram and stuff in windows and i thought that nividia's ntune with a 680i (or better? but not on my budget..) was very solid for that kind of tweaking in windows.
what about the p35 chipset or the x38s? i'd rather buy an nvidia chipset, but if intel ones are better then let me know!

Boomer0909 · Jul 21, 2008

1) Ntune is awful ive tried using it w/ my 680i and no dice just constant restarts and wouldnt see the changes in my bios...

2) I hate my 680 but it could be because its the LT model i do finally have my quad @ 3.0 GHz but it took a looooong time. I have heard so good things about the 780 that its a lock it is going to be my xmas present to my self.

750 ftw could fit your needs really well also

siresword · Jul 21, 2008

yeah i saw a 750 ftw board, i guess i will stay away from the 680i then. lol, too bad for ntune i thought it was going to be helpful. oh well. if ntune isnt any good, does it matter if i get an intel or an nvidia chipset on the mobo? so far i've heard better things about the nvidia 700s than the p35s/x38(or 48s)

any other recommendations? are they really similar?

edit: 750 ftw vs 780/790 won't really be that much of a difference right? i'm not going to buy ddr3 .. what else do the better chipsets provide? i'm also wondering about intels so any advice would be helpful - thanks !

Brolloks · Jul 21, 2008

siresword said:
edit: 750 ftw vs 780/790 won't really be that much of a difference right? i'm not going to buy ddr3 .. what else do the better chipsets provide? i'm also wondering about intels so any advice would be helpful - thanks !

The chipset for the 750i and 780i is the same, the 790i has a different chipset and is DDR3 as you know. My preference would be 780i as it has a very simple pencil mod that essentially eliminates the v-droop on the board and I personally have had great success with clocking 45 nm dual cores (E8400/E3110/E7200).

siresword · Jul 21, 2008

do you know any more about specifics between the 750 and the 780? i'm sorry to be picky and ask, i just wonder about the differences between the boards. if its un noticeable then i don't really mind at all. i want to get a decent OC out of an e8400 and i dont think a 780 would be that much better than a 750, but what do i know ?

@ Brolloks - out of curiosity you list - Asus P5Q3 Deluxe/Gigabyte EP45-DS3R as your mobo(s?) and both are intel chipsets. you wouldn't recommend them ?

suineg · Jul 22, 2008

I definitely recommend the EVGA 780i.

I would be interested to see what the difference between the 780 and the 750 are if they are the same chipset.

siresword · Jul 22, 2008

suineg said:
I would be interested to see what the difference between the 780 and the 750 are if they are the same chipset.

exactly what im waiting for

i'm also wondering if people like the intel chipsets, on this thread at least, nobody's recommended a p38 or an x38 or their betters..

Brolloks · Jul 22, 2008

siresword said:
do you know any more about specifics between the 750 and the 780? i'm sorry to be picky and ask, i just wonder about the differences between the boards. if its un noticeable then i don't really mind at all. i want to get a decent OC out of an e8400 and i dont think a 780 would be that much better than a 750, but what do i know ?

@ Brolloks - out of curiosity you list - Asus P5Q3 Deluxe/Gigabyte EP45-DS3R as your mobo(s?) and both are intel chipsets. you wouldn't recommend them ?

If you want to do SLI then use a nVidia chipset such as the 780i, otherwise rather stick with Intel chipsets, X38/X48 for high end x-fire or P35/P45....depends on what you wnat to achieve really.

The 750i is a lower cost version of the 780i and does not have solid caps and the voltage regulation is not as stable as with the 780i...both are good boards for SLI, once again I tend to look for benchmarking boards that can go that extra mile, hence my suggestion to go for the 780i vs 750i. I have not used a 750i so i cannot give you 1st hand feedback, all the 780i's I've used were solid boards....that is for SLI, other than that, go for Intel boards

blazed · Jul 22, 2008

None of the nVidia chipsets are very good for overclocking quads such as the Q9300, they're good for dual core overclocking though, then again that isn't hard at all.

siresword · Jul 23, 2008

Brolloks said:
If you want to do SLI then use a nVidia chipset such as the 780i, otherwise rather stick with Intel chipsets, X38/X48 for high end x-fire or P35/P45....depends on what you wnat to achieve really. ...all the 780i's I've used were solid boards....that is for SLI, other than that, go for Intel boards

blazed said:
None of the nVidia chipsets are very good for overclocking quads such as the Q9300, they're good for dual core overclocking though, then again that isn't hard at all.

:'( i got different answers!

oh well. thanks for your help guys, i'm not going to run sli and i just want my cpu to clock high .. and i don't want a quad

i guess i'll just choose one based on price, since there doesn't seem to be too much of a difference between chipsets

Brolloks · Jul 23, 2008

siresword said:
:'( i got different answers!

oh well. thanks for your help guys, i'm not going to run sli and i just want my cpu to clock high .. and i don't want a quad
i guess i'll just choose one based on price, since there doesn't seem to be too much of a difference between chipsets

Well Balzed and I are not saying different things, I agree 100% with him that nVidia boards are not good quad clockers, if you don't want SLI or cross fire then the answer is simple, go with a P35 or P45 boards, much cheaper than 780i or 790i...Abit IP35 Pro is P35 or Asus P5Q that is P45. hope this helps

siresword · Jul 24, 2008

Brolloks said:
Well Balzed and I are not saying different things, I agree 100% with him that nVidia boards are not good quad clockers, if you don't want SLI or cross fire then the answer is simple, go with a P35 or P45 boards, much cheaper than 780i or 790i...Abit IP35 Pro is P35 or Asus P5Q that is P45. hope this helps

lol actually that made everything clear
thanks a bunch, i'm gonna look into a p45 then

(out of curiosity - would i ever want an x38/x48?)

jokers_greg · Jul 24, 2008

siresword said:
lol actually that made everything clear
thanks a bunch, i'm gonna look into a p45 then

(out of curiosity - would i ever want an x38/x48?)

do you want to use the full potential of dual 4850's or 4870's? Or perhaps Tri-Xfire in the future with a 4870 + 4870X2, or even quad xfire 2x 4870X2

if the answer to any of those questions is yes, then you'll want an x38/x48 board. Unfortunately (as stable as it is), the P45 chipset does not offer 16x /16x crossfire, so you have a little bandwidth bottleneck. The difference isn't huge, but the more cards you xfire (like tri-xfire for example), the bigger the difference.

Good Overclocking SLI motherboard for E8400

New Member

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Senior Member

New Member

Destroyer of Empires and Use

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Benching Senior on Siesta, Premium Member #8

Member

Member

Member

Benching Senior on Siesta, Premium Member #8

Member

Member

Benching Senior on Siesta, Premium Member #8

Member

Member

Similar threads