P55 On A Budget: Five Core i5/i7 Motherboards For $100-$150

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[citation][nom]JeanLuc[/nom]Good read but it really just confirms what a lot of us have known for a long time. Don't buy budget motherboards (MSI, ASrock, ECS) if you want to overclock and it's no coincidence that the boards from Gigabyte and Asus passed with flying colours as these companies clearly have proper testing procedures in place and quality assurance measures to avoid such issues.[/citation]

isn't asrock owned by asus?
isn't msi used by a lot of review sites for budget overclocking?
the fact is, you shouldn't ever oc a high tdp(95w+) cpu with a mobo that has 5 power phases, it_Almost_never ends well. notice the gigabyte and asus boards didn't fry, notice the number of power phases. the asrock and msi boards were clearly undersigned, but that is to be expected with first gen budget boards. ecs just sucks, i could care less why or how they're boards fry, i already expect them too.
 
[citation][nom]azaezel2727[/nom]Why on earth would somoene interested in overclocking that required upping the voltages consider one of these boards in the first place? Maybe I missed the point here, but most OC'ers who are interested in maximum potential are going to purchase higher end boards... not a 'budget' board. This article is a true example of tabloid reporting.[/citation]

WTF? Really, WTF? Tom's has been showing people how to get big performance on small cash by overclocking since what, 1997, and now you question the principle simply because a few boards died? And worse, you call an unbiased report of the overclocking limitation tabloid? Do you work for one of these companies?

EVERYONE knows that overclocking motherboards--even budget overclocking motherboards--are supposed to have overcurrent protection. You didn't see this problem in Tom's Hardware's last budget-LGA775 review, and that was using the same overclock settings. Yes the 1156's need more power than 775's, but they're supposed to be designed with that in mind.
 
ASUS has been getting horrible cust svc reviews over on newegg. I will shy away from products with 50% or worse reviews, especially when those reviews reveal a similar problem. Perfect example of you get what u pay for, i bought an ASROCK 4-COREDUAL-VSTA mobo a few years back, and i cant complain, its been solid. But a mushkin rep notified me that me upgrading from a Pent D 805 to anything faster isnt worth my time on that mobo because the mobo is limited to 667MHz FSB, so why advertise a mobo that supports a kentsfield Q6600 if it cant handle much more than my D 805 running @ 3.10GHz?
Aiming for an i5 setup soon, maybe with an SSD for the OS.
 
@ azaezel2727:
Back in the day I bought THE cheapest ASUS P35 mobo (P5KSE) and it's working fine with an E6750 @ 3.6Ghz (default 2.6Ghz) since December 2007 and till now.
 
Are these issues related in any way to poor pin-pad contact in the Foxconn sockets used by most of the mobo manufacturers for Intel?

AnandTech has part of the puzzle IF it is related:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3661

Evidently there is poor pin-pad contact and we see severe burnout of the pins and failure of the mobo/CPU. However, all of their O/C'ing was eXtreme (LN2 and water)
 
Well, were these motherboards using Foxconn sockets - or not?

If so, i can see how a poor pin-pad contact with even moderate overclocking would lead to mobo and chip failure.

If not, and if they are using LOTES sockets, then for sure it would be along the lines of the current investigation.
 
[citation][nom]apoppin[/nom]Well, were these motherboards using Foxconn sockets - or not?If so, i can see how a poor pin-pad contact with even moderate overclocking would lead to mobo and chip failure.If not, and if they are using LOTES sockets, then for sure it would be along the lines of the current investigation.[/citation]

ASRock fixed its problems with a BIOS update, not a socket change.
 
*Allegedly* fixed its problems with a BIOS update. i don't see an update to this article that suggests this issue is really fixed, nor any comment by MSI or ECS yet.

Of course, if you limit the current, you limit the overclocking potential. Are they really solving their problem? What kind of performance can we expect from the new BIOS?

And do you know - if by coincidence (or not) - the socket manufacturer of each of the 3 mobos tested here - LOTES or Foxconn?
 
[citation][nom]apoppin[/nom]*Allegedly* fixed its problems with a BIOS update. i don't see an update to this article that suggests this issue is really fixed, nor any comment by MSI or ECS yet.Of course, if you limit the current, you limit the overclocking potential. Are they really solving their problem? What kind of performance can we expect from the new BIOS?And do you know - if by coincidence (or not) - the socket manufacturer of each of the 3 mobos tested here - LOTES or Foxconn?[/citation]

It's fixed, I tested it, you'll see an update in around a week. And you need to know that Asus and Gigabyte, the two boards that didn't have any issues, used Foxconn sockets.
 
It is kinda sad to see multiple unrelated P55 issues like these now that should have been caught in testing long before the public got these boards.

i am looking forward to the article update. Many thanks!
 
[citation][nom]kquaker1[/nom]So these motherboards would support the i5 pentium duo quad core processors? I am in the market for a quad [/citation]

These support Intel Core i5 processors, plus Core i7 8xx-series processors. These support all available LGA-1156 processors.
 
