The Unofficial List of Good mATX Motherboards (Overclocking and Not)

Plan on building a C2D SFF system real soon.. can anyone direct me towards some of the best mobo's around?
-New to OCing.. but I want to OC my Proc.
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Since there's no great mATX o/c mobos it seems, my thought go towards getting an e4300, pairing it with one of the half-decent boards listed here and bumping the FSB from 800 to 1066, which should run the CPU at 2.4ghz (from 1.8). Anything after that is a bonus, but the lack of PCI-e lock seems to be holding most of the boards back. Pair it with some DDR2-667 and you should be able to get a decent speed out of the processor. Even if you don't overclock the e4300 is only a few % behind e6300 anyway...
 
Are there any decent overclocking boards in my price range? If I can overclock that chip to the e6600 safely I will do so.
 
I have the ECS board featuring this chipset. I can only get it to 290 so the prospects of a 377.7 with another brand seems abit nuts. It is a good cheap board though.
 
ABIT's upcoming Conroe mATX mobo might give the SFF community some Conroe overclocking goodness but until we see something other than pics we wont know for sure.
 
AntiSocialMunky said:
I have the ECS board featuring this chipset. I can only get it to 290 so the prospects of a 377.7 with another brand seems abit nuts. It is a good cheap board though.
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ya but thats ecs and the other one is abit, abit is known for good overclocking. it might not do 3.4gh but maybe like 2.8-3.2 ghz
 
AntiSocialMunky said:
I have the ECS board featuring this chipset. I can only get it to 290 so the prospects of a 377.7 with another brand seems abit nuts. It is a good cheap board though.
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I have the ECS version as well, and I seem to have no pci-e lock. I am using a P4 506 2.66GHz cpu that runs rock stable at 4GHz with stock cooling on other boards and I couldn't get it over 165fsb. At 166 the board refused to boot-had to clear cmos. So I just pinmodded my cpu insted so it boots up at 4GHz now and works great! No dual channel memory contoller on VIA 890 chipset.
 
lillimon04 said:
ya but thats ecs and the other one is abit, abit is known for good overclocking. it might not do 3.4gh but maybe like 2.8-3.2 ghz
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There's a Biostar board with this chipset that was reviewed on PCSTATs that I was trying to look at the other day. I couldn't get it to load but you might want to check that out.
 
I was watching the DO for my next project planning to be an HTPC.

Hopefully it can push a QuadCore to decent figures. ;)

The 1394 means I can use it to capture HD from my Cable box!
 
There might me some hope in the Q965 chipset. I heard the 3000 GMA unlike the X3000 is a varient of the G945 IGP so it might be able to push 355.
 
dworley said:
Heres' a new ASUS Q965 board that looks interesting and it's available now from ewiz
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It looks like they tacked on the “DO” because it uses a new southbridge (ICH8 DO). I can’t tell what is different about it. "Intel Active Management Technology?" Whatever the heck that is! The southbridge controls the PCI/PCI-E bus (well, sort of) so maybe there is some hope that is has a lock due to that? I wouldn’t get too excited though.

Here is an old TheInq article that makes it sound promising: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32227
TheInq said:
P965 and Q965 chipsets... are overclocking like hell
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That Asus board sounds nice, however I do have some reservations. Asus mATX boards aren't known for being overclock-friendly, plus their boards tend to be more expensive. However, I do hope...
 
any word on the EVGA 131-K8-NF44-AX NF4 SLI yet? looks like a jucy board.. I dont want SLI really, but a fully Nf4 chipset not a 6100 or 6150, 4x memory slots, 4x SATAll, power circut cooling..

I can only assum that since its a NF4 not a 6100 or 6150 it will have better overclcoking options..
 
Foxconn had a mATX board using the Nforce4 chipset (not Geforce6100/6150). It wasn't a great overclocker, however.

The eVGA board... I have it... pics:
http://home.wi.rr.com/zippyzap/computer/microfly/

It has all the "essential" overclocking settings, however for me it would not change vcore. I change vcore to anything besides AUTO (including manually setting it to "proper" voltage) and the board won't POST - have to jumper CMOS. Other than that, the board itself seems capable of running at the BIOS maximum HTT of 300MHz, as long as the CPU can do it at default vcore. Other people have reported vcore working, but only giving a 0.05v boost at maximum.
 
Zap said:
Foxconn had a mATX board using the Nforce4 chipset (not Geforce6100/6150). It wasn't a great overclocker, however.

The eVGA board... I have it... pics:
http://home.wi.rr.com/zippyzap/computer/microfly/

It has all the "essential" overclocking settings, however for me it would not change vcore. I change vcore to anything besides AUTO (including manually setting it to "proper" voltage) and the board won't POST - have to jumper CMOS. Other than that, the board itself seems capable of running at the BIOS maximum HTT of 300MHz, as long as the CPU can do it at default vcore. Other people have reported vcore working, but only giving a 0.05v boost at maximum.
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ahh thats what a volt mod is for :)
 
I(illa Bee said:
any word on the EVGA 131-K8-NF44-AX NF4 SLI yet? looks like a jucy board.. I dont want SLI really, but a fully Nf4 chipset not a 6100 or 6150, 4x memory slots, 4x SATAll, power circut cooling..

