Best Motherboard to OC Q6600

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Redmanc

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OK, i'm after a good overclocking MB for the Q6600.

I've narrowed my search down to 3 as i want to keep around the £100 mark.

Gigabyte EP35-DS4
Asus P5KE/Wifi
Gigabyte EP35 DS3P

Any comments ?
 
If you have a spare ten pounds I would get the Abit IP35 Pro. This has been proven to be a very good and reliable OC'er of quads. With something like the TRUE heatsink you should be able to reach 3.6GHz with little hassle.
 
ip35pro and Q6600 no good vcore cdroop FTW :mad: Only fix is if you are good with sodering......
 
Any ideas on the boards i've mentioned ?

Some mention the X38 chipset.

I've seen the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 for £130.

Is it worth the extra £30 and is it a good board ?
 
VDroop. LOL. Yeah, the IP35 Pro has VDroop. They all do. Who cares? It still overclocks well. See sig below. This overclock was painless (with 8 GB of RAM no less) & you aren't going to do much better with another board.

my 2 cents
 
Another vote for the IP35 Pro. Very good over clocker. I use to worry about VDroop, but it's a rock solid, stable board, so really, who cares.
 
Dogboy714 said:
VDroop. LOL. Yeah, the IP35 Pro has VDroop. They all do. Who cares? It still overclocks well. See sig below. This overclock was painless (with 8 GB of RAM no less) & you aren't going to do much better with another board.

my 2 cents
Click to expand...

Owners of the DFI LT-UT models claim that it's pretty much non-existant. Not sure as I've never tested one myself, hopefully someone with one of those boards can verify please.
 
vDroop is there by design. Any of those boards should OC the Q6600 well -- there won't be much difference between them, since they're all P35 boards.
 
I'm looking at the same decision right now. I have an EVGA 680i (didn't do the 780i upgrade...I'm done with nvidia chipsets for Intel) and it has my Q6600 sitting at 3.6ghz 24x7 @ 1.46v...which is good..but the board itself is flaky as hell. Sometimes it'll boot fine, others I have to power cut the power and wait a few minutes, and then sometimes when I hit the power it just sits there with all fans and lights on for about 3 minutes until it finally comes to life. Also I have to run it at 450x8 to get 3.6ghz. 449 bsods, 451+ bdsods. the only speeds it seems to like are stock, 3ghz, 3.2ghz, and 3.6ghz. Anything between 3.2ghz and 3.6ghz either won't boot or results in bsod no matter what voltage.

So I'm trying to decide whether I want to keep the 680i and just get a nice watercooling setup... or go with one of these boards:
ABIT IP35 Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127030

or

ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131227

or

DFI LP LT X38-T2R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136042

or

DFI LP LT P35 T2R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136039

I'm tossed up about the x38 vs the P35. From what I gather, the IP35Pro from Abit is about the best P35 board out there....But then there's the lure of the new x38. I've seen a couple reviews out there that show the P35 besting the x38 in performance when overclocked as well...
very hard decision... but I'm leaning toward either the Abit IP35Pro or the Asus Maximus Formula...and then I always look back at the DFI....

:EDIT: included names of boards as requested
 
I bought the ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA and have been using it for about 3 days. I OCed it to 3.2 then back turned it back down. No real need for me to OC a Q6600 :-\
 
I also see the Abit QuadGT x38 board... do you think the Asus was worth it over the Abit? I see some good marks about the QuadGT as well, with the downside being that it doesn't offer as many ram dividers as the Asus or DFI.
 
Well I ahve the Asus P5E motherboard with X38 chipset and it overclock well on my Q6600 G0, im currently at 4.01 and no probleme
 
carlson19 said:
I bought the ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA and have been using it for about 3 days. I OCed it to 3.2 then back turned it back down. No real need for me to OC a Q6600 :-\
Click to expand...

I had this board. It had major heat issues with the chipset. The stock cooling is horrible. I ended up getting a DFI LP LT X38 and it been a much better experience with much cooler temps. Haven't had much time to play with it but its easily running my q6600 at 3.2. Over the weekend I'm going to try and get it with 3.4 24/7. This board also holds the voltage better than the maximus.

I have seen other people with the same issues I was having with the maximus too. Some however seem to really like it.
 
BingeBoy said:
I had this board. It had major heat issues with the chipset. The stock cooling is horrible. I ended up getting a DFI LP LT X38 and it been a much better experience with much cooler temps. Haven't had much time to play with it but its easily running my q6600 at 3.2. Over the weekend I'm going to try and get it with 3.4 24/7. This board also holds the voltage better than the maximus.

I have seen other people with the same issues I was having with the maximus too. Some however seem to really like it.
Click to expand...


This is what makes my decision so hard for me... my 680i jallopy is running my Q6600 at 3.6 on air @ 1.46v stable as a rock. I did the vdroop mod for the board and that did wonders. However - the board does have some odd quirks that bug me and I think my chip has more headroom left in it...which is why i was looking to switch in the first place.

To top off the decision...I'll probably need watercooling to run the chip any higher as it hits about 62c on a 4-core load. Soooo...new board...or watercooling setup. The amount I'll spend on the watercooling will be about what I'd spend getting the DFI X38 board (which is the one I think I'll end up getting).

decisions decisions...

back to the OP though... I'd say from what I've gathered reading up on the net go for the Abit IP35Pro if you can. I see more good things about that board than most others.
 
