775 project . Looking for advice

[Rob The Nice]

Hi guys!

 

I know there’s plenty of topics regarding 775 overclocking, but most of them are full of “buy something else” or “dont do it” advice , lolz.

 

Basically I have got an X5460 (modded) chip laying around and im looking for the best Motherboard with ddr3 support to max it.

Budget is not really an issue but it would be fun to see what can be best bang for buck.

 

I used to be a massive gamer back when 775 was still relevant, and back then i never had the money to buy something decent.. So it’s a bit of a throwback build.

 

I found an old P5q with 8gb ddr2 at my local pawn shop, bought it for 40 bucks only to find out that I bought myself a brick.

 

Remember, It’s a project, not my primary pc. (Just got myself an i9 beast for christmas)

I’m not looking for advice for another system. 

 

 

Thanks!

[ApolloX75]

12 minutes ago, Rob The Nice said:

Hi guys!

 

I know there’s plenty of topics regarding 775 overclocking, but most of them are full of “buy something else” or “dont do it” advice , lolz.

 

Basically I have got an X5460 (modded) chip laying around and im looking for the best Motherboard with ddr3 support to max it.

Budget is not really an issue but it would be fun to see what can be best bang for buck.

 

I used to be a massive gamer back when 775 was still relevant, and back then i never had the money to buy something decent.. So it’s a bit of a throwback build.

 

I found an old P5q with 8gb ddr2 at my local pawn shop, bought it for 40 bucks only to find out that I bought myself a brick.

 

Remember, It’s a project, not my primary pc. (Just got myself an i9 beast for christmas)

I’m not looking for advice for another system. 

 

 

Thanks!

Best motherboards with DDR3 support to find; in my experience, are the nForce 790i boards. They are monsters when it comes to overclocking but keeping their chipsets and VRMs cool is a challenge. Second best boards are X48 but they are very hard to find and they often don't come with the microcode updates for the Xeon chips out of the box, nForce 790i does. My EVGA 790i FTW for instance was able to take my X5450 to about 4.2GHz with an H100i V2 (modded to fit 775) keeping it under 65C.

 

Some P45 boards with DDR3 support like the ECS P45T-AD3 are also excellent but of course, hard to find.

 

Only thing I can stress for you to keep an eye out for is support. If you're rocking a Xeon not all motherboards came with the mircocode from the factory or even through official BIOS updates. Only certain boards outside of the server sector can handle a Xeon properly.

 

One further note about 790i is that it loves low voltage DDR3. So any modern DDR3 that runs about 1.3v is super effective. Keep in mind that the max module size supported is 4GB. 8GB sticks will not work.

[panther420]

16 minutes ago, Rob The Nice said:

Hi guys!

 

I know there’s plenty of topics regarding 775 overclocking, but most of them are full of “buy something else” or “dont do it” advice , lolz.

 

Basically I have got an X5460 (modded) chip laying around and im looking for the best Motherboard with ddr3 support to max it.

Budget is not really an issue but it would be fun to see what can be best bang for buck.

 

I used to be a massive gamer back when 775 was still relevant, and back then i never had the money to buy something decent.. So it’s a bit of a throwback build.

 

I found an old P5q with 8gb ddr2 at my local pawn shop, bought it for 40 bucks only to find out that I bought myself a brick.

 

Remember, It’s a project, not my primary pc. (Just got myself an i9 beast for christmas)

I’m not looking for advice for another system. 

 

 

Thanks!

nForce nVidia boards (or nvidia's ecosystem as a whole) were the go-to back in the day at least for gaming, as Nvidia's new G80 kicked the shit out of anything AMD had. Combine that with much better SLI scaling in most games at the time and the fact that SLI only worked on nForce, nVidia was the go-to. Oh yea and Crossfire and the HD 3000 series was abysmal. I think Asus was one of the best board manufacturers at the time, with a very wide product range and lots of features (also really good overclocking). Abit was starting to die in the 775 era, but they were still pretty good. I'll link a board if I find one.

[ApolloX75]

1 minute ago, panther420 said:

nForce nVidia boards (or nvidia's ecosystem as a whole) were the go-to back in the day at least for gaming, as Nvidia's new G80 kicked the shit out of anything AMD had. Combine that with much better SLI scaling in most games at the time and the fact that SLI only worked on nForce, nVidia was the go-to. Oh yea and Crossfire and the HD 3000 series was abysmal. I think Asus was one of the best board manufacturers at the time, with a very wide product range and lots of features (also really good overclocking). Abit was starting to die in the 775, but they were still pretty good. I'll link a board if I find one.

Personally I found the Asus nForce boards to be buggy AF. I had several builds with the P5N-D (750i based) fail for no reason repeatedly and others overheated on a regular basis. That being said I also went through three EVGA 790i boards before getting a good one, so really I think all the nForce boards were a little wonky to some extent.

[panther420]

Just now, ApolloX75 said:

Personally I found the Asus nForce boards to be buggy AF. I had several builds with the P5N-D (750i based) fail for no reason repeatedly and others overheated on a regular basis. That being said I also went through three EVGA 790i boards before getting a good one, so really I think all the nForce boards were a little wonky to some extent.

My asus 650i P5n-e SLi isn't really great, you're right. I guess I expected them to be good given how many people bought them, but that doesn't really have a lot of merit.

[ApolloX75]

Just now, panther420 said:

My asus 650i P5n-e SLi isn't really great, you're right. I guess I expected them to be good given how many people bought them, but that doesn't really have a lot of merit.

Yeah the 600 series was a little immature, nVidia made a lot of strides and smart decisions when developing the 700 series, it was just the board manufacturers who really bunged up the whole deal. I would hazard a guess that any board for sale now is either a solid one given the platform is over ten years old, or a severe lemon with hidden issues. Hard to say. This is why when rocking 775 these days I tend to stick to XFX or EVGA boards as I am quite familiar with their habits and annoyances.

 

Side note my main desktop is now rocking my QX9650 and 790i as a daily driver since my 4790k gave up the ghost. It is not as smooth as I would like, that's for sure. Especially paired with my 1080. But it does the job for now.