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

I'm convinced that the motherboard is not working correctly. Now when I try to install the integrated videocard drivers I receive a message saying the hardware cannot be found. That along with no posting sounds leads me to beleive that something is broken. I am sending this back to Abit to see if I can get a replacement. I might try to reflash the bios when I get my new motherboard on Monday to see if it fixes it. Either way, I would avoid this board.
 
pvhk said:
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!
Click to expand...

But..keep in mind, Borocay was only able to get up to 310 before getting hard drive corruption and having to reinstall the OS.
 
i didn't mean he was able to overclock up to 350! ;)
I only stated what his bios reported.
 
Maybe some ppl achieved this by Clockgen?

Boroc also says his board is quirky. This board is tempting me to jump ship... Just wish it had an Optical out... with the price I can always buy a sound card though!!! Only 2 Satas as well. Nah. I'll wait.

Also a 6600 @ 3.4 is NOT a great OC.
 
Hi, if you are tempted to go with a cheap board such as that one then I would recommend the Biostar one that was reviewed by PCStat. Here is a link. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2055 They said that the vdimm was able to go up to 2.1v. I have a feeling that if I would be able to get a better overclock if I could adjust the voltages more. However, the biggest problem with this board is the way it acts when DDR2 memory is installed. I can't get into the bios without resetting the cmos and I get no posting sounds. I read on other forums about the problems people were having with the ECS board based on the same chipset and I still bought it. Now I have to go out and get another board. I'm debating on an ASUS P5LD2-VM R2.0 or BIOSTAR I945G-M7 V2.X . Both are based on the same chipset. I kind of prefer Biostar because I had a 6100-939 board and it overclocked like crazy and I played hell when I had an Asus AV7 board. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I don't have any problems with my ECS board. Mine is solid and isn't as flaky as my P5B-VM... I probably just results from quality control issues. I'd RMA or return/exchange the board, no sense in wasting $70 on a bad board.
 
Borocay said:
Hi, if you are tempted to go with a cheap board such as that one then I would recommend the Biostar one that was reviewed by PCStat. Here is a link. http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2055 They said that the vdimm was able to go up to 2.1v. I have a feeling that if I would be able to get a better overclock if I could adjust the voltages more. However, the biggest problem with this board is the way it acts when DDR2 memory is installed. I can't get into the bios without resetting the cmos and I get no posting sounds. I read on other forums about the problems people were having with the ECS board based on the same chipset and I still bought it. Now I have to go out and get another board. I'm debating on an ASUS P5LD2-VM R2.0 or BIOSTAR I945G-M7 V2.X . Both are based on the same chipset. I kind of prefer Biostar because I had a 6100-939 board and it overclocked like crazy and I played hell when I had an Asus AV7 board. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Get the P5L-MX - it will overclock alot better than the Biostar and is cheaper than the P5LD2. The Biostar is capped at 300fsb. :(
 
Those are extremely reasonable. So are there any tiny cases made for these? I could buy a motherboard, put a dualcore chip in my car and still probably pay less than I did for the miniITX mobo alone. I would have to redo the case, though and the length looks like a problem. 60w+ at load, though, but my boot times would be iNsAnE...

Oh but it's too long! We have to call it MiniBITX...

Wiki has a diagram of all the "standards" companies have tried to claim. It's really insane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard
 
I'll never understand why they take an ITX board and make a mATX sized cases out of it. Use tall reverse risers!

I figured that for the amount they charge for mITX cases, you could buy an old model P-chassis Shuttle and gut the case!

This would be perfect! http://hq1.shuttle.com/products_page03.jsp?PLLI=12&PI=78# You get a PSU too.

What the heck is mini PCI-E x1? I don't see the slot and can't find a single card that uses that standard. If only this had at least one PCI slot...
 
dworley said:
FYI: eWiz has the new Foxconn G9657MA-8KS2H C2D mATX Motherboard in stock!

I ordered one and will post my overclocking results for my C2D E6400 compared to my 680i results. ;)
Click to expand...

Hey dworley: don't I know you from SFFTech/Sudhian ? Chap with the SN26P ? :)

Please let us know how you get on with the Foxconn mobo, esp with oc'ing. I'm looking to buy this mobo to replace the ageing Epox 9GF6100-M in my HTPC. So the plan is to put in a C2D E6600 and try to o/c to 3 GHz. One reason the Foxconn mobo is ideal for HTPC is its coax & optical SPDIF outputs. The other thing about Foxconn motherboards that I have noticed is that they have a habit of using exotic Fintek chips for system monitoring and Fan/PWM control hence software such as Speedfan usually don't work with these chips
 
harshw said:
Hey dworley: don't I know you from SFFTech/Sudhian ? Chap with the SN26P ? :)

Please let us know how you get on with the Foxconn mobo, esp with oc'ing. I'm looking to buy this mobo to replace the ageing Epox 9GF6100-M in my HTPC. So the plan is to put in a C2D E6600 and try to o/c to 3 GHz. One reason the Foxconn mobo is ideal for HTPC is its coax & optical SPDIF outputs. The other thing about Foxconn motherboards that I have noticed is that they have a habit of using exotic Fintek chips for system monitoring and Fan/PWM control hence software such as Speedfan usually don't work with these chips
Click to expand...