[citation][nom]armario2[/nom]The cause of burned motherboards can be the socket of the processor that don't made good contact with the processor!!!! check it out!! http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3661[/citation]

It could be, but it isn't. Tom's simply hasn't had time to publish the update yet.
 
I own the MSI p55-cd53. I'm quite happy with it so far (Win 7 x64) as it's been quite stable.

I have NOT overclocked it as yet as I'm waiting for a better cpu cooler before messing with that.

This is the first review I have read that claims this is not a decent overclocking board or has issues. Are all the other reviewers wrong?

Have those using the built in oc genie reported fried boards?

I'm going to visit and post these questions on the MSI forum and see what they have to say.
 
[citation][nom]GotMSIboard[/nom]This is the first review I have read that claims this is not a decent overclocking board or has issues. Are all the other reviewers wrong?[/citation]

Yes. Tom's tested a second board for the update article that will hopefully be published soon.
 
[citation][nom]apoppin[/nom]It is kinda sad to see multiple unrelated P55 issues like these now that should have been caught in testing long before the public got these boards.i am looking forward to the article update. Many thanks![/citation]
Sad? This is the normal run-of-the-mill stuff for a new chipset launch. The x58 chipset, p4's 865/875 etc all had their share of problems, and mind you, Intel launches tend to go far more smoothly than AMD/Nvidia and even those latter two end up producing very solid mobos.

It should also be noted that that except for the EXTREMISTS who actually will push well past 4GHz most of these problems won't affect the overwhelming majority of people, and many of the other problems can be fixed via BIOS updates. Anandtech observed many of these problems being attributed to the Foxconn sockets, but even in that article they said the following:

We have not had any problems with air or water cooling overclocking up to 4.3GHz, although we do have a i5/750 that has developed a few dark pads after a thousand hours or so of constant overclocking. However, none of the boards have developed pin problems so we feel very safe in saying that any problems will probably occur only in extreme overclocking scenarios.

It's good to have information about these sorts of things, especially when hardware is new/buggy, but each time it happens we see a lot of chatter that suggests the sky is falling ala Chicken Little.
 
[citation][nom]coconutboy[/nom]It should also be noted that that except for the EXTREMISTS who actually will push well past 4GHz most of these problems won't affect the overwhelming majority of people, and many of the other problems can be fixed via BIOS updates...It's good to have information about these sorts of things, especially when hardware is new/buggy, but each time it happens we see a lot of chatter that suggests the sky is falling ala Chicken Little.[/citation]

Actually the update will be published tomorrow that shows even more modest overclocks can be problematic for some of these boards.
 
The main problem is these board are only months old and companies charge the typical "EARLY ADOPTER" premium. Given that there are only 2 chips for this socket (with others proposed and in process for future release, acc. to intel) a complete build can easily run $1k with comparable parts. I'm in the upgrade camp to my build will hopefully run about $500-$600 (hopefully less) but I think I may have to wait until next year when the premium is gone and that's unfortunate. Should a new innovation such as usb 3 make it onto boards next year, these non-usb board are certain to drop in price and they know it! Also of odd curiosity, the 775 chips keep holding their value & according to benchmarks the new chips are cheaper and perform as well or marginally better.. but the tradeoff is more expensive m/b's and the socket longevity dilemma. We all know it's a fools game to expect to upgrade a processor before the next socket becomes mainstreamed, but there's nothing to say you *MUST* buy in the quarter that the new 1156 technology is released (Q3, 2009). 2010 is just as good, after the traditional price drops. Afterall, computer compodents are seldom an area where production is severely cut back due to lack of demand for very long. Companies have to recoup that ROI even at thinner margins sooner or later.
 
[citation][nom]tmc[/nom]The main problem is these board are only months old and companies charge the typical "EARLY ADOPTER" premium. Given that there are only 2 chips for this socket (with others proposed and in process for future release, acc. to intel) a complete build can easily run $1k with comparable parts. I'm in the upgrade camp so my build will hopefully run about $500-$600 (hopefully less) but I think I may have to wait until next year when the premium is gone and that's unfortunate. Should a new innovation such as usb 3 make it onto boards next year, these non-usb board are certain to drop in price and they know it! Also of odd curiosity, the 775 chips keep holding their value & according to benchmarks the new chips are cheaper and perform as well or marginally better.. but the tradeoff is more expensive m/b's and the socket longevity dilemma. We all know it's a fools game to expect to upgrade a processor before the next socket becomes mainstreamed, but there's nothing to say you *MUST* buy in the quarter that the new 1156 technology is released (Q3, 2009). 2010 is just as good, after the traditional price drops. Afterall, computer compodents are seldom an area where production is severely cut back due to lack of demand for very long. Companies have to recoup that ROI even at thinner margins sooner or later.[/citation]
 
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