The Unofficial List of Good mATX Motherboards (Overclocking and Not)

Jen said:
and i was planning on buying this board for my new matx system . what do i buy then that will have overclocking options?


Jen
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For overclocking? Likliest answer is going to be to wait.

Thus far, it seems nothing's especially friendly on that front, at least on the MATX side of things.
 
Satyrist said:
For overclocking? Likliest answer is going to be to wait.

Thus far, it seems nothing's especially friendly on that front, at least on the MATX side of things.
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^ What Satyrist said, Jen. For AMD there really is nothing on the horizon. Looks like there at least seems to be a few decent options for Intel. One last Biostar for sale, since I don't feel like going back to 754 again and I kinda sorta did a VDIMM mod on the ECS, before finding out this problem...
 
With the popularity of SFF enthusiast cases like the fragbox, hornet, and aria, plus the relative uselessness of extra PCI slots, I'm surprised at how few OC-friendly matx boards there have been.

Booo Taiwan!
 
Ruiner said:
With the popularity of SFF enthusiast cases like the fragbox, hornet, and aria, plus the relative uselessness of extra PCI slots, I'm surprised at how few OC-friendly matx boards there have been.

Booo Taiwan!
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The market has always labelled MATX as budget integrated hardware. It's been distributed as what you give the parents/grandparents to do their office/powerpoint/email/intarweb; One simply doesn't need enthusiast features for that sort of duty.

Though I have to agree with regards to those looking to make SFF HTPC builds, they want it quiet. Offering voltage options that go up or down from stock levels makes that a possibility. Same with memory.

The problem you're going to also face with overclocking MATX is that historically attempting to do so in a limited amount of space is going to build up heat, moreso now with P4 Prescott, and somewhat so if people are looking to use their old 1.4 TBirds in such a project.

The Fragbox and the Aspire X-QPack are a couple of MATX cases that begin to be close to the traditional Shuttle SFF systems, but could probably deal just fine with some overclocking.

The manufacturers are required to see a need in the market, in order for them to seriously look at offering such a beast to market on a mass scale, even for the gaming market.

They're worried about the price premium that such a board might require, particularly if they're going to possibly cost the same, if not more, than their full ATX style family offerings.
 
sleepeeg3 said:
^ What Satyrist said, Jen. For AMD there really is nothing on the horizon. Looks like there at least seems to be a few decent options for Intel. One last Biostar for sale, since I don't feel like going back to 754 again and I kinda sorta did a VDIMM mod on the ECS, before finding out this problem...
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what about a v core mod for this board? that may fix the remaining problem

i'm to dizzy to think this morning

Jen
 
Well you are still thinking straight. Must be the hair color. ;) That's exactly what I am going to try to do, but I will have to see if the guys on XS can help me figure this one out, too. I figured the VDIMM would be easy, but not sure about VCORE and I have the strong steady hands of a nervous, crack addict!

Here is what ECS had to say:
Dear Valued Customer:

According the BIOS menu, you can change the voltage on the Hammer VID. However, if the CPU is locked, then the voltage on the CPU won't be changed by BIOS setting. WE strongly recommend you leave this item at its default value because it's possilbe to damage your CPU and motherboard.

Thank you for using ECS products
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Okey-dokey, ECS. :p Whatever you say... Maybe he looked up "FID" in his manual. *shrug*
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Well you are still thinking straight. Must be the hair color. ;) That's exactly what I am going to try to do, but I will have to see if the guys on XS can help me figure this one out, too. I figured the VDIMM would be easy, but not sure about VCORE and I have the strong steady hands of a nervous, crack addict!

Here is what ECS had to say:
Okey-dokey, ECS. :p Whatever you say... Maybe he looked up "FID" in his manual. *shrug*
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hopeing you can find a way to mod the board for added V core , someone at XS should be able to help us here. if none of the motherboard manufacturers are willing to give a good overclocking board then we have to make the changes to the units to work for us. reminds me of so many other boards i have owned that didnt have enough options.


to dizzy to think , am tired

Jen
 
I added the Jetway ATI mobo and left it as unconfirmed until someone tests it out.
 
I have the GA-8IG1000MK. It has the following items adjustable:
FSB
DRAM timings
lockable agp/pci

no voltage adjustments
 
Overclocking options:

ASRock P4I45GV R5 w/ 56k modem
Socket 478
Chipset Intel 845GV

FSB = YES [1mhz stepping]
vCORE = NO options (but they mention that it does)
vChipset/vHTT = NO options
vDIMM = NO options
FSB/PCI/PCI-E Locks = NO locks [can be adjusted]
DRAM Timings = YES
 
JetWay A210GDMS-Pro
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1608608&enterthread=y
so far this is what i can tell you. it supports fan throttling and cool and quiet. (my chaintech vnf4ultra does not).
RAM controls are as follows

ras active
ras precharge
ras to cas
and command rate are all controllable. it is settable to 100/133/166/200 , and these numbers adjust based on what the fsb is (so if you set fsb to 250, the numbers are 125, x, y, 250 etc)

hypertransport can only be set to 800 or 1000. this sort of sucks, since 600 is not an option.