Yes, it's me! :cool:

I don't have the SN26P any longer.....I have had no luck overclocking the Foxconn MB at all. (My E6700 OC's very well on my 680i MB). I even updated to the latest BIOS and still no luck. I would suggest one of the ASUS boards for now as it seems a few members here have had good success with those.
 
dworley said:
Yes, it's me! :cool:

I don't have the SN26P any longer.....I have had no luck overclocking the Foxconn MB at all. (My E6700 OC's very well on my 680i MB). I even updated to the latest BIOS and still no luck. I would suggest one of the ASUS boards for now as it seems a few members here have had good success with those.
Click to expand...

I heard reports that the Foxconn gets to FSB @ 333 MHz max ... it didn't even get that far ?

:(

The Asus mATX is overpriced and underspec'ed. For the Digital Home market, digital audio is a must and companies ALWAYS skimp on optical/coax outputs !
 
I would go with the P5L-MX + sound card of your choice. It should take you to at least 3GHz. HTPC builds are even more niche and the unfortunate reality is there really isn't a good incentive for a manufacturer to include those outputs.
 
Dillusion said:
abit is nearing the completion of they new matx boards :cool:
Click to expand...

if they're anything like the nf-m2 was, then we'll be in heaven :)

i wonder if someone will finally make the "perfect" board...

or, even better than that...they also release a case designed for it that is so sexy that we all explode :eek:
 
What is nearing? 1 week?1 month? 2? 3?

Maybe by the time the 4400 comes out?
 
Not official review just user review I came across while doing a search for the ABIT IP-95. The guy claims 3.4GHz (7x490) stable with a E6300. Possible or too good to be true?
 
Skott said:
Not official review just user review I came across while doing a search for the ABIT IP-95. The guy claims 3.4GHz (7x490) stable with a E6300. Possible or too good to be true?
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Post a link. Who is claiming this? I don't think the M890 chipset has a PCI-E lock, so I doubt it. You also lose about 200MHz of performance, due to the lack of dual channel support.
 
There is no way that guy has a E6300 at 3.4GHz (7x490) because the FSB only goes to 355. If he has his FSB at 490 then he is doing something I don't know about. I was able to get it to 310 before it corrupted my harddrive. Plus the damn board was never stable no matter what I did to it. I cranked up the vcore and vdimm while using OCZ DDR1 and Crucial DDR2 ram and it still crashed all the time. I would have played with it more than I did if I could have gotten into the bios. Everytime I pressed the delete button to get into the bios I would get an 'out of range" message. The only way I could get into the bios was to reset the CMOS everytime. That got old real fast. I finally gave up and bought an ASUS P5LD2-VM R2.0 on Newegg and it has been smooth sailing ever since. I have an E6400 running at 2.66GHz (8x333) without even breaking a sweat. I plan on cranking that baby up to 340 and 350 when I get some extra time to play with it this weekend. I'm not real happy with the layout of the board, but it runs like a bat out of hell. I'll never touch another board with a VIA chipset on it again.
 
Nice choice, the p5LD2 VM series are actually the best overclocker for c2d on matx for the moment!
 
It was actually your post on another thread in this forum and on the Extreme Systems forum about the board that caused me to buy it. Thx.
 
Just be careful if you get your PCIe up in the 118-120 range in OC.

Took about 3 weeks at 120 PCIe and my SATA DVD would stop being detected about every 5th boot.

I backed down from 2.85 on my E6400 after that.
 
Thxs Dgephri for your feedback!
though tested fsb@350 pcie@120! initially with success
I'm running pcie@112 fsb@333 for daily use because i didn't know the consequence for the long-term.
Now you gave us the answer!
 
pvhk said:
Thxs Dgephri for your feedback!
though tested fsb@350 pcie@120! initially with success
I'm running pcie@112 fsb@333 for daily use because i didn't know the consequence for the long-term.
Now you gave us the answer!
Click to expand...

What kind of cooling are you running on your setup? Air? Water?
 
Air cooling with the stock intel heatsink!
However, a cooler is mounted on all my northbridge (HR05 or NB47F).
 
Originally Posted by Dgephri
Just be careful if you get your PCIe up in the 118-120 range in OC.

Took about 3 weeks at 120 PCIe and my SATA DVD would stop being detected about every 5th boot.

I backed down from 2.85 on my E6400 after that.
Click to expand...


Hey Dgephri, what are your settings that enable you to get to 2.85GHz. Thx.
 
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030253542&postcount=1

screenies and all.

that was up at 2.82, I pushed the PCIe up to 120 experimentally, which got me to 357fsb on my E6400.

A couple weeks later I look at my button bar and my SATA DVD has a red question mark over the icon. No DVD in My Computer. About every 4th or 5th restart it would repeat.

I didn't want to worry about it so I went back down.
 
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