Best 1.6a Overclocking motherboard?

[Viper46744]

What do you guys think is the best 1.6a Overclocking motherboard?

 

[THUGSROOK]

2 Qs for ya....

1) how high do you plan on going?
2) do you want 333/400DDR support?

 

[CrawlingEye]

I second Thugs' questions, and I know exactly where he's going with this, however I also know which option he'll take, which differs from which I'll take.

I would get the Asus P4S533.
That's not to decide what you should get, just stating that I choose memory bandwidth over actual clockspeed.

 

[THUGSROOK]

CrawlingEye i actually do agree with you.
i would give up a few CPU mhz for DDR mhz any day. my only problem is that im not willing to drop down to 160fsb 4:5 ratio (P4S533) and hope the board is stable there. its just too much of a comprimize for me and i doubt it would be faster then i am now. ill probably have to wait for the true 666mhz boards to come out to get exactly what i want. (170-175fsb 3:4 4:5 & 5:6 ratios available)

 

[Viper46744]

2 Qs for ya....

1) how high do you plan on going?
2) do you want 333/400DDR support?

1) I don't plan on going extremely high. I want to get at least in the 2.4ghz range.

2) Im leaning toward yes for the 333/400ddr so I would be probbly looking at the Asus P4S533 right? What about just pure cpu performence?

Thanks for your help and patience

 

[THUGSROOK]

for a 150fsb / 400DDR id recommend the Asus P4S533.

if you want an all out CPU overclock (161+fsb) id suggest the Asus P4B266-C, or the P4B533 if you need those extra features.

Newegg does have the P4S533 retail in stock right now!

 

[Viper46744]

ok THANKS
wow your fast in replies!

 

[CraigOTech]

Would there be a significant performance increase to go from a P4B266 (full retail) to a P4S533 running a 1.6A@150 with the P4B266 DDR being @ 300 DDR and the P4S533 being @ 400 DDR? What about the decrease in graphics performance going to the SIS chipset/drivers over the Intel chipset/drivers?

I'm trying to squeeze more performance out of my existing RAM (Mushkin 2-2-2) and 1.6A.

 

[THUGSROOK]

CraigOTech nope, may as well stay with the P4B266.
please check my other thread with comparisons.

 

[SupermanCK]

in fact stay with P4B266-C
key is "C"
for best overclocking ability...check out 1.6A poll somewhere in this forum

 

[Clevor]

Flat out best overclocking board is probably the TH7II or TH7II-RAID, if you can overcome it's quirks. The guys hitting 180+ FSB are using this board. Even with RDRAM at 3X, you can get 3200+ bandwidth effortlessly. Can fix the AGP and PCI bus. With a modded BIOS, can hit 2.2 VCORE.

These boards are dirt cheap in Japan now (picked up two brand new RAID boards for $75 each last weekend). I'll be checking it out. But has a steep learning curve so overclocking it is not for the faint of heart.

 

[oldfart]

for a 150fsb / 400DDR id recommend the Asus P4S533.

Why? Your own testing has shown the SiS to be slower and not as good an overclocker as an 845 setup. You also give up the PCI/AGP lock, and get lower IDE performance. There are better boards to do a 150 FSB DDR400 setup. EPOX 4BDA(2+), 4BEA(2+), Abit BD7, BD7II, IT7, Gigabyte 845E is also a good board. The ASUS 845 boards have a major flaw that they do not allow 3:4 above 132 FSB. I dont at all consider them the best overclockers for that reason. They also have a lower Vcore range than other boards. If you plan on overlocking to a higher than 150 FSB setup, it doesn't really matter since you wont be able to run 3:4 anyway. The question is, "Do you feel lucky?" If you get a good CPU that will run in the 160+ FSB range, 1:1 mem is all you can use. If you get an "average" CPU, that tops out ~ 150 FSB, you want the 3:4 to get the best performance.

 

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by: oldfart

for a 150fsb / 400DDR id recommend the Asus P4S533.