Hey.


Here's my Q6600 OC story.

Jumped onto online shop and ordered Q6600, Maximus Formula mobo, 8gb Corsair ram, 8800 GT Gainward golden sample.

Stuff arrived and 2 hours later system was done. 5 minutes later i was running 3,6ghz and scoring 16300 marks :p

Thats how easy it is with Maximus Formula. A few "clicks" hehe.
 
OK i've read through this topic/argument and decided to keep with a P35 board.

The decision is now then:

Asus P5K Premium
Gigabyte EP35-DS4

I've always used Gigabyte in the past but see there's great reviews for the Asus board, but i'm not familiar with them.
 
Why not IP35? it's a great board and it's P35, same price range or lower than then P5K premium and DS4
 
sl.124 said:
Why not IP35? it's a great board and it's P35, same price range or lower than then P5K premium and DS4
Click to expand...

I think you mean IP35 Pro, cuz my IP35 was only $100, lol.

I'd go for the P5K-E over the Premium. I think the DS4 and P5K Premium are overpriced.
 
At the risk of hijacking this thread, I'm trying to decide between the ABIT IP35 Pro and the IP35-e. I can do without firewire (I'll just get a PCI card for $10), RAID, and the extra SATA ports. However, I've seen a couple of references in reviews which alluded to the IP35 Pro being a better choice for a Q6600.

The price difference is pretty big between these two boards (around $75 after rebates), but I won't upgrade again for 2-3 years and I'm thinking the extra features may pay off over time (and what's $75 spread over 3 years?). In general, the IP35 Pro seems like a "no compromise" board and the IP35-e seems like a great value.

Any thoughts?
 
the DFI dark is supposed to be a very good board and it's very reasonably priced too. Just ordered one yesterday
 
I have my q6600 oc'd on a Gigabyte P35 DS4 to 3.1 without even trying very hard. I like the board a lot. Seems quite stable and plenty of USB ports and plenty of cables included for SATA.
 
sl.124 said:
Yup lol, there's only the ip35-e and pro in the store i use
Click to expand...

Yah, and thats a shame. The IP35 had heatpipe cooling for the nb/mosfets, firewire, 6x SATA ports w/ RAID, and was only $120 (and typically found with a $25MIR). Now the only comparable board, IMO, is the MSI Neo2-FR (but no firewire). I guess no Firewire is a good thing, to some people (who are paranoid).
 
I looked at the MSI (I had a bad experience with an MSI board back in the day) and I decided to go with the p5n-d. It should fit my SLI/OC needs.



Originally Posted by Batmaninthehood View Post
ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI Intel ATX Motherboard Retail 150.99

This is the one I'm getting, but I'm going SLI.
Originally Posted by enginurd
If you're going SLI and a quadcore, go with the MSI P7N Diamond instead. If you don't need SLI (your monitor resolution is less than 1920x1200), then stick to P35.
Click to expand...
 
enginurd said:
Yah, and thats a shame. The IP35 had heatpipe cooling for the nb/mosfets, firewire, 6x SATA ports w/ RAID, and was only $120 (and typically found with a $25MIR). Now the only comparable board, IMO, is the MSI Neo2-FR (but no firewire). I guess no Firewire is a good thing, to some people (who are paranoid).
Click to expand...

PCI firewire cards are cheap anyways, no big deal?
 
If you can afford the cost of DDR3 memory the P5K3 Deluxe is an awesome overclocker. I got my Q6600 G0 up to 3.2 at standard voltage with FSB of 1600Mhz without any problem. I probably could push it even more but I am happy with it as it is. I use to be a Gigabyte person, but with this motherboard I have changed my mind.
 
spartus4 said:
If you can afford the cost of DDR3 memory the P5K3 Deluxe is an awesome overclocker. I got my Q6600 G0 up to 3.2 at standard voltage with FSB of 1600Mhz without any problem. I probably could push it even more but I am happy with it as it is. I use to be a Gigabyte person, but with this motherboard I have changed my mind.
Click to expand...

I think, in general, reaching 3.2Ghz on stock voltage depends more on your chip than your board, despite vDroop. My Q6600 can reach 3.2Ghz on stock voltage on both my Abit IP35 and my DS3R. I dont see any reason to pay such a high price premium for a DDR3 board just to OC a Q600 to 3.2Ghz on stock voltage (assuming your chip is even capable of this). Even a slight vCore bump on any other board previously mentioned would save you so much money.

sl.124 said:
PCI firewire cards are cheap anyways, no big deal?
Click to expand...

True, but I guess you didn't click on that link I posted? :p
 
soloz2 said:
the DFI dark is supposed to be a very good board and it's very reasonably priced too. Just ordered one yesterday
Click to expand...

Seconded. Once I get confirmation that my E8400 has been shipped from Microcenter, I'll be ordering the DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS along with some 1000 RAM and a Zalman cooler. :)
 
tenub said:
Seconded. Once I get confirmation that my E8400 has been shipped from Microcenter, I'll be ordering the DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS along with some 1000 RAM and a Zalman cooler. :)
Click to expand...

Ditch that Zalman cooler if you want to reach a high OC.
 
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