Motherboard for i7 OC'ing

[NitroTurtle]

I recently picked up a Core i7 920 and I'm trying to find a board that suits my needs. So far I've looked at several of the more popular boards, and very few seem to have two usable PCI slots. I'm currently using a Razer AC-1 sound card and a TV tuner card, and I'd like to continue using both with the new board. Everything will also be water cooled, and I'd like to continue using my MCW30 chipset block if possible. I currently only run a single GTX280 that takes up two slots with the waterblock on it, so PCI slots directly next to the main PCIe slot are pretty much useless.

On top of all this, I'd like to get a board that has high overclocking potential. While this is my first experience OCing an i7, I have several years of previous experience so I'd prefer overall performance over simplicity. I'm also running a pretty decent cooling setup, so I'd like to try to reach 4.5Ghz with this D0 if possible.

So far, I've been looking at boards from DFI, Gigabyte, Asus and EVGA. I was just about sold on a DFI, but I've read mixed reviews of their X58 offerings. The LP DK X58 looks like a decent option, and seems comparable to my current LP LT P35, but many of the Newegg reviews talk about high RMA rates on this board. On top of this, I'm not sure I want to put as much effort into researching the plethora of bios settings as I did with my current board.

As for the Gigabyte boards, it looks like only the low end UD3R would even fit my PCI slot needs, as all the higher end boards stagger PCI/PCIe slots. I'm not sure if the NB cooler on this board would allow me to use my current block, and I also don't care for the limited RAM slots on this board.

The popular Asus board seems to be the P6T Deluxe, but again it has the same issue with the PCI slots. In fact, if I add another card for SLI (which I may do at some point, and I've accepted that I'd have to drop the TV tuner for this), the soundcard would end up sandwiched between the video cards. The vanilla P6T layout is more appealing to me, and this is the board I'd probably go with if I decided to go with Asus.

Last, but not least, are the boards from EVGA. I've been a huge fan of their video cards for the past several generations, but I've never tried one of their MBs. The E758-TR looks like it would fit my needs, though again I'm not sure about replacing the NB cooling. But having never used an EVGA board I'm not sure what to expect here.

So anyways, sorry for the huge post but I'm sure people here have experience overclocking on these various boards and I'm hoping to find some good advice.

 

[alkemyst]

same boat here, I have a scsi card for my Opticals and mainly my scanner (HP 4c), Santa Cruz soundcard and a PCI wireless-g card. I will need at least two slots unless I upgrade across the board.

 

[NitroTurtle]

Anyone have any comments on the boards listed above? Newegg has 10% off MBs this weekend, so I'd like to place an order, but I still have no idea which one I should go with.

 

[GEOrifle]

I7 with D0 from NEWEGG? Lucky!
NEWEGG's 10% disscount in August will be more than 50% because all PC products will go down for B.to SCHOOL time and new Intell's chip will arrive so does this 10% really worth if you can find same board $50-100 cheaper in August-September ?

 

[aigomorla]

budget / max performance... Id look at these:

1. Foxconn BloodRage
2. Gigabyte X58-UD4P or the Extreme
3. eVGA X58 SLI
4. DFI X58

My first pic tho would go out to the bloodrage. :X

No budget?
1. eVGA Classified
2. ASUS R2E


Errr 4.5??? on a 920?
im sorry but this is where u see me walk away laughing...

4.3 maybe your upper realistic wall, 4.4 possibly if ur running uber ram, and you have one of the no budget boards... 4.5... no way not possible.... not unless you have one cherry of a chip.

 

[NitroTurtle]

I picked up the D0 from Micro Center, but I plan to order the board through Newegg. I'm not really interested in waiting 2 months to see if the boards drop more in price.

This will be my first experience with an i7, and I thought 4.5 was a reasonable goal (apparently I was mistaken). I think there's probably a more considerate way to explain that I've made an error, but at least I got the point. I'd like to get a reasonable overclock (4Ghz+?) that I can leave 24/7 that gives me the most performance out of my hardware and cooling setup.

Of the boards suggested above, the Foxconn, Gigabyte, eVGA Classified and Asus R2E all fail to meet the PCI conditions I've listed in the OP. Right now I think I'm leaning toward the eVGA X58 SLI, but still trying to confirm I can use my MCW30 instead of the stock NB cooling.

 

[aigomorla]

its advisable to grab a full board block.

Koolance makes one, so does bitspower.

Koolance might be cheaper. EK also has one.

Oh wait your looking for PCI slots?

 

[kyotousa]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
budget / max performance... Id look at these:

1. Foxconn BloodRage
2. Gigabyte X58-UD4P or the Extreme
3. eVGA X58 SLI
4. DFI X58

What's the main difference between X58-UD3R & X58-UD4P
Does it matter if I just want to OC a D0 920 to 3.6-3.8ghz and Underclock to 2.2ghz (1.2v) for daily usage.