Why? Your own testing has shown the SiS to be slower and not as good an overclocker as an 845 setup. You also give up the PCI/AGP lock, and get lower IDE performance. There are better boards to do a 150 FSB DDR400 setup. EPOX 4BDA(2+), 4BEA(2+), Abit BD7, BD7II, IT7, Gigabyte 845E is also a good board. The ASUS 845 boards have a major flaw that they do not allow 3:4 above 132 FSB. I dont at all consider them the best overclockers for that reason. They also have a lower Vcore range than other boards. If you plan on overlocking to a higher than 150 FSB setup, it doesn't really matter since you wont be able to run 3:4 anyway. The question is, "Do you feel lucky?" If you get a good CPU that will run in the 160+ FSB range, 1:1 mem is all you can use. If you get an "average" CPU, that tops out ~ 150 FSB, you want the 3:4 to get the best performance.

For how long you have been here, you don't read much, eh?

There's a difference in the Asus P4S533 and Asus P4S333.
The P4S333 can only support DDR333 at stock speeds (and up to 133fsb), while the P4S533 can support DDR400 at stock speeds (and up to 133 fsb), along with having many other enhancements, like ATA 133 support.

The i845 chips aren't any contest in comparison to the SiS645DX chipsets. They're an entire generation behind. The i845 doesn't have officialy DDR333 support, let alone DDR400 support.

The tests run by Thugs are inconclusive since to get both mobos running the RAM at DDR333 he has to raise the fsb on the i845 mobo much higher than the SiS 645 mobo. The fact remains: The P4S533 may not get as high of a clockspeed as the i845 chipsets due to the lacking agp/pci lock, but it will give more bandwidth due to the extra dividers.

The thing about not being able to boot above 147 is one of two things:

1. Poor overclocking skills (which I doubt)
2. Bad luck and getting a lemon mobo (which is likely)

My P4S333's running at 153fsb (or in reality 612mhz fsb) with a 4:5 memory divider, perfectly stable.
I'd go higher but my Kingmax RAM can't hit any higher than what it's at all ready.

 

[oldfart]

The i845 chips aren't any contest in comparison to the SiS645DX chipsets

That's for certain. The 845 is clearly ahead.

My P4S333's running at 153fsb (or in reality 612mhz fsb) with a 4:5 memory divider, perfectly stable

Mine is running 150 FSB 3:4 mem ratio DDR400 perfectly stable. I also have an in spec 33/66 PCI/AGP bus. Do you?

many other enhancements, like ATA 133 support.

Which is slower than 845's ATA100 IDE.

Let me put it this way. The question is: "Best 1.6a Overclocking motherboard?. To qualify as "BEST overclocker", it must be able to;
a) have the ability to overclock to high FSB speeds since FSB overclocking is the only method of increasing speed of a locked processor. The SiS boards can not do this due to the lack of a PCI/AGP lock feature. Many, but not all 845/850 boards have this feature.
b) have the ability to use memory ratios at any FSB in the case your processor can not reach the higher FSB speeds. Many 845 boards (but not all) have this capability as well. You have to do your research and pick the ones that do. The ASUS P4B266/533 are not among them.
c) have a decent range of Vcore adjustment. Some are better than others in this respect as well. The board I have goes to 1.85 Vcore.
d) no stability/bug problems when overclocking such as USB ports not working properly. I recently read that the ASUS P4B boards also have an issue there.

 

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by: oldfart

The i845 chips aren't any contest in comparison to the SiS645DX chipsets

That's for certain. The 845 is clearly ahead.

My P4S333's running at 153fsb (or in reality 612mhz fsb) with a 4:5 memory divider, perfectly stable

Mine is running 150 FSB 3:4 mem ratio DDR400 perfectly stable. I also have an in spec 33/66 PCI/AGP bus. Do you?

many other enhancements, like ATA 133 support.

Which is slower than 845's ATA100 IDE.

1) The i845's definitely not ahead of the SiS645DX series, it has faster DDR266 performance. :Q
Too bad that's outdated technology.

2. 150fsb with a 3:4 divider's not exactly DDR400. You would need to be at 160fsb with a 4:5 divider to hit 400mhz.

3. I don't care for the agp/pci lock, I'd rather have bandwidth.

Finally, if you want to compare 3dmark scores with same gen video cards, I'd like to see your comparison.
If your score can beat mine, then I'll concede.

I'm not nearly done with my overclock either, remember that.

