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Good O/C'ing 1156 board? H55/57/P55?

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pcgamer4life

Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2004
I'm building an 1156 rig and am torn between the i3-550 for $115, or the i5-760 for $204. The $90 difference is money I could spend on an SSD, so I will most likely go the i3 route and upgrade to a faster chip down the road. I've read that the Clarkdales are excellent overclockers, and would like to try my hand at O/C'ing.

I have a dedicated card (Radeon 5750), so I won't be utilizing the on-board GPU of the i3, but I'd like to keep that option open in case I need onboard video for some reason in the future. From what I've read, the P55 chipset doesn't support this, so I guess H55 is the route I need to go? I'd like to spend under $100 for the board, and I don't have any specific needs other than DDR3, USB, SATA, and a single PCIE-x16 lane (won't be running crossfire.) Form factor isn't an issue, I prefer ATX though.

Any input is appreciated, thanks!
 
The majority of H55 boards are mATX, and the ones that are ATX would max out or go a little over your budget, $100-110. How many RAM slots do you need/want, 2 or 4?
 
Ah, I suppose that would have been helpful information :). Four slots (dual channel) is what I'll be using. In fact, I didn't know they still made mobos with only 2.

I simply like the aesthetics of ATX better, but other than that have no preference, so mATX is fine as well.

Thanks for the quick reply!

[edit] I suppose it would be worth mentioning that I'll be going with DDR3 1600.
 
If you're going for a dual core, it's hard to beat the gigabyte H55-s2h and usb3, they hit insane bclk fairly easily.
 
Yeah, they make some of these H55 boards with only 2 DIMM slots. I'm guessing for OEMs like Dell, HP, etc. since that is where the majority of the H55/57 or any on-board GPU chipsets are sold. Really, 2 slots for 2x2GB RAM is plenty for at least 95% (probably more like 99%) of computer users.

I prefer Asus and Gigabyte motherboards. So here are their offerings that I would choose from. You'll notice the ATX and H57 boards are over $100 by a little.

I've heard good and bad about Biostar, Asrock, and MSI boards. Biostar and Asrock do have H55 ATX boards for under $100. Here are a few of them to look at.
 
Is there a reason that a handful of boards jump from DDR3 1333 to something higher like 2000 and leaving out 1600? Does that mean that the RAM could only either run at the lower 1333 or OC to something higher, but would never run at it's rated speed on that board?
 
The only officially supported RAM speeds on the LGA1156 chips are 1066 and 1333. Anything higher is considered overclocking; this is b/c to reach a higher RAM speed you will have to increase the bclk.

You'll be able to run the RAM at 1600 if you increase the bclk and use the right RAM multiplier. For example, 10x160MHz or 8x200MHz.
 
The only officially supported RAM speeds on the LGA1156 chips are 1066 and 1333. Anything higher is considered overclocking; this is b/c to reach a higher RAM speed you will have to increase the bclk.

You'll be able to run the RAM at 1600 if you increase the bclk and use the right RAM multiplier. For example, 10x160MHz or 8x200MHz.

I wish you could sticky that Matt, because with all of these numbers posted all over RAM and motherboards, people forget that it is a Intel limitation.
 
I had no idea that's how it worked, thanks. I'll think over the ones you both suggested, and decide whether or not to spend the extra $25-30 on the USB3 board or not.

Thanks for the input so far!
 
The only officially supported RAM speeds on the LGA1156 chips are 1066 and 1333. Anything higher is considered overclocking; this is b/c to reach a higher RAM speed you will have to increase the bclk.

You'll be able to run the RAM at 1600 if you increase the bclk and use the right RAM multiplier. For example, 10x160MHz or 8x200MHz.
...or the ram multiplier instead of bclk.
 
I wish you could sticky that Matt, because with all of these numbers posted all over RAM and motherboards, people forget that it is a Intel limitation.

Yeah, that question does come up a lot but it's not a big deal to just go over it again.

I had no idea that's how it worked, thanks. I'll think over the ones you both suggested, and decide whether or not to spend the extra $25-30 on the USB3 board or not.

Thanks for the input so far!

It's just your bclk * RAM multiplier. So if your mobo has a multiplier higher than 10, then you could just increase the multiplier as EarthDog mentioned.

...or the ram multiplier instead of bclk.

At least on the Gigabyte LGA1156 boards I've used the highest RAM multiplier has been 10. Is that not the case on all of the boards?

I guess it depends on the multiplier selection the motherboard has.
 
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