Motherboard Advice Requested for I920 Rev D

[killboy]

Hi,

I have a custom water cooling setup (D-Tek CPU Block, Triple Rad) and I'm getting an i920 Revision D next week.

I've been out of the loop for a while, and I'm trying to figure out what motherboard to get.

It used to be simple, Asus or Abit...

But now there's EVGA, some seemingly strong offerings from Gigabyte, Asus and even the Intel DX58SO Smackover (Intel for overclocking? How things have changed...)

So what's everyone using these days that's good? I'm looking for something that's relatively pain-free and that will max out my chip in terms of overclocking.

Ps. Right now I'm thinking of the Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME, because it seems to be a great overclocker, seems to have a good layout and has built in watercooling for the northbridge!

[jcniest5]

I suggest read all you can about any boards you are interested in to narrow down the list. Major players are: Asus, Biostar, DFI, EVGA, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI. It all really depends on what your needs are or what you really want. No board is going to be perfect for everyone.

[Leeghoofd]

Any board will do but stay away form the Intel board if you want to do Oc'ing... From my own experience the Giga UD5 is a very durable and easy board to OC. The Rampage Extreme II is pretty hard to tweak. The Bloodrage is like the UD5 rockstable, but oh so limited in availability...

[ben805]

Asus P6T Deluxe V2, easy to overclock and good quality. If you need SAS controller then get the V1 version.

[roller11]

Stay away from the EVGA, MSI, DFI DK and giga UD3r, vista sleep mode doesn't work . On the other hand, DFI UT Lanparty, giga UD5, UD4P, Biostar , ASUS p6T, P6T deluxe support SM. I've tested 8 different boards, UD5, Biostar, DFI UT are best OC, MSI and ASUS P6T are the worst.

[zanzabar]

the dfi UT is by far the best, the only thing close to it is the evga classified but it has the nt200 and costs alot more so i wouldent get it.

[Kensek]

the dfi UT is by far the best, the only thing close to it is the evga classified but it has the nt200 and costs alot more so i wouldent get it.


EVGA last week released a Classified version without the Nf200 chip for $50 less than the Classified with the chip in it.

[killboy]

Great info, I like the feedback I'm getting from guys that have used 6-7 boards... and then just spitting out all the info in a line that would be worthy of a twitter post.

Anyhow, just as an update... I found that the Asus P6T v2 has problems with SAS (as someone pointed out)... so that's out!
The Asus Rampage is great (but expensive) and lengthy to tweak, I'd rather not deal with all the random Asus tweaks in order to get it working properly..
DFI UT ... usually really nice boards, but so frigging complicated and moody... Personal opinion of course.. and warranty with them is a :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:.
MSI/Intel jokes at overclocking...
Foxconn Bloodrage ... nice, but it's Foxconn, that's like buying a Hyundai. Not to mention it only has 3 DIMMS... out
EVGA.. promising company, decent products but still relatively new to the motherboard business and I'm going to assume there's going to be enough tweaking to be done to get it 'right'
and finally, the Gigabyte UD5... pretty much everything I've read about it says it's a great board, has a decent price and Gigabyte's been good to me in the past, so that's what I'll be buying tomorrow!

Thanks, hopefully someone else can learn from my experience

[roller11]

Great info, I like the feedback I'm getting from guys that have used 6-7 boards...

pretty much everything I've read about it says it's [giga UD5] a great board,



I've extensively tested 3 different giga boards, 2 different MSIs, 2 different DFIs, a biostar, and the ASUS P6T, all with my i7 920 that validates at 4710 Mhz, so I know what I'm talking about. None of them are perfect, but the UD5 comes closest. The only shortcoming is that it doesn't do EIST correctly. This means that it will run hotter than the MSI, DFI, Biostar at 24/7 voltage levels, and that potentially translates to more fan noise. On the plus side, it does Vista sleep mode, and you can do CPU smart fan with either a voltage fan or a PWM fan, and it is has argueably the best AC characteristics at both high and low Vcore. The Biostar and DFI UT are virtually as good at high Vcore, but the UD5 has them beat at Vcore levels below 1.200. This tends to make up to a small extent the one ding against all giga boards, their lack of EIST support (the ASUS boards also don't support EIST).
A serious flaw in all EVGA, MSI, and DFI boards is bad CPU socket placement, the socket is placed near the edge of the board so getting a full sized CPU cooler can be a serious problem if you need lots of clearance around the socket for your cooler.

[jcool]

Anyhow, just as an update... I found that the Asus P6T v2 has problems with SAS (as someone pointed out)... so that's out!


How can it have problems with SAS? The V2 doesn't even have the SAS controller any more ;)


Boards I have used so far:

Asus P6T Deluxe OC Palm, P6T V2, DFI x58 DX, DFI x58 UT (my personal mobo), DFI x58 JR, Gigabyte EX58 UD4P, UD5 and Extreme.

All of them were overall good boards, especially the Gigabytes are very easy to set up and OC. I prefer DFI, but that's just me. There really isn't that big a difference in performance or OCability between these mobos, pick the one you like (because of its features, cooling etc).

Note that the P6T Deluxe, EX58-Extreme and DFI UT can easily be watercooled by just putting 1 block on the NB (Mips makes special blocks for these boards), no need tor emove the whole heatpipe system.

[bluehaze]

For ease of OC and just plain stable and everything works Giga UD5 or Extreme if you want the NB waterblock (Really don't need the WB though as it runs quite cool. The new Evga classified seems the best board though for extreme OC this is the only one i've seen so far that ppl are breaking 222bclk, one guy even broke 5ghz!

[drnip]

DFI UT or EVGA Classified.

[ben805]

EVGA Classified cost about $400.....WOW! :shocked:

[fhpchris]

I have a P6T6 ws revolution, but I would recommend the EVGA Classified.