 

[imported_Shaq]

4.4 with hyperthreading off is a realistic goal for good water cooling and a good D0. With it on you have to get a little lucky with the CPU lottery. 4.2 and hyperthreading off is doable on air.

I like my Gigabyte board for the most part. The SLI version is about $200 and has a usable PCI and PCIE x1 slot when running SLI. The other PCIE x1 slot could be used if there is a card that isn't much longer than the bus.

 

[MagickMan]

4.3 maybe your upper realistic wall, 4.4 possibly if ur running uber ram, and you have one of the no budget boards... 4.5... no way not possible.... not unless you have one cherry of a chip.

Agreed. I have 1 friend who was running a 920 @4.5GHz on a Classified with water. He had to try 3 different RAM makers before he found one that would handle the strain (some crazy G.Skill stuff). When he got all the parts he locked himself away in his house for days, but he got it to 4.5, stable. Now he's throttled it back to 4.3 (w/ SLI GTX 295s and SSD RAID 0) for everyday use. It's pretty much the fastest damned PC I've ever seen.

 

[Grnkjr0]

I have a i7 920 C0/C1 and a X-58 UD4P with a Scythe Mugen 2 Cpu cooler, and I am able to play games with 205x20 and turbo enabled. That is 4.3 GHz on air with a C0/C1 chip. I even have some bad 1333 MHz Ram that is able to overclock to 1640 MHz, that is a 300 MHz overclock - sweet.

http://i342.photobucket.com/al...jr0/205loadfurmark.png

 

[bleucharm28]

Originally posted by: Grnkjr0
I have a i7 920 C0/C1 and a X-58 UD4P with a Scythe Mugen 2 Cpu cooler, and I am able to play games with 205x20 and turbo enabled. That is 4.3 GHz on air with a C0/C1 chip. I even have some bad 1333 MHz Ram that is able to overclock to 1640 MHz, that is a 300 MHz overclock - sweet.

http://i342.photobucket.com/al...jr0/205loadfurmark.png

Hey Grnkjr0

Your CPU temperature must be crazy hot!!! whats your temperature at idle and full load?

with all 4 cores.

 

[Grnkjr0]

"Hey Grnkjr0

Your CPU temperature must be crazy hot!!! whats your temperature at idle and full load?

with all 4 cores."


I may be wrong about this was using all 4 cores - maybe it was only 2 cores - I can honestly not remember, because I never used this setting for every day gaming. This was only to see how far I could push the BCLK while maintaning stability enough for gaming.

I never tested it on Prime95 - only Furmark. Temperatures while stability testing using a GTX 285 overclocked to core 741, memory 1403 and shader to 1600 was under load:

Cpu: 41 C
Core 1: 60 C (not sure why it showed 60 degrees Celsius)
Core 2: 46 C
Core 3: 49 C
Core 4: 50

Under idle it showed:

Cpu: 36 C
Core 1: 43 C
Core 2: 39 C
Core 3: 43 C
Core 4: 44 C

This was measured using Everest Ultimate. I have an Accelero Xtreme 280 mounted on my GTX 285 with some additional Enzotech mosfets. I know that when running prime95 and BCLK 200x20 with turbo and hyperthreading my core temperatures are between 70-75 C. You will never see a 100% load in your daily use, but these temperatures would still not be a problem with the i7 920.

I do use an Antec 1200 with 7 or so fans blowing in there, and a Scythe Mugen 2 CPU cooler.

 

[NitroTurtle]

Just as an update, I went with the DFI UT X58. If it's anything like my current board, it'll take some work but it'll be worth it in the end.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: MagickMan

4.3 maybe your upper realistic wall, 4.4 possibly if ur running uber ram, and you have one of the no budget boards... 4.5... no way not possible.... not unless you have one cherry of a chip.

Agreed. I have 1 friend who was running a 920 @4.5GHz on a Classified with water. He had to try 3 different RAM makers before he found one that would handle the strain (some crazy G.Skill stuff). When he got all the parts he locked himself away in his house for days, but he got it to 4.5, stable. Now he's throttled it back to 4.3 (w/ SLI GTX 295s and SSD RAID 0) for everyday use. It's pretty much the fastest damned PC I've ever seen.

My 975:
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...enchmarks/newstats.jpg

W3580 (HT is off, was goling after linx benchmarks):
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...73/aigomorla/W3580.jpg

Heres a W3570 (showing off the unlocked multi):
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...73/aigomorla/w3570.jpg

ummm i think you guys get the picture..


those are the 24/7 settings i run on them.