Best P4 mobo for overclocking?

[Icarus]

Hi guys! As you can see, I'm new to the forums. I've been reading this forum for a long time now but this is my first time posting.

I've recently purchased a P4 2.4B Costa Rica SL6RZ from Pham's computers. From what I understand, these chips are supposed to be the JIUHBs of Pentiums (or pretty close, anyway ) But problem is, my overclocking experience seems to have hit a stone wall at 2.61ghz. I'm pretty sure its my mobo's fault (Gigabyte GA-8GE667 PRO) since that was the exact same limit on my older 2.4b Malay chip. I've heard a lot of rumours saying that Gigabyte boards totally suck at overclocking.

Anyway, I'm looking to get a new motherboard, one's that good for overclocking. I'm hoping to spend less than $180 on this purchase. Thanks in advance for any replies!

(btw, the ram that I'm using is 512mb x 2 Corsair PC3200LL TwinX)

 

[Intrepid]

I would go with an Abit board, great for stability and they are overclocknig friendly and you can easily get a modded bios.

 

[Icarus]

do you have any specific models that I should look for?

 

[fatguy]

Icarus whats the FPO/BATCH # of your SL6RZ? the ones that begin with "Q" don't oc very high i'm afraid

 

[Icarus]

I have no idea. didn't pay attention to that. its stuck beneath my 780g Zalman CNPS-6500 now. lol

I bought it from Pham's computer. Does that help?

 

[fatguy]

pham's guarentees the SL6RZ, but the catch is they don't garuente the good oc'ers, the "L" and "3" chips. the "Q" chips are bad news, got one of those a few weeks ago and couldn't oc it for anything. in all honesty it's worth pulling your HSF and checking it out.

 

[Icarus]

dang. that was close. almost bought the farm just now. I accidentally bent a few pins while taking out the CPU. For a moment, I thought I just blew 168 bucks.

Anyway, the full serial/batch number is as follows:

SL6RZ Costa Rica
33009A256 - 1113

Do any of these numbers ring a bell?

 

[fatguy]

ok looks good, the first 4 numbers are the most important, think you might have an extra zero in there tho

"3309"

3 --> Plant Code: Costa Rica
3 --> Year Code: 2003
09 --> Week Number: 9th week of 2003

should be a good oc'er. now as for a board, you should be able to get a decent board for 180, and if you have an ethernet card sitting around I'd go for the IC7. what features are you looking for?

 

[Tical]

I just got the Abit IS7-G Springdale board & it ROCKS!!!!!!!!! I HIGHLY recommend it & it comes with ethernet so you don't need a pci NIC. I got it for $163 shipped Here.

 

[Icarus]

I think I do have an old LAN card lying around somewhere from my previous KT-266A mobo. okay, this is gonna sound totally stupid, but does onboard LAN somehow give you a faster connection than a LAN card would? I kindda felt that way after switching over to my current mobo.

To be honest, I don't really need any of the fancy features that most of the Canterwood boards come with (SATA, Raid...etc) All I need a board thats good for overclocking and preferably with onboard LAN. Theortically, since Canterwood and Springdale boards are designed to run at 800mhz FSB anyway, doesn't that mean that they should have higher overlocking potential?

Right now I'm looking at the IC7 (non G version) and the IS7 recommended by Tical. What do you guys think?

 

[Icarus]

ok looks good, the first 4 numbers are the most important, think you might have an extra zero in there tho

"3309"

3 --> Plant Code: Costa Rica
3 --> Year Code: 2003
09 --> Week Number: 9th week of 2003

should be a good oc'er. now as for a board, you should be able to get a decent board for 180, and if you have an ethernet card sitting around I'd go for the IC7. what features are you looking for?

by the way, where was that dreaded "Q" supposed to go?

 

[(HR)Titan]

hahaha

 

[fatguy]

first character, plant code.

is dual channel memory important? how about the ability to handle 800MHz cpus? if not get the Abit BH7, great board. if so, look springdale.

 

[Icarus]

From what I understand, dual channel memory offers quite a significant boost in performance on P4 platforms, so I'd like to get it if possible. 800mhz FSB would be nice, but definitely not required.

Also, please correct me if I'm wrong but I heard some people saying that Canterwood/Springdale boards aren't as overclockable as the 845PEs. I'm getting a new mobo primarily to overclock, so I'm a little worried about that.

 

[ps2]

look for abit 800mhz supported mobos they are o/c friendly iam planning to buy one ic7

 

[batboy]

The Abit IC7 Canterwood is very overclockable. Whoever told you that it ain't is wrong. I have a 2.0A and a 2.66 that would only do 3.15 on my old mobo, but the 2.66 will do 3.26 on the IC7 and I have a benchmark of the 2.0A at 3.4 gig.

 

[Icarus]

Cool. What about the springdale boards? Are they just as overclockable?

 

[batboy]

The IC7 has ECC RAM support and supposedly higher quality northbridge and southbridge chips. I think that's the main difference between it and the IS7. So far, everyone that I've heard about with the IS7 are getting great overclocks too. I think the IC7 was supposed to be the server mobo and the IS7 was the home mobo.

The "G" mobos have the onboard Gigabit LAN, which is really nice, but sort of expensive. If you have a good ethernet PCI card and aren't planning on networking with other Gigabit LAN systems, then save your cash.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

BH7 - amazing - all i have to say - not to mention the fine tuning this board allows is just incredible!

 

[Terry]

IC7 BABY... all the way!