Best Overclocking Motherboard for my Budget?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

jeloman

Honorable
Jul 17, 2013
22
0
10,510
I have a FX-6300 for my CPU and an MSI GTX 650 Ti Boost for my GPU.

I'm looking for a motherboard that is able to overclock decently well and fits within a budget ranging from $70-$80. Is it possible or do I have to increase my budget?

Edit: By the way, crossfire and SLI don't matter to me. And the motherboard would have to be AM3+ compatible due to the CPU.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Onus

Onus

Titan
Jan 27, 2006
37,037
12
89,965
You will probably need to increase your budget a little. Cheap AMD motherboards tend to have 4+1 VRM arrangements (or even 3+1), often without heatsinks on the VRMs, and overclocking will pop them. Cheap MSI boards are notorious for this, especially the -G43. There's a public Googledocs spreadsheet that lists a bunch of AMD motherboards, their VRM arrangement, and a little about known overclocking problems. I'm sorry I can't link it at work. To make a long story short, get an Asus, Gigabye, or ASRock motherboard, preferably with heatsinks on the VRMs. Better ones have additional phases too, like 8+2.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
maddogfargo

maddogfargo

Splendid
Nov 28, 2006
3,344
8
22,965
+1 for Sophiebeth's suggested board

Bear in mind, the FX 6300 is a 95w TDP CPU. Most 970 boards can handle a 125w CPU easily, even with basic VRUs. So while you may not get a 5GHz OC out of that FX6300, it will still work as long as you have good cooling and don't go over 125w TDP with your OC.

Any time you increase the speed or voltage, the TDP goes up. As the TDP goes up, the stress on the VRUs goes up and they get hotter. The hotter they get, the closer they come to failure.

Worth noting, that ASRock board is rated to support up to 140w TDP and has 4+1 phase power. This will give you a bit more margin for error. Just be careful how far you push it. ;)

Example: 4.4GHz on all 6 cores @ 1.4v @ 100% load would be 139w TDP
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom