Cheap OC motherboard for unlocked Sempron 140.

[Bangwhiz]

I'm repairing a nice box that burned up a 3.2Ghz BE quadcore. Being sent to me. I bought the cheapest AM3 chip that would run in the MB which was a Sempron 140 to get to the bottom of the box's problems. I have a new 3.4 quad core BE 165 I will install in it when I have gotten to the bottom of what's wrong with it.

In the meantime I've got an old 939 box with a failing EPOX 939 board in it with a Opteron 165 in it OC'd to 2.8Ghz. Thinking of throwing a cheap motherboard in it and OCing the Sempron to 3.7Ghz with both cores running. What is the cheapest board anyone can think of that I could use to replace the 939 board with the OC controls I will need. Love to buy it used unless very cheap new.

 

[RGone]

The problem to me has been cheap boards often do not overclock the FSB as well as some more expensive ones. Most of the newer boards have DDR3 ram slots, so no matter what you will need diffferent ram from the 939 board, even if you buy a DDR2 board for the Sempron.

3.7Ghz is 274x13.5 = 3699Mhz and it takes a pretty good board and ram to run 274FSB. That is what I meant when I said the better boards seem to do FSB overclocking better. Maybe someone has 'actual' hands on experience since I am not sure cheap mobo and 274FSB come in the same sentence or package.

 

[Bangwhiz]

Just trying to get some suggestions. I know most of the 939 board stuff will be toast. Just trying to pull off a cheap build (comparatively) for some kids of mine. It is important that the board either doesn't cost a lot or can be bought used for a reasonable buck.

 

[Bangwhiz]

Biostar A770E3

Find this board for $39 that supports AMD Overdrive to unlock the 2nd core on the Sempron 140 chip I believe. Any comments.

 

[RGone]

You can look for some old AM2+ or AM3 mobos, which are not shown for sale on the big net sales sites.

Major REseller sites on the net are really not any longer selling what I would consider to be good FSB overclocking motherboards that are not AM3+. What 'you' can find for yourself...well that is up to you. The two boards below are not the top of the line I usually buy, but they seem capable enough and seem able to hang together with VRMs that have heat sinks on them for pushing the FSB which the Sempron 140 will surely have to do if one thinks to reach ~3.7Ghz. The boards below are not limited to a meager Sempron single core but are all FX-series capable with the boards latest bios. So not just an old AM2+ mobo.

I am partial to Asus, but I did list the Giga first because I researched it first.


GA-970A-UD3


GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

DDR3 2000(O.C.) / 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 = with some good ram the board supports ram fast enough to help with the FSB overclocking of the Sempron 140.

Split Power Plane, 8+2 phase VRM design = help with FSB overclocking.

Unlocks 'good' working cores.

Supports later FX-series processor with F3 bios and later.


ASUS M5A97


ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Roughly the same capabilities as the Gigabyte above except this board has the newer style UEFI bios which can be a good thing for the future.

Unlocks cpus with good working but hidden cores. All cpus do not have good cores disabled. Some have disabled non-working cores.

 

[Bangwhiz]

Thanks for your help.

 

[RGone]

The link below describes the method of unlocking on Biostar Biostar A770E3 motherboards. That board uses a much older AMD 770/710 chipset and as such will not be able to use the newer FX series processors for some future-proofing. The bios on the motherboard must support the core unlocking feature set and is shown available for downloading. It is not known by me if that motherboard now on the market for sometime, ships with a core unlocking bios.


“BIO-unlocKING” technology enables the ACC function