Good OC'ing Mobo OTHER than Biostar?

I had a Biostar Mobo in the past and the customer support left a bad taste in my mouth that still lingers some 2 yrs later..

So.. would some of you knowledgeable OC'ers please recommend a good OC'ing board that doesnt taste like a Biostar?

gigabyte and asus. gigabyte seems to be a name brand that offers a lot for the price. I have a MSI mobo and its pretty nice for the name and the ocing that can be done with it. i see that u have a MSI mobo and in ur sig its making u angry. i take it cause u cant OC much. that mobo is kind of a lower end MSI board. if u want to stick with MSI make sure and get a platinum.

you might want to think about getting the newest chip set for the AM2+ thats out now. people are having super luck with them.

I'd vote DFI. Even their mid-line boards have shown to be great overclockers. Lan-party board usually have so many options that you can get lost in them. I haven't had to deal directly with customer service with any mobo, so I cant really comment on that aspect.

I'm assuming that you're looking for an am2 board, what about the infinity nforce4 board?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136021

a good ocing mobo OTHER than biostar... TBH i wouldnt even recommend biostar from the beginning lol..

But as stated Gigabyte or asus offer very good boards for both intel and amd. Gigabyte definetly offers more bang for the buck, but asus's quality IMO is slightly above that of gigabyte.

Personally, I love the Asus board I got, but beware, they usually dont allow you to get full function outta manf. programs (IE- nTune--- donno about the AMD sets..) cause they want you to use THEIR program that comes with it. Their programs are alright, and really, I have no complaints about them, but TBH, I would rather have the option to use nTune (mostly so I could toy with HTT multi. and stuff to find a stable setting then hardset it in the BIOs....). Other than that, hell... this mobo survived a massive power flux caused by my cat, and has no issuses. the RAM that was in there... I can't say the same for it......

yeah, I know... OCing by software is the devil... but I'm lazy and dont like restarting all that much... like I said, those tools would only find a "stable" OC, then I'd hardset it in the BIOs...

Haha.. what did your cat do, Falcon?

Jrsydevil said:

Haha.. what did your cat do, Falcon?

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stood on the powerstrip, with one paw partially on the on/off switch... EVENTUALLY my computer turned off... but not after a second or two...

thought i fried the monitor at first, then when that worked, checked my vid-card (have an old crappy PCI-e card around here somewhere...) which also turned up good. then ended up pulling ram sticks and trying different combos of em, and lo-and-behold, it booted up.

cant be too mad at the cat... cause he fried the ram I was able to sneak in this awesome processor in the same newegg order

wife hasnt caught on yet :O

BAD KITTAH!!

Jrsydevil said:

BAD KITTAH!!

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tell me about it... motherboard lives though, and power supply, only the ram bit the big one, and only half at that

I just ordered the $99 dollar asus am2+ one to go with a 60 dollar brisbane and 2gigs of ddr800. Will report how it goes when they arrive.

S939 mobo died and I couldn't pass up a full core arch upgrade for 220 bucks.

Gigabyte, MSI, or ASUS are good, DFI is definitely the best way to go for overclocking.

I think the quality of ASUS boards is declining though, I've had to send back half the P5N SLI boards I got because of one failure or another.

I have a Biostar board. It is not much above a brand lower than that. Elitegroup/PCChips. I HATE Elitegroup's boards and anything about them. I do give credit to Biostar in some things, but not much.


I have good results with ASUS. The website sucks kind of though and support is meh. The Asrock line is actually a good thing for what it is.

I am not going to recall long ago socket history and brands.. One brand has served me well, even for video cards.

Gigabyte!

I am using the same video card and motherboard.. for about 2-3 years now? I have had it forever. The one cool thing about this board. Not all that, but it defined me liking the brand. BTW.. do not trust any fans Gigabyte uses on its products.. <grumbles>. About 2 years ago. I shorted out my board. BADLY. It started up though and ran. I got the on board LAN only. Lucky for me. So I call up the US number. Yes toll call and they spoke in I assume in an Asian accent. What did happen was totally cool.

They were going to replace the board. Even though I told them I shorted the board out. Actually the Engineer wanted to see how the board was till running. Since BIOS worked great but did not show the on board LAN. lol they wanted the board... The whole time being nerdy and geeky. It was a good call. I kept the board since I told them. " I got 100Mhz more OC now." they did send me a new BIOS in email to try and correct the no LAN thing.
If I would of sent the board in. It would of cost me no money. It was their dime. It would of took about 6-8 weeks to get a new board. I passed and told them I was happy, just was curious what was going on. The call was EXPENSIVE for me. Since there was no 800 number.


Now my setup is still running a meager 2.81Ghz on an old dusty 754 setup. The crusty old 6600GT I use will do a alright 600/1200. Keep in mind. This setup has been in service for years now.

What i do not like about Gigabyte. The voltages suck.. For all the good, they have yet to get voltages perfected. The BIOS are ok, but worded oddly. Even the low end are ok for the price.

Now the good side. the boards are not picky usually. Just about anything will run in them. ASUS can and are picky in some parts you might use. i.e. - RAM

With DFI, it can be hit and miss on quality control. If you get a good one. It is on like Donky Kong. Though DFI is the largest board maker in the world. Or used to be. So you might have an OEM with a rebranded DFI in it. Overall they have some talented engineers there.

Ever wonder what a motherboard made by Gigabyte looks like from fab to retail?>
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1722&page=1

Im still researching a board too I can tell you the ASUS M2N-E SLI has got to be the WORST Motherboard I have ever tyed to Overclock. You cant set the voltages over 1.35 on the CPU and 1.85 on the RAM Im thinking of the MSI also will keep ya posted when i get one.

ralphT said:

Im still researching a board too I can tell you the ASUS M2N-E SLI has got to be the WORST Motherboard I have ever tyed to Overclock. You cant set the voltages over 1.35 on the CPU and 1.85 on the RAM Im thinking of the MSI also will keep ya posted when i get one.

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I'm guessing thats a chipset limitation mostly..... I've got nothing but props for my asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe. Its been a good board for over a year+, and to be honest, it has not failed me yet, even though its been through some crap (scroll up and read the feline story...).

ASUS makes a Great board it just that one that is no good to overclock if you wanted a non overclocking board its great. I was just warning about that 1 board. I didnt do my home work befor I got it I had to replace one quick (Lighting got my old board) and yes I had a surge protector but one of those freak thinkgs I my other PCs have asus boards but there 939. I Would alwase recomend ASUS but The M2N-E SLI is not an overclocker. There are sever threads on this boards lack of overclocking.

meh, I say give Biostar another chance, I bought a TF560 and it's great. If not, try ASUS and i heard good things about DFI and Gigabite

+1 asus. -6 anything to do with biostar

Ok just got my MSI K9A2 Platinum it over clocks great 5000+ Black running at 3.2 stable with a factory heatsink off a 4600+ Time to get it wet and see what i can do

So my vote is for the MSI

Couldnt afford a Platinum at this time.. so I went with Gigabyte Ga-MA69G-S3H..

So far this mobo has been an excellent OC'er.. got my 4000+ to 2841 mhz without a hiccup .. Plenty of OC featues in the BIOS.. looking at OCing my Ram next ..

Only thing I dont like is the NB.. it runs REAL hot with its dinky little Heatsink.. gonna hafta grab a NB HSF I believe.. Mobo temps reporting 53C while running Orthos...
Havent seen any instability yet, but I'm not too comfortable with system temps that high.. Was at 57C before I relocated a case fan to blow directly at the NB, and applied some Artic Silver to the Heatsink...