"Best" Mobo for Opteron 165?

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Mugen7

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Hi there. I'm going to be doing a major upgrade to my PC. Replacing everything but my RAM and PSU. I want to get a AMD Opteron 165, I also want to OC it nicely (getting a Zalman HSF for it).

I'm been looking around for a while, but still can't come up with a decision. What's the "best" mobo for the CPU? I want it to have good OC abbilities and such. I was thinking on the ASUS SLI Premium, but wanted to get some more input. All responses are greatly appreciated. :)
 
DFI & MSI ... check the review on hardocp.com ....

Depends on what type of overclocker you are though.

I have no experience with the Zalman HSF but I believe there are a few out there that would probably demolish it's performance easily.
 
From what I hear, Zalman is one (if not) the best air HSF. Even rivals some watercooling, and is very quiet.

This is the one I'm talking about: http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835118223

Also, which ASUS do you recommend? I have my eye on the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, is that any good? I'm hearing that some ASUS's have compaibility problems of some sort. I'm trying to OC the Opteron 165 to around 2.6~2.7.

Edit:

Also, a specific model would be much more helpful than just posting "DFI". ;)
 
I have an A8N-Sli deluxe and it is stable at 258, i cant go further because of my ram. One issue though was when i hit 260 i would get a BSOD everytime i "tried" to enter windows. It turns out that these mobos cant run 1T timings on ram past 260 FSB, but that doesnt matter to me because for some reason my ram wont OC that well :(. Besides this, it is ROCK stable at 258fsb, which puts my CPU at 2.6ghz.


As for heatsink, i would get an SI-120, i idle at 32 and have loads of 40-42C. This is with a 2.6ghz 1.475V 3700+ san diego, pretty damn good and it is silent.

As for DFI, the only model i know of is the DFI lan party Sli http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136166 , which is too expensive IMO, plus it doesnt have a parralell port, which is a pain in the ass. DFI supposebly OC better, but it is mostly for those extreme people who want 300FSB. The casual user is better off with Asus.
 
I've been checking up on the EPoX EP-9NPA+ SLi and it looks like this thing is a beast, and excellent price too. I've read that people were able to reach upto 350mhz on HT for OC, and runs extremely stable.

I'm be keeping an eye out on this thing.

Thanks for the help guys, really appreciate the input. :)
 
Heligrin said:
The casual user is better off with Asus.
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Watch your hardware chooses with the Asus though. I bought the Fatality AN8 and have been fighting with it ever sence.
 
I'm using a plain old Asus A8N-E and its rock stable. Until I ran Sandra and realized this thing is not actually o/c at all! DAMN!
 
Heligrin said:
I have an A8N-Sli deluxe and it is stable at 258, i cant go further because of my ram. One issue though was when i hit 260 i would get a BSOD everytime i "tried" to enter windows. It turns out that these mobos cant run 1T timings on ram past 260 FSB, but that doesnt matter to me because for some reason my ram wont OC that well :(.
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thought of using a divider?
 
cre8chaos said:
Watch your hardware chooses with the Asus though. I bought the Fatality AN8 and have been fighting with it ever sence.
Click to expand...

Yes, i know, some boards are busted. However, DFI boards require much more tweaking in order to get them to work to their full potential. Granted when they are tuned right, they can own, however, you need to be proficent in computers to set one of those mobos up. I would have gone DFI, however, i would not be OCing to the max, like most of the Extreme poeple do on xtreme forums. DFI and Asus are both reputable companies that produce solid products, its just what you want. IMO, Asus' are easier to set up, compared to DFI, i had which would take any of my memory ><
 
BUFF said:
thought of using a divider?
Click to expand...

I would then be sacrificing too much performance on behalf of my ram. My ram is the G.Skill HZ 2 gig kit, which was suppose to OC well, guess i got a dud. Plus i dont know how much more my 3700+ could take. 2.6 sounded good to me :)
 
Heligrin said:
I would then be sacrificing too much performance on behalf of my ram. My ram is the G.Skill HZ 2 gig kit, which was suppose to OC well, guess i got a dud. Plus i dont know how much more my 3700+ could take. 2.6 sounded good to me :)
Click to expand...

when u use a divider u lose speed.. but u OC to get that speed back...
 
Heligrin said:
I would then be sacrificing too much performance on behalf of my ram. My ram is the G.Skill HZ 2 gig kit, which was suppose to OC well, guess i got a dud. Plus i dont know how much more my 3700+ could take. 2.6 sounded good to me :)
Click to expand...

A PC333 divider on your ram would put it around 215MHz, still a small OC on it, but it could allow you to push your CPU further. I'm not sure how much your performance would be affected by that loss of RAM frequency versus the gain in CPU.
 
Go with the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D, then throw an XP-120 on it with a decent fan. I went with an Antec Tri-Cool. I have a stable, quiet, cool, 2.5 ghz overclock on my Opty 165. Stock volts in fact.

The XP-120 is an amazing heatsink.
 
cre8chaos said:
Watch your hardware chooses with the Asus though. I bought the Fatality AN8 and have been fighting with it ever sence.
Click to expand...
Isn't that an Abit board?

And on A64's using a RAM divider won't really lead to a performance loss in any real world games, so I wouldn't worry about that at all. Consider all of the Opteron 165 users who are most likely running dividers in conjunction with their 300+ FSB.
 
2.6Ghz on this abit board, pretty good for the money. As in best ? Maybe a DFI.
 
Juic3 said:
2.6Ghz on this abit board, pretty good for the money. As in best ? Maybe a DFI.
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i have that same board i can hit 2.6 as well...sticking with 2.2ghz for now :)
 
Heligrin said:
I would then be sacrificing too much performance on behalf of my ram. My ram is the G.Skill HZ 2 gig kit, which was suppose to OC well, guess i got a dud. Plus i dont know how much more my 3700+ could take. 2.6 sounded good to me :)
Click to expand...
If you drop to the 9x CPU multi & use the 333 divider 2.7GHZ put's your RAM at 245 & 315HTT would put your RAM at 258 & your CPU at 2.835GHz (assuming that it & everything else can handle that).
 
Cpt Twitchy said:
DFI ultra-d if you dont need sli, if you want sli get one of the dfi sli baords.
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Like hstuehmeyer2000 said, Ultra-D can be easily modded into SLI. They're pretty much the same board with around a $70 difference.
 
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