[ACE76]

I also use the P6T6 Revolution and absolutely love this board! It is an excellent clocker and easy to set-up. I am, however going to be buying another board for a 2nd system and am considering buying my first Gigabyte board ever because everyone that has bought the UD5 loves it and says it is extremely easy to work/OC with.

The new EVGA Classified is probably as good as the P6T6 Revolution which also has the NF200 chip on it. Couple that with the 16 phase power and you know you have a great board...it is also very stable.

[Utnorris]

I have played with the Gigabyte UD5 Extreme, the EVGA Vanilla, the REII and the Blood Rage. All were good boards overall. I couldn't overclock anywhere close to the the other three with the UD5, but I didn't spend a whole lot of time on it. The EVGA and Blood Rage were very easy to over clock on and the REII was semi easy. All three did 200BLCK without blinking. However, from what I have read and am now experiencing personally, if you want to get the max out of your DO and break the 222BLCK wall, better get the Classified, either one (although there is only a $30 difference between the two) will do, but I have seen more posts with it going past the 222BLCK wall than any other board, a couple REII and one DFI went past that I have seen. Now I am personally trying to get past the wall with my Blood Rage, hopefully tonight will be the bight, but we will see. If I was buying a board today and I wanted the max, it would be the Classified without question. Once boards start coming out with the x58 B3 stepping everything will change, but that may be awhile.

[jcniest5]

Wait for the X58 Chipset Rev. B comes out and implemented then grab the Gigabyte UD5. B.2 will break the 222 bclk the current rev. X58 is having.

[roller11]

The new Evga classified seems the best board though for extreme OC this is the only one i've seen so far that ppl are breaking 222bclk, one guy even broke 5ghz!

I've seen many validations of people going beyond 222Bclk with non-classified boards, so there is no 'wall' at 222 Bclk. When establishing the AC limits, you are testing the limits of both the CPU and the motherboard, so why blame the motherboard?

[ReverendMaynard]

The 222bclck wall = PCIE frequency. If you can raise it, especially in the 110-116 range, you'll be looking at 230+ with the right cpu.

[roller11]

The 222bclck wall = PCIE frequency. If you can raise it, especially in the 110-116 range, you'll be looking at 230+ with the right cpu.


Normally you can set the PCIE clock to any value you want.

[roller11]

Another limitation of the Gigabyte board, plus many others, is that it isn't supported by setfsb. That means you must reboot into windows everytime you want to change your Bclk instead of doing it on the fly, making it harder to get a validation. The Bclk adjustment feature in EasyTune6 is broken in that whenever you change Bclk, the CPU multi automatically disables Turbo mode so you can never have a 21 multiplier with a i7 920/940 after changing Bclk once in wondows.
The only x58 boards that have setfsb support are the Biostar x58 and the DFI UT Lanparty.

[ic3m4n2005]

If its really broken on the GB Board it would really suck (since i get on of these). On my P6T Del. i can set it via Asus' own software without a problem, no need for setfsb.

[Utnorris]

Well I can tell you on the Blood Rage you cannot change the PCIe value. Not sure about Gigabyte or the EVGA since I no longer have those around and the REII that I have has a defunct ram slot and Asus won't fix it, so it's sitting in the closet. Without being able to change the PCIe value I am having a hard time getting anything stable above 200 without thowing some extra voltage to it. I have yet to understand what the PICe value has to do with a stable overclock, but that does seem to be the case.

[roller11]

If its really broken on the GB Board it would really suck (since i get on of these). On my P6T Del. i can set it via Asus' own software without a problem, no need for setfsb.

I have a P6T, but no software (I didn't get a CD). Can you tell me what ASUS software allows adjustment of Bclk under Vista?

As to the Giga ET6 software, it really, really does have the bug such that if you launch Vista in Turbo mode (21x multi), and you change Bclk with ET6, you immediately disable turbo mode and multi drops to 20x. This is 100% repeatable, and occurs on every Giga x58 motherboard. Giga has known about this bug since x58 boards were released in 2008 and has no interest in fixing it, so I'm told by customer support.

Oh yeah, another thing about giga x58 boards....at high Bclk values, QPI mode
must be degraded to 'slow mode'. For example, I can boot into windows at 222x21 if I set to slow mode on the UD5 and UD4P. But if I run in normal QPI speed, I can only get up to 220x21. I thought this was a limitation of my CPU until I tested with a Biostar, ASUS, Msi and found that I can get greater than 220 Bclk while in full speed QPI, so apparently it's a limitation of the giga, not the CPU.

[clayton]

Any board will do but stay away form the Intel board if you want to do Oc'ing... From my own experience the Giga UD5 is a very durable and easy board to OC. The Rampage Extreme II is pretty hard to tweak. The Bloodrage is like the UD5 rockstable, but oh so limited in availability...

There's nothing wrong with DX58SO other than 3 RAM slots, bad pricing, and non-desirable memory overclocking results.:)

[roller11]

I am having a hard time getting anything stable above 200 without thowing some extra voltage to it.

It is perfectly normal to have to raise Vcore to increase Bclk and therefore CPU clk.

[Utnorris]

Yes, but I have already raised the voltages to 1.46v on vcore and it still fails to run the Vantage cpu tests. I am afraid I may have to go to 1.5v to get it stable since I cannot adjust the PCIe frequency.

[ic3m4n2005]

I have a P6T, but no software (I didn't get a CD). Can you tell me what ASUS software allows adjustment of Bclk under Vista?

.....


There are two programs for this board, one is for energy saving and the other is for adjusting voltages and bclk. I don't remember the name exactly (i'm @ work atm, but i should be something with Turbo i think), but just take a look on asus page for P6T software, you will see which one is the right one ;)