Best motherboard for 2500k / 2600k overclocking?

[RichUK]

Been out of the game for a while and will be looking to build a new rig within a month.

Anyway - recommendations?

More than likely going with Z68 as I see no reason not to.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Its a loaded questions.Pick your poison in the price range you want . Opinions are like arse holes. Everyone has one. If opinion is based on personal opinion based on brand ownership you run into bias based on I made this choice and I am smart about hardware . LOL

 

[RichUK]

The motherboard I've been looking at is the Asus P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68.

Hmmm

 

[Acanthus]

My rig in sig has no trouble hitting 5.1GHz (too much voltage for 24/7 though)

I would just look at some reviews and remember that some boards can't change the multipliers AT ALL.

 

[RussianSensation]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/

There are a lot of options. Pretty much any of MSI, Gigabyte, Asrock or Asus make excellent boards nowdays.

The main differences lie in
1) Features - how many SATA 3.0 port do you need? Do you need PCIe 3.0 functionality? Do you need 2-3 PCIe 16x slots? Do you need great onboard sound like Creative XFi, etc.

2) Warranty - Length of warranty and Advanced RMA option in first year of failure

3) Price - Boards span from $80 to $400.

4) Bios - Asus has the best UEFI bios implementation at the moment.

The motherboard I've been looking at is the Asus P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68.

Hmmm

This Z68 board from Gigabyte has gotten great reviews. $160 isn't too expensive either given how many features it has.

Notable features include 4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, 2x PCIe 8x CF/SLI support, D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort video outs, eSATA port, IEEE1394 (FireWire) port, 2x USB 3.0 ports.

All Intel processor power-saving technologies were up and running during all our overclocking experiments. In idle mode the system automatically lowered the processor core voltage and clock frequency by dropping its frequency multiplier. [This is unlike modern MSI boards which seem to disable this fuctionality in overclocked states] - Xbitlabs Review

Unless you absolutely need 2 firewire ports, bluetooth and 3 PCIe slots, then I think this Gigabyte board offers pretty much what the Asus board you were looking at does, but for $40 less.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

subscribed

 

[grkM3]

I have a asus p67 pro that benched over 5ghz with a 2500k and was an ease to setup.

I upgraded to a gigabyte z68 ud7 and this board will run stable with 4 sticks of ram running @ 2200 8-10-8-1t where the lower end board wouldnt even post with those timings.

I dont think its worth the extra 200 dollors on top of a regular board but if you want max clocks you get what you pay for.

this new board with 2 stick runs 7-7-7-1t at 2200.

PS.I have that p67 and 2500k listed in the forsale section!

 

[dpk33]

i'm in a similar situation. i'm looking for a board that can get a 2500k to 4.5 ghz or over no problem. cheapest one and easiest to use? features dont really matter as long as it can overclock

 

[RussianSensation]

i'm in a similar situation. i'm looking for a board that can get a 2500k to 4.5 ghz or over no problem. cheapest one and easiest to use? features dont really matter as long as it can overclock

Any P67/Z68 board will do 4.5ghz on a 2500k. With multiplier overclocking, getting to 4.5ghz is all in the chip and cooling. The top boards (i.e., 24 power phases, etc.) may increase your overclock under exotic conditions such as LN2. This has also been true almost every Intel generation. The one notable time when overclocking was very much dictated by the motherboard was with P45 chipset and 45nm Penryn quads. Besides that point, in the last 4-5 years, most overclocks have been limited by the CPU/cooling, rather than motherboards.

And I am not just throwing this out there. I had my E6400 @ 3.4ghz, Q6600 @ 3.4ghz and this Core i7 860 @ 3.9ghz on $90, $110 and $130 boards, respectively. Those are pretty good overclocks without having to buy Asus Extreme IV Uber Loot 64 power phases 6 copper layers 25 year lasting military bullet proof vest $399 edition.

 

[rbk123]

What RussianSensation said (in both posts). There's a lot of good boards out there now and if you do a search there's about 10 "Best Motherboard" threads over the past 3 weeks. I have the Gigabyte board he linked and it's served me well. The Asus and MSI boards are also excellent, so find the best price for features you want and get it as they will all work well.
I've gotten great overclocks on sub-$100 boards and the Gigabyte was in the $120 range after the Microcenter deal. Uber boards are definitely no longer needed.

 

[dpk33]

so what exactly is the difference between the P67 and Z68 boards if they can both get the same overclocks?

 

[RussianSensation]

What RussianSensation said (in his first post). There's a lot of good boards out there now and if you do a search there's about 10 "Best Motherboard" threads over the past 3 weeks. I have the Gigabyte board he linked and it's served me well. The Asus and MSI boards are also excellent, so find the best price for features you want and get it as they will all work well.

I'd go as far as to say that a $130-150 P67/Z68 motherboard with a $60-70 top-of-the line air cooler such as the Noctua NH-D14 will produce a better overclock than a $360 motherboard with a $30 cooler such as the CM212+.

 

[grkM3]

I'd go as far as to say that a $130-150 P67/Z68 motherboard with a $60-70 top-of-the line air cooler such as the Noctua NH-D14 will produce a better overclock than a $360 motherboard with a $30 cooler such as the CM212+.

break 27000 mb/sec memory bandwith with a 130 dollar board and Ill give you my 360 dollar ud7 lol

 

[RussianSensation]

so what exactly is the difference between the P67 and Z68 boards if they can both get the same overclocks?

Z68 introduces a host of new features, including combined overclocking of the CPU and integrated Intel HD Graphics, SSD caching, and use of integrated GPU features such as Quick Sync while still maintaining full discrete GPU usage in true 3D applications.

--> Z68 lets you use Quick Sync video encoding from your HD3000 sandy bridge GPU;

--> You can hook up a monitor directly to your motherboard through HDMI/VGA or DisplayPort without needing a discrete videocard; thus eliminating the need to spend $25-50 on a GPU if you don't intend to play games.

Other than that, Z68 chipset is no different than P67.

 

[RussianSensation]

break 27000 mb/sec memory bandwith with a 130 dollar board and Ill give you my 360 dollar ud7 lol

And why I care about a synthetic memory bandwidth benchmark on a Sandy Bridge platform?

But you know if you feel like paying $220 more for a motherboard and 1.5-2x more for DDR3-2133 ram for a 2-3% performance increase in the real world, then I guess that may be worth it to some people.

Even starting with Nehalem 1st generation i7, it became obvious after comparing i7 860 on dual-channel S1156 vs. Core i7 920/930 on triple-channel 1366 that Core i architecture isn't memory bandwidth starved, unless you are running workstation/server type applications or trying to break SuperPi world records.

So I think it's fair to say that throwing $300-400 on "better" motherboard and "faster DDR3" ram is a huge waste of $ on modern platforms. Better motherboard is now more a function of the features you want, not so much a reflection of superior performance as say was the case during Pentium 4 or Athlon XP+ overclocking days.

 

[dpk33]

so does that mean i can slap a 2500k and an awesome cooler onto a 100 dollar p67 board and expect it to reach 4.5 ghz?

i was thinking about getting this one
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813128487

or this one
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128478&Tpk=Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3

 

[RussianSensation]

so does that mean i can slap a 2500k and an awesome cooler onto a 100 dollar p67 board and expect it to reach 4.5 ghz?

i was thinking about getting this one
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813128487

or this one
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...GA-P67A-UD4-B3

You bet!

Put it this way, all it took was Gigabyte's $120 Z68 board to reach 5.0ghz.

Review of that exact board.

Here is a 4.7ghz overclock on Gigabyte's $170 board.

I am telling you, I learned from experience of building computers over 10 years. You want a good overclock, spend more on an aftermarket CPU cooler and then worry about your board. $130-150 board will easily max out a Sandy Bridge CPU on air cooling at safe voltages for 24/7 operation. Obviously people who are used to spending $250-400 on a motherboard never want to admit this. They want to believe that they spend $150-200 better on a 'better' overclocking board. Maybe it will be better by 2-3%.

Even Asus P67 basic $150 board already has 12+2 VRM power phases. That's easily enough to get your 2500k/2600k into 5.0ghz range. But chances are your CPU will be the limiting component since it won't be able to do such high speeds within a reasonable/safe voltage range.

 

[dpk33]

You bet!

Put it this way, all it took was Gigabyte's $120 Z68 board to reach 5.0ghz.

Review of that exact board.

so basically all boards can get the chip to 4.5 or higher? what's the point of the more expensive boards?

 

[grkM3]

And why I care about a synthetic memory bandwidth benchmark on a Sandy Bridge platform?

But you know if you feel like paying $220 more for a motherboard and 1.5-2x more for DDR3-2133 ram for a 2-3% performance increase in the real world, then I guess that may be worth it to some people.

