Good Motherboard for Quad Core OC (w/ CF, low vDroop, good power reg / cooling)?

S

sethk

2[H]4U
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May 3, 2005
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I'm looking for a good motherboard which will let me at least take a G0 Q6600 comfortably past the 3 - 3.2 Ghz mark for a 24/7 daily OC speed (not looking to set any records, just want something that's comparable to the fastest stock CPUs you can get.)

I will later this year upgrade to a 45nm quad core, once something that can get to 3.6 (yes I know about Nehalem, and will probably not be looking into that until at least a year from now, once the dust has settled and it's not so bleeding edge and the hardware / BIOS stuff is better cooked)

I'd prefer a mobo with decent features, not least of which is more than 2 X x16 PCIe for crossfire (once the 4870 is out) and my x4 RAID 5 PCIe card. I'd like something that's not going to overheat, allow a decent CPU cooler (Noctua?) has good power regulation with low vdroop, and a good BIOS. Cards I will have in the PC - Video Card (later 2 video cards), RAID card, SB X-Fi Pro, Pre-n Wifi (PCI).

Hopefully it will also have onboard FireWire although that seems standard in the upper price ranges.

I was considering the x38, x48 (overpriced?) and 790i motherboards (not so good with quad core OCs?)

For my usage, I play games, run virtual machines, video rendering, Photoshop, compile code, etc.

Suggestions?
 
I personally have an asus maximus formula and it has been nothing but rock solid overclocking goodness. If SLI is not your concern, I say get an x38/x48 chipset for sure. The other good thing is you can basically turn this board into a rampage formula through a bios flash, which gives it a slew of additional features. This board easily clears 400 fsb and the amount of tweakable settings in bios is simply outrageous. Great design and cool temps as well.
 
A P35 board will run out of PCIe lanes to accommodate two PCIe x16 video cards and a x4 RAID card. From the Intel side of the house, than means you need an X38 or X48. Even with those, you may not have many PCIe x1 lanes for other peripherals. If you were to use just one high-end video card and x4 RAID card, you'd be okay.

In any case, look at the DFI Lanparty LT X38 T2R board. If anything can do it (at all), this one can.

Robert
 
low vdroop? go DFI has a disable option in bios..as to why people are just throwing motherboards out there on this thread:confused:
 
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