I can only assum that since its a NF4 not a 6100 or 6150 it will have better overclcoking options..
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the 6100/6150's actually OC better, and even more so for Am2
 
Any information concerning the Abit IP95 (C2D ready)?
A matx motherboard with VIA P4M890 chipset DDR1/DDR2 compatible.
it seems it has broken the 350 fsb wall.
Some people managed to raise the fsb over 400! :eek:
 
vs a reg sized board probably not. Vs an MATX without a doubt.


This news on this Abit is very encouraging!!!
 
Ive been watching this board for over a month now hoping some legit sites would review, but havent found anything other than just a few customer reviews on newegg, etc.. I did see where they say that this is actually made by ECS for Abit with basically almost an identical design as the ECS board, except for the pcb color and a few caps. The ECS version seems to be flaky with memory probs. If the newegg customer reviews are legit than perhaps the abit version has a better bios.. Im actually waiting for the IB90-HD which is rumored to be closer to a mATX enthusiast C2D board then anything to date. But after months of waiting Abit still has not released... only a few pictures on the interweb but no real info on it. So I was considering going to this IP95 board instead. It seems more of a budget performer though with single channel memory. But supposedly thats only about a 5% performance hit. No firewire and only SATA 1.5, but if your not raiding you probably wont see a performance difference. Cmon someone review this thing! :(
 
It seems a coup that a VIA chipset seems set to take the C2D MATX world over rather than the ones provided by Intel or Nvidia. Time to buy some VIA stock.
 
I have a E6400 running on a IP-95 and I am not impressed. The memory and cpu voltage adjustments are minimal. The cpu has no voltage adjustments and the memory voltage adjustments only go to 1.9V. The memory has no timing adjustments except normal, turbo and extreme. The FSB can be adjusted between 266-355 MHz in 1 MHz increments, but I was only able to go to 310 before the master boot record was corrupted and I had to reinstall windows. The DRAM frequency can be set at 266, 400 and 533. I don't know if it is the VIA chipset or something else, but there are no boot sounds when the computer starts up. At first I thought that it wasn't working until I saw the boot-up screen. I never seen that before. Also, if the integrated VIA UniChrome Pro videocard drivers are not installed then I get a "out of range" message when I am trying to enter the bios. I find the post from the websites linked above hard to believe. There is no way in hell that one poster got his FSB up to 490 because 355 is the limit. If you are interested in this type of a board then I would look at the Biostar P4M890-M7 VIA P4M890 board with the same chipset, but with way more voltage and memory adjustments. A review of that board says that its memory voltages rise as high as 2.1V. I'm getting ready to eBay this one and get me something else.
 
Borocay said:
I have a E6400 running on a IP-95 and I am not impressed. The memory and cpu voltage adjustments are minimal. The cpu has no voltage adjustments and the memory voltage adjustments only go to 1.9V. The FSB can be adjusted between 266-355 MHz in 1 MHz increments, but I was only able to go to 310 before the master boot record was corrupted and I had to reinstall windows. The DRAM frequency can be set at 266, 400 and 533. Also, if the integrated VIA UniChrome Pro videocard drivers are not installed then I get a "out of range" message when I am trying to enter the bios. I find the post from the websites linked above hard to believe. There is no way in hell that one poster got his FSB up to 490 because 355 is the limit.
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Thxs for your feedback!
But are you using the inboard video card?
Because on some matx board like 775i65g fsb is limited to "800" with onboard video & "1066" with external graphic card!
 
I am using a 7800gt, 2gb of crucial ballistic ram and a corsair 520 psu. It boots up correctly except for when I want to enter the bios. Most of the time I don't even see the screen which allows you to press the delete button. I just press it multiple times and sometimes I get in and sometimes I still get the "out of range" message. The motherboard is stable for surfing and playing games, but there are some quirks with the motherboard that I've never seen on an nForce board. I guess maybe I have been spoiled by using nForce boards for the past 4 or 5 years and was expecting the same when I purchased this one. It was cheap and ran DDR1, but my wife bought me some ballistic ram for my birthday, so I all of a sudden I want more power. This ain't it.
 
Are you using DDR1 or DDR2?
Is there a bios update for your ip95?
Could you post a screenshot of your bios overclocking options because the manual is minimalist!
The max fsb is 355???
 
I was using DDR1 until my wife bought me DDR2. Both seem stable. I misstated the type of ram in my previous post. She bought me 2Gb of Crucial 10th Anniversary Edition PC2-5300 DDR2. There are no bios updates on Abit's website. Here are some bios screenshots. The CPU clock says that it only goes to 350, but as you can see it really can go to 355. I played hell getting into the bios. I finally had to clear the cmos so I would get the boot-up screen. This board is a pain in the ass. I also included a couple of photos of my system.

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microfly34wc.jpg

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thxs for your fast reply and for your detailed bios screenshots! :)
So, max fsb is 350 but you can set it manually up to 355 (not 490 as stipulated by the guy
on the overclockers.co.uk website).
Apparently, you don't have the "async CPU/PCIE clock" mode setting in your bios as the asus P5VD2 MX with the same chipset (but DDR2 only) but its max fsb is limited up to 300

But you have "autodetect DIMM/PCI Clk"! What's this?

BTW: nice rig!
 
Those BIOS screens look exactly like my ECS board with the exact same options down to the 'Turbo' and 'Ultra' ram timings. :-\
 
you're right and the PCB seems nearly identical!


Though, somes report better stability with abit over ECS.
 
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