Maybe I am older, and remember different... So see their current boards differently.. but

Gigabyte was always, they got a name because their boards overclocked very well and they were a budget board company. OCers got into it, and prices wnet up. Took a while (and a lot of RMAs I am sure) and now their boards are priced higher than better boards. I always joke (because I have seen it).. " Gigabyte makes a great board, I can't wait till mine comes back from RMA." Failure is a failure. Prices go up when your shit sucks no matter how good your customer service is.

ASUS (as much as I hate them) does produce awesome boards. Largest in the world and so lot of complaints.Customer servie on the low levels is stupid, website is incompatible with IE/opera on Windows 7... but works fine on both in XP. IME. Good company but gotta know whic hare good purchases. which means waiting.

EVGA (indifferent to them) best clockers lately, historically they are a crap company. There are a gigabyte at best. Will see when p67 classy comes out (I think I get to review one!) Looking forward to it tbh, because I bet the board will be a cool running one. (ASUS targets EVGA specifically as using over sized unnecessary heatsinks, but when Ocing on x58 I found the opposite (duh) ))

What are we left with.. MSI? They were big at producing HP boards. I have seen your guys results with them, granted I am not on some of your levels, quality and feature wise, but you guys are having mem issues with them, which considering they are all on IMCs, has to do with Vdimm pahses and/or interconnects.

Foxconn might be the largest PC company in the world, but motherboard wise they make apple products. Need I say more?

Maybe there are other companies, I cant think of any though. And that is a shame.

Looking forward to your results :good:

Sapphire 4890 Bios vgpu/vmem mod on H20
2600k @ 5.32GHz on H20

3DMark Vantage - Performance - 16017 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1050/1200MHz) 18.2 points
3DMark2001 SE - 111089 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1100/1200MHz) 11.5 + 11.9 points
3DMark03 - 82532 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1080/1180MHz) 17.5 points
3DMark05 - 40765 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1030/1200MHz) 1.6 + 17.8 points
3DMark06 - 25543 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1000/1200MHz) 23.1 points
Aquamark - 390388 marks - OC Maximus (OCAlliance) - (Ati Radeon HD 4890 @1100/1200MHz) 6.4 + 12.2 points

Nice card. Was worried at first since I couldn't find a vmod for this card but luckily bios mod worked. Will rebench once better 2600k arrives.

+1 bro

OCM I cant wait to see your scores at 5.5+ghz bro :)


New chip on normal air is hitting the same limit as my best chip. 5.58. Very strange, maybe board limit? I will try it on gd65 later. Literally spent 20 minutes with the thing so far so I expect more :)


Filling up dewar on my lunch, then going to hit some 06 which I meant to do last week but board wasnt thawed completely and it wouldnt boot up at all.

im benching my 9800gt finaly got it modded 1.35v 850/1150 on air :)

need some ln2 :P

and we need a new thread for march

Yep, it is time for a March thread.

Nice going guys. After one chip and one board (RMA'd for refund) I haven't yet felt inspired enough to dive into the SB CPU binning game.

I've not been a contributor to the team for the last month or two, but may get some stuff rolling in a few weeks.

@Rich: Funny the different experiences we have. Here's mine.
-Gibabyte: only experience was UD9 and I'm underwhelmed. Or I suck at overclocking them.
-EVGA: Good boards, but I absolutely hate the company loyalty/"register your stuff" to get your warranty crap. Company should stand by their product, not use the warranty hostage to sell more stuff.
-ASUS. Consistently the best boards I've overclocked across multiple chipsets. But they officially suck big hairy ones. See my sig.
-MSI: Good cards, but they need to fix whatever they're doing with memory on their boards.
-Foxconn: Love em. Bloodrage was FUN. Katana Inferno is the only P55 board out of 4 manufacturers that didn't roll over and die when I looked at it.

Interesting, I've again had different experiences .
ASUS: Never had a good experience with any of their boards, the ones I've had have either clocked badly, or just died on my for no reason.
GIGABYTE: Have both the X58 and P55 UD5 boards now, and am quite liking them both. Although not having alot of success with the P55, although that may not be the boards fault.
BIOSTAR: Only other board I've really used, love them to bits :D

I will jump in with my two cents :laughing:

Asus - Board of choice and have had consistant great luck with them before the P67 dibacle, their WS board with voltage locked at 1.53 is unaceptable. Now up in the air on a P67 board but if it is to be Asus it will be a M4E .....

MSI - Have had two, both sucked, not only overclocking but just seemed chinsy and both ultimantly failed

EVGA - Have had two as well, both x58 the 758 is underwelming but solid water board
The 760, what can I say, just a great all around preformer

Gigabrite - Have had a few, all underwhelming other the the x58 Extreme to spite being locked down at 222 BCLK is easily the best ambient air and water board I have ever owned, the rest of them at best mediocrity ...

Abit - Back in the day ..... they were teh bomb .... Loved the early AMD boards and used many of them... What the hell happened ???

Foxconn - never owner one but was tempted by the Bloodrage

ASUS/MSI/Giga/eVGA - Will use them if they're the best at the time with no preconceived notions of their last platform. RMA is easy for any brand, as long as you call them and talk to them on the phone. Email is easily ignored.

History of Greatness
P45 = Biostar Tpower
x48 = REX
p55 = Classified P55/Maximus
x58 (pre-gulfie) = eVGA 759-762
x58 (post guflie) = R3E
p67 = UD5+7 and M4E