Even starting with Nehalem 1st generation i7, it became obvious after comparing i7 860 on dual-channel S1156 vs. Core i7 920/930 on triple-channel 1366 that Core i architecture isn't memory bandwidth starved, unless you are running workstation/server type applications or trying to break SuperPi world records.

So I think it's fair to say that throwing $300-400 on "better" motherboard and "faster DDR3" ram is a huge waste of $ on modern platforms. Better motherboard is now more a function of the features you want, not so much a reflection of superior performance as say was the case during Pentium 4 or Athlon XP+ overclocking days.

You said a cheap board will overclock just as good,I have seen a few posts of low end boards not even able to POST with 4 sticks of ram installed,I was only bringing up the bandwith because not only do I have 4 sticks running stable,they are running at 2200 mhz with tight timings and 4 STICKS installed with a 5ghz overclock.

Try to even get a 130 dollar board to post with those sticks and then tell us the money was wasted.

Why do you think Im selling my 190 dollar p67 pro board?Its a great board and will easily get to 4.7-4.8ghz with 2 sticks and decent timings but trying to get anymore out of it is nothing but bsod.

There was a thread recently about a kid having 4 sticks of ram and his board would only post at 4.0ghz and ran the ram at 1333.

 

[RussianSensation]

so basically all boards can get the chip to 4.5 or higher? what's the point of the more expensive boards?

Well it has to be a P67 or Z68 board since H61/67 won't let you adjust your multiplier.

As I already mentioned in this thread: Features.

Some people want Tri-Fire CF setup. A $120 board can't provide this. Some people want X-Fi onboard sound. A $120 board can't provide that. Some people want 14 SATA ports. A $120 board won't do that. Some people use RevoDrive SSDs and 2 HD6990s, so they need more PCIe lanes, etc.

You said a cheap board will overclock just as good,I have seen a few posts of low end boards not even able to POST with 4 sticks of ram installed,

Where they forcing unrealistic timings such as CL6-6-6 / CL7-7-7 @ 1T? Plus, together with high frequency? When you populate all DIMMS, you stress the CPU's memory controller much more. You may need to increase RAM / QPI voltage to maintain the same speeds, although it's probably not worth it anyway since the performance difference is barely there.

My last 3 builds all included budget quality boards. Here you go:

My 2006 setup - 60% overclock on a $95 board:

1. I overclocked E6400 2.13ghz @ 3.4ghz & Corsair DDR2-5400 (675mhz) ram @ 900mhz 100% stable (the Ram could even do 1000mhz overclock on a $90 Gigabyte 965P-DS3 with a $5 Zalman heatsink.

$90 motherboard + $5 northbridge heatsink modification = $95 setup.

My most critical / cardinal rule (A must for extracting maximum value out of a $90-130 board): Proper aftermarket cooling upgrade.

CPU & Ram Overclock:

 

[nyker96]

this should be in motherboards section.

 

[dpk33]

so if overclocking, crossfire and sli are the only things i need, which specific mobo would be good for me?

 

[tweakboy]

The motherboard I've been looking at is the Asus P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68.

Hmmm

This is a top notch board.

If your not going to overclock get the 2600 . If you plan on overclocking you need the 2600k version. Or you can get the 2500k . Throw in a 5xx . or 68xx

WIth ASUS your always a winner. You can overclock a good batched CPU to 5.5Ghz , but you need special cooling. Custom HSF ,which is loud, or water setup, no noise just a block on the CPU ...

I dont think you can do 5 or 5.5 with a HSF. Soo think of your cooling now. let us know.. gl

 

[RussianSensation]

My 2007 Setup:

2. I overclocked Q6600 2.4ghz @ 3.4ghz 100% stable on a $110 Gigabyte P35-DS3L.

Start with a budget $110 board (again no fancy power phases, no fancy cooling upgrades):

Continuing with improved aftermarket cooling since Q6600 demands more than E6400.

CPU Overclock:

 

[RussianSensation]

so if overclocking, crossfire and sli are the only things i need, which specific mobo would be good for me?

Just need a board that has 8x/8x PCIe 2.0 lanes.

Any of these:

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
GIGABYTE GA-P67X-UD3-B3

MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) (or P67-GD65, etc.)
MSI Z68A-GD65 (B3)

ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.1)
ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3)
ASRock Z68 Extreme4

EVGA Z68 SLI

^ Some of these boards have a lot of features, that's why their prices approach $180-200. Specifically, on P67 / Z68 chipset you pay extra for SLI support. If you decide to go with CF 8x/8x capability only, there are plenty of boards in the $120-150 range.