 

[oldfart]

150fsb with a 3:4 divider's not exactly DDR400.

Are you sure about that?? Looks like it is to me.

I don't care for the agp/pci lock, I'd rather have bandwidth.

Id rather have (and do have) both

 

[THUGSROOK]

ok guys fight nice now

oldfart is one of the few ppl that has an i845D with a 3:4 beyond 133fsb. id love to get my hands on that board for some testing

the SiS645 and i845 boards are like apples and oranges. you may as well compare AMD to Intel - they are that different.

my other thread gives you enough info to make your own choice. which platform is better will depend on overclocking. my 1.6A is admittedly a shoe-in. thats why i posted 150,155, and 166fsb results for that chip. ppl can compare to the results they think they can get etc.

 

[Barrei]

I agree with Old Fart until sis chipsets become all around more stable why not go with the proven i845 intel , granted Crawling eye you seem to have gotten a stable one .Just my opinion.

 

[Bobbyeyes]

"oldfart is one of the few ppl that has an i845D with a 3:4 beyond 133fsb. id love to get my hands on that board for some testing "
Rook
i happened to buy the epox 4bda for testing....and our asus 266c "felt" faster.
the memory overtiming was a great feature, but using sandra, the epox board benched slightly below the asus(exept for the memory, when overtimed).the board also had an annoying feature..
when there was an incorrect bios setting and you could not boot, you must jumper the bios and reset everythig. royal pain.
w/ the asus you can cold shut the power, and you can access the bios again w/o resetting everything
one more very important thing:
the 1.6a i was using "only" clocked to 2.4 on the epox...
the same chip hummed along at 2.5 on the asus.
all this was on a 100% scsi system if that matters (all ide channels are disabled on my sys).

after reading your posts, you made me dip in my pocket and buy a new 1.6a..
that chip is now singing along @2.8 on the asus board.
there was also a thread on another forum about the epox 4bda..
there seemed to be many people that loved the board, but if anyone was counting, it seemed that there were alot of rmas of the epox also.

 

[THUGSROOK]

Bobbyeyes kewl another 1.6A @ 2.8ghz overclocker

i keep tryin to tell ppl... a 1.6A on a Asus P4B266-C @ 166fsb 333DDR isnt that difficult at all. its also faster then anything using 400DDR.

but everyone seems to insist that they will only be able to get 150fsb and should get a 400DDR board. they dont realize the actual reason why most ppl are only getting 150fsb.... and that is their motherboard choice or bios settings.

 

[oldfart]

I didn't get a lucky draw on the CPU. I've seen people over @ [ H ]OCP forums get the high overclocks with 4BDA's also. I'm sure your CPU would run just as well in another board. There are many with P4B's that dont get anywhere near the overclock you have. Its luck of the draw. At least with the 4BDA you have the option of increasing your performance with memory speed improvement if you dont get a good chip. With the Asus, you dont.

 

[THUGSROOK]

even on the P4B266-C, if they dont disable the right bios settings they will be stuck @ 150fsb.

ive had a good dozen ppl claim they are overclocking higher than 150fsb now using my suggested bios settings. about half of them made it to 166fsb w/o a wire mod.

 

[oldfart]

Those settings are?? Maybe I can try them in the Epox. They may apply to different boards (you never know). Actually, I can get over 150 FSB. My CPU will go to ~ 2.65 Ghz with the stock HS/Fan and no wire trick. It needs more Vcore than I like though. I chose to run it @ a lower FSB, less Vcore and boost up the mem speed instead.

 

[THUGSROOK]

those settings are.....

....listed in the main post of "ROOK's HUGE THREAD"


MY BIOS SETTINGS (Asus P4B266-C)
Halt On = No Error
Memory Ratio = 1:1
USB Legacy Support = Disabled
Cas = By SPD
SDram Idle Timer = Infinite
Optimization Mode = Turbo1
Graphics Aperture = GF3: 64mb / GF4: 256mb
AGP = 4X
Delay Transaction = Disabled
Serial/Parallel Ports = Disabled
PCI Latency = 32
USB Function = Disabled
Plug and Play OS = No

 

[THUGSROOK]

heya Viper46744, did you get your answer yet?