OCing AMD's black edition...

[nachowarrior]

Alright, here's the dilema. I would like to get amd's black edition proc, the 2.6 5000. I also would like an inexpensive motherboard with a good chipset that will allow me to overclock the proc to 2.8 and 3.2. I'm also putting it in a sff case with an 8800gt. I really need some help finding a good solid name brand mobo. I really love asus, and love the way the abits look (and i've heard good things about them) i'm not too sure about gigabyte but people seem to love them. If any of you could send me a few links to motherboards that I can oc i would appriciate it.

 

[nachowarrior]

update: I found that gigabyte has this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128056
and supposedly you can update the bios then oc it? but all the complaints make me not want to buy it.

there is an asus board i considered as well http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131172
but i can't really find anything about overclocking it, and yet again, many complaints...

this is one of the only other options and seeing as how i love the color I'd like to know if any of you have info on this board in particular.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127028

 

[lambofgode3x]

i'm personally a fan of biostar motherboards. i dont know if they're considered name brand, but they are rock solid and they overclock like monsters. take a look.

if you want sli capability:
nforce 570 chipset: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138059

nforce 590 chipset: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138033

if you could care less about sli, i recommend the a2+ motherboard. overclocks very very well. look at the reviews. there are people with the black edition 5000+ that have hit 3.2ghz and up easily.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138081

also, some great ram to pick up is the crucial newegg edition. its basically crucial ballistix tracer ram that has a different sticker on the heat spreaders and led's. they overclock very well and you can run very agressive timings. again, this ram is very stable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148144

if you dont care about the led's and you dont care about the mail in rebate, then the regular ballistix tracer ram is 10 bucks cheaper at first, but it doesnt have the 35 dollar mail in rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148076


my personal choice would be the biostar tf560 a2+ motherboard and the crucial "newegg edition" ram, but hey, thats my 2 cents.

 

[cbxbiker61]

It seems to me that you should be able to overclock with just about any AM2 board since the black edition allows you to specify the clock multiplier. The only people that need "trick" overclocking boards are those with processors that have locked multipliers.

That being said the Asus M2A-VM HDMI will allow you to change your base frequency. The BIOS does not allow you to tweak ram timings though.

 

[akhilles]

biostar tf560 a2+

^^ Seconded. o/c's 5000+ to 3-3.2ghz at stock volts.

 

[Grimmy]

Ya, that biostar looks good. I'd stay away from MB with reg capacitors, and stick with the solid state capacitors.

 

[L1qu1d]

I have my 5000 clocked at 3.2 and I have a Asus M2ne-Sli mobo which cost around 100-110 GOod motherboard and supports raid and many more features including Vista lol

I can overclock the 5000 even more but I just don't want to till I get enough cash for a new 1...I always make sure I have enough cash to replace the burned just incase

 

[nachowarrior]

awesome, thank you for all the input guys.... I'll consider that memory, if i can front the extra 35 bucks. but i really need Small form factor. This is going to be moved often, i have a dlp projector right now so i'm really trying to get something that I can cary back and forth that will end up playing good games like oblivion, and crysis.... hence the black edition, little money input, high performance output. Anyway, i think i looked at all of your suggestions and i believe they were all full ATX. I would really love to get some of those larger more solid boards, but the SFF is a MUST for now...

and thanks cbxbiker61 if that information is correct then i can go with any board i so choose? I really want to know if i can tweak that extra .1v or so on the vcore to get it up to the full 3.2ghz but i'll likely run it at 2.8 for most of the time.

The reason I ask is i didn't know if the bios scaled the allowable multiplier based on the cpu. I had a cpu with a locked multiplier and it would allow 12x and under. I wasn't sure if i had a cpu with unlocked that my bios would show higher than 12x or if i would be limited to the 12x.

I think I'm going to try this board. SFF, looks good, few complaints thus far. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127028

more than i wanted to pay and just went up in price.... but oh well, it is the shopping season

 

[akhilles]

Thing is most matx boards don't give you a lot of o/c options atx boards do. There is a few good exceptions in order of overclockability:

GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H
BIOSTAR TF7050-M2
BIOSTAR TA690G AM2
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI

 

[nachowarrior]

cool, sorry i havn't checked back in a while, but the forums flags are screwing up on me. anyway. I decided to just say "screw it" and go with a full atx... my priorities changed massively because of the chipset and the limitations that integraded video put on a motherboard. I'm really looking to play crysis and max out a bunch of games i have yet to play. so i guess sff really isn't my deal anymore... i chose a case with 2 250mm fans and a side window... it's 100 bones without a psu, but i guess it'll have to do. and i also found out that there are two different cored "black editions" one is a 90nm and one is a 65nm the smaller process has a slightly higher cache latency but it's going to turn out to be around a 1fps difference in newer games based on the charts... and as for the older games... i won't notice the difference because the fps will be so high anyway on an 8800gt... so really i've decided to go with the amd black brisbane core, and a massive case and an asus m2n-e. i think... if you wanna look it up check my build out on www.newegg.com. the name is brand spankin new pc. or something like that, not sure if i misspelled it here. but drop a remark on it or two if you want. i check it almost daily to look for massive price drops.

 

[WR]

I agree - screw sff if you're trying to run Crysis well. The 8800GT alone is a hot GPU, and sub-par ventilation in microATX cases can easily ruin stability.

Also agree with picking the 65nm BE. I believe the 90nm version is more expensive and certainly much hotter at the same frequency.

The case you picked looks enormous - nearly 2 feet deep. It's also of steel construction - robust but heavy. Are you sure you need such a big case after considering small-form-factor?

 

[torcida_kutina]

If you want the best mobo for AM2 CPU's, then look for ABIT. Not the cheapest, but best is Fatality AN9 32X. Something cheaper is KN9 SLI, also good, but 570 Chipset. I've got mine BE5000 on 3450MHz(230x15)with Fatality AN9 32X, and it can go more than that, but i'm sattisfied with performance. Don't go for Gigabyte and ASUS beacouse they worth $hit.

 

[skittle]

I have the KN9... cant say that im too pleased with it..the onboard LAN went out.. It still is getting BIOS updates though... even though its an older nforce 4 chipset.

 

[nachowarrior]

is it a marvell chipset for your lan? cuz thoes blow... but they populate nearly half of our lan devices. specially wireless ones.
but anyway, as an update. A random dog showed up at my house and now I have to pay to go to the vet and keep her. So my good gaming pc is going to be pushed back a ways. I changed my config almost completely. Now I'm looking at the 3850 for video, a smillidon case, green one. rosewill psu same proc, not sure on the mobo yet, but it needs to be below 100 bones. 2 gigs of some gskill ddr2 800, i think it has 4 timings. and the biggest expense is going to be a new monitor, my old 19 inch crt is getting ready to die. so I have to invest in a new one... acer 22inch 5ms response. 220 bones.

 

[mimart7]

If you are going to be gaming then get the 3870. The prices will come down after the holidays.

 

[jitpublisher]

If you want to overclock and like to fiddle with more settings than you ever dreamed of in a BIOS, look at the DFI boards. A lot of people don't like them, and they are definetly not a beginners board. But they are made for overclockers, and have the most intense BIOS settings of any board by a long, long shot.
I have had my Lanparty 3200CFX for about 2 and a half years now I think? I absolutley love it and quite frankly have held off upgrading my CPU just because this board has been so good.
I have my old 4600 X2 running at 2.8 ghz, been running it there for 1 1/2 years rock solid, and can push it to well over 3ghz, but prefer not to leave it there since I am only running the stock cooler. But, as time goes by I may invest in a better cooler and go ahead and push it to limit and see what happens.