WARNING, those settings dont actualy work. according to SI sandra the ram divider does not work. neither does the hyper transport setting. i really hope this gets fixed in some other bios version. it died on boot once, and the boot screen said something like "test bios rs480" anyhow....


pci lock is there.

vcore is adjustable from .825 to 1.55 volts in .025 increments. somewhat disappointing on the topend.

chipset voltage can be set to 1.8 or 1.9 volts

ram voltage can be set from 2.55 to 2.85 volts with .1 volt increments

multiplier is adjustable

fsb is adjustable by 1 mhz increments from 200-300fsb. basically it seems just like the fullatx version of this board.

also another thing. the ULI southbridge is not supported by xp. you MUST install the raid driver to use it in any mode. it does not come with a floppy for this which royally sucks. jetway's site is pure crap too. the easiest way to get the disk is to get the one for the shuttle rs480 based sff.


so since the hypertransport and ram ratios dont work even though the settings are there, the most i can o/c my cpu is 225x9 @1.55v.

on the chaintech vnf4 ultra the same cpu does [email protected] volts.
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Were socket 478 mATX motherboards limited to 865G chipset?

MSI 865GM2-LS
Vcore used to be there but didn't work and was removed in a BIOS update
FSB 1MHz increments used to be there, but even a 1MHz overclock was unstable, was removed in a BIOS update
VAGP is still there, I think
AGP/PCI lock is still there

Asus P4S800-MX
SiS 661FX chipset
FSB up to 266MHz in 1MHz increments
"partial" AGP/PCI lock, when you up the FSB you see what the PCI is running at, never goes above 40MHz
No voltage adjustments
This board works great with mobile chips. I've had Mobile P4 running at almost 250MHz FSB and I've had a 1.6GHz mobile Celeron POST at 3.2GHz on this board, a 100% overclock (not stable ;) but was stable at around 3GHz).
 
rktmn247 said:
Did anyone else try the modded bios with the Abit IS-10? It did not work for me. Any help would greatly appreciated! I would like to keep this one.
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Did you get any luck with this? I was thinking about picking this board up along with a Celeron-D as a backup/HTPC rig. Anyone else try using the modded IS-10 BIOS?
 
eh, for XP, I have an Abit AV-10. It has onboard everything, including a pretty impressive onboard sound setup (optical, etc). It unfortunatly has a :rolleyes: Via :rolleyes: chipset and therefore makes using my mobile processor...interesting. Interesting in the way that it boots at 1.0 ghz with a pretty high voltage (1.6 probably), while in windows I use CPUMSR to bump it to 2.0 ghz when I need speed.

Its a pretty cheap mATX XP board so anyone looking to build an XP platform might look at it...
 
Updating this as we speak. MSI released a new line of 754 nforce3 250GB mATX boards aswell if anyone wants to check them out.

EDIT: Update is done. Anything i missed?
 
strid3r said:
Did you get any luck with this? I was thinking about picking this board up along with a Celeron-D as a backup/HTPC rig. Anyone else try using the modded IS-10 BIOS?
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No luck with the modded bios. The list is not updated to reflect my findings but I am sure it does not work. I have given up on this board and will be changing it out with the ASUS P4P800-VM. Hopefully this fourth 478 board will be the one!
 
Good luck on your search for the perfect m-atx s478 board. Let us know how the Asus board goes.
 
I'm surprised no one mentioned the Asrock K8Upgrade 760GX. It's a s754 mobo based on the SiS 760GX chipset. Has Vcore from 0.8-1.55, AGP/PCI locks and seems to get around 250-265 HTT. I can't wait for cheaper 64 bit enabled Semprons to show up. Something with a nice 10x multiplier would be nice.
 
Got the ASUS P4P800-VM today and started testing with a 2.4b(northwood) and a 256
stick. With the 1016 bios it came with the only thing i can tweak is mem timings and
mem voltage(2.65v). The FUDOS bios updating utility refused to open the 1017 rom file
and alt+F2 didnt work as well

Is there any way of unlocking all the options or they only available on the pm adapter?
 
_G_ said:
Got the ASUS P4P800-VM today and started testing with a 2.4b(northwood) and a 256
stick. With the 1016 bios it came with the only thing i can tweak is mem timings and
mem voltage(2.65v). The FUDOS bios updating utility refused to open the 1017 rom file
and alt+F2 didnt work as well

Is there any way of unlocking all the options or they only available on the pm adapter?
Click to expand...


You might try Clockgen.
 
After some more investigation looks like the K8M800 (as the K8T800) does not have a PCI/AGP lock. It does seem to have a divider that kicks in at around 234MHz and another that kicks in at around 267MHz, so if you have a chip that can hit those speeds the Abit KV-80 may be a good, budget choice.

BTW, just noticed I had a 'tard moment because in my previous post I didn't mention the board.

