New motherboard = Better overclocking protencial?

[kristoffermilo]

Amma buy a new motherboard because the one i've got now, doesn't support SLI, so amma get a new one. Does that mean that i'll get a different overclock? Or will i stick to the 4.6GHz on 1.350v as i got now?

 

[SinxarKnights]

If you are doing some extreme OC'ing with exotic cooling methods then it can depending on how the board is manufactured. If you mean a small OC on air, a new board is unlikely to make much if any of a difference unless you have a really low end board now, even then it will be minimal difference.

 

[kristoffermilo]

MSI Tomahawk AC. The change is just because of the lack of SLI Support. Its pretty anoying.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Yeah that is irritating. I made the same mistake when I built my first PC. The second time around though I made sure I got a board that supported both (Xfire + SLI) and had more than two RAM slots.

 

[scuzzycard]

Which board are you upgrading from? The MSI Tomahawk AC is a good-but-not-excellent overclocking board. If you're old board was particularly weak, then you might get slightly more headroom from the new board. If your old board had decent power delivery, then I wouldn't expect much of a change at all.

 

[Faux_Grey]

Modern CPUs have most of the equipment on-die so it's really down to the CPU quality that determines your overclock.
Hence. "Silicon lottery"

In the old days you'd get motherboards with better quality northbridges and clock controllers and whatnot.
But now.. All on CPU.

My i7 and i5 have hit the same clock speed no matter what Z97 board I put it in.

 

[scuzzycard]

Modern CPUs have most of the equipment on-die so it's really down to the CPU quality that determines your overclock.
Hence. "Silicon lottery"

In the old days you'd get motherboards with better quality northbridges and clock controllers and whatnot.
But now.. All on CPU.

My i7 and i5 have hit the same clock speed no matter what Z97 board I put it in.

This is only partially true. It's true that many components have been moved onto the CPU die, but the board still has to be able to supply enough clean amperage to the CPU's FIVR. A board with a 3-phase or 4-phase VRM will limit overclocking on quad-core Intel CPUs. They will throttle or spontaneously reboot/crash if they are pushed too hard. Other things still matter too, such as the number of PCB layers, how the traces are routed, and the quality of the various electronic components.