Abit KV-80
Vcore 1.5-1.65
Vdimm 2.5-2.8 in 0.1 increments
Max HTT 255

Information is from Zebo at AT forums. I think he's banned from here. :confused:
 
i have been using the ecs for a couple months in a x-qpack in my first sff build. it is true the the vcore doesnt go above 1.45 even tho there are bios settings higher than this, but this works well with my 3500 rev e. also, vdimm only goes to 2.7v, slightly overvolts to 2.75 which is fine for my g.skill la. adjustable multis. x300 onboard vid. the x-qpack has a height restriction above the cpu, so monster air-cooling is out, but the zalman fits. so i easily do 11x250. this box with the rev e, g.skill, 6600gt, 2x160gb raid0, 2xliteon dvdrw and stock x-qpack psu runs all day, no probs, no booting issues, no usb issues, using rev 1 board, 2nd issued bios and immature chipset. as opposed to my ultra -d, 4400 toledo, ocz gold, powerstream, 850xt and raptors which runs like old people f^ck.

very truly yours,
politenessman
 
Ok, I updated the list with all the info you guys posted and added 4 new MSI boards for Socket 754 and 4 new boards for Socket 775 from Abit.
 
Dillusion said:
Asus P4S800-MX **Note: 'Partial' PCI Locks (Viewable in BIOS), Confirmed to take mobile S478 Chips (IE- Celeron M)
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Wrong about the Celeron M. It will take mobile Celeron and mobile P4 without modding and overclock the snot out of them, but will not take Celeron M (unless Asus makes a BIOS for it to accept that adaptor).
 
Found the 754 research I did:
MSI K8NM (nForce3 250, 754)
Multi
No voltage/fsb adjustments
Mobile support

Aopen MK89-L (nForce3 150, 754)
Multi
255fsb
1.65+VC
??VDIMM
Probable mobile support
Board layout sucks ASS!

MSI K8MM/K8TM (Via, 754)
280fsb
2.85VDIMM

DFI K8M800-MLVF (Via, 754)
Multi control
255fsb
2.7+VDIMM
Unknown mobile support

Gigabyte K8S760M (SiS 760, 754)
Multi
250fsb (220fsb :( )
+10%VC
2.7VDIMM
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Found the 754 research I did:
MSI K8NM (nForce3 250, 754)
Multi
No voltage/fsb adjustments
Mobile support

Aopen MK89-L (nForce3 150, 754)
Multi
255fsb
1.65+VC
??VDIMM
Probable mobile support
Board layout sucks ASS!

MSI K8MM/K8TM (Via, 754)
280fsb
2.85VDIMM

DFI K8M800-MLVF (Via, 754)
Multi control
255fsb
2.7+VDIMM
Unknown mobile support

Gigabyte K8S760M (SiS 760, 754)
Multi
250fsb (220fsb :( )
+10%VC
2.7VDIMM
Click to expand...

Good searching, but the NF3 150 is too old to bother with, and the sis 760 is just not worth it either, I added the info on the MSI and DFI's tho.
 
so what's the consensus? I am getting vibes that every matx motherboard out there has issues. I don't really mind the overclocking stuff.. but is there one that is prefferred? which chipset for the AMD64 platform would be better?
 
magnetik said:
so what's the consensus? I am getting vibes that every matx motherboard out there has issues. I don't really mind the overclocking stuff.. but is there one that is prefferred? which chipset for the AMD64 platform would be better?
Click to expand...

For overall 'Just Use' and no OCing...and nice and stable (In my experience) go with the MSi RS480M2IL
 
Dillusion said:
For overall 'Just Use' and no OCing...and nice and stable (In my experience) go with the MSi RS480M2IL
Click to expand...


What about overclocking? I'd prefer a s939 or s775, but s478 is acceptable as well. The Jetway A210GDMS-Pro looks good from what I can tell aside from the annoying southbridge deal.
 
does anyone know the quality of the on board sound for the xpress 200 chipset? cuz i'd rather not need to buy another sound card. i've heard that the nf4 built in sound is decent, is that right?

also, is there any more word on the asus a8ne-fm board? and if its readily available, would you still recommend the msi s939 board that was above over the asus nf4 board? im lookin to build a comp w/ the x-qpack, but i have maybe half a month to research up before i start buying stuff, cuz im waiting for ATI's new card to come out (my friends mom works at ATI. yay for employee 50% discount :D )

edit
the msi board is the RS480M2IL, if u cant scroll up. also, im not looking to overclock at all. does the xpress 200 chipset have the same featuers as the nf4? cuz features/expandibility are all that im looking for, and stability obviously.
 
err, i dont know if sli on a mATX motherboard is physically possible, and there'd also most likely be heating problems as well. the smaller size of the matx board kind of limits it there. maybe in the future tho, cuz who knows?
 
Soymilk said:
err, i dont know if sli on a mATX motherboard is physically possible, and there'd also most likely be heating problems as well. the smaller size of the matx board kind of limits it there. maybe in the future tho, cuz who knows?
Click to expand...

eVGA has an LGA775 SLi board planned sometime this year.
 
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