AM2 microATX board that undervolts/underclocks

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:42 pm

Hi, I am building a dedicated low power audio server to be left on 24/7.

Either Sempron 3400 or a Brisbane based mobo will do the job. It needs to have:

Rock solid stability
Onboard graphics (VGA is fine)
At least one PCI slot (legacy high end audio card)
Support RAID 0 of 2 SATA drives in BIOS, preferably with good Wake on LAN etc options
Support undervolting/underclocking
Rock solid stability
Did I mention Rock solid stability?

What are the low power boards/chipsets out there that I should know about? Was thinking the 690 chipset but open to other possibilities. Heard Biostar is good for underclocking.....what's the word?

Best,

Dave M

charonme · Post by **charonme** » Thu May 24, 2007 2:37 am

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40651

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Thu May 24, 2007 8:32 am

Thanks Charon,

I can get the AsRock AliveNF6G-DVI locally.

I was initially recommended a mobo with the AMD 690 chipset and this mobo uses the NVIDIAÂ® GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 or GeForce 6150SE / nForce 430 Chipsets.

Do people have experience - good or bad - with this AsRock board? I read another thread from December talking about needing to flash to the latest BIOS but otherwise have no experience with their boards.

Thanks,

Dave M

taidi · Post by **taidi** » Sat May 26, 2007 9:57 am

Hi Dave, there are a fair number of comments about the ASRock board on this UK retailer's site if you scroll down the page.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... uid=119409

One problem seems to be that the BIOS shipped with the board may not recognise Brisbane core CPU's - but there are details of a fix in the comments there.

There have been several posts here on SPCR confirming this board is undervoltable and here's a couple of reviews that show BIOS VCore options...

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/423/1/

http://www.pro-clockers.com/review.php?id=182

santacruzbob · Post by **santacruzbob** » Sat May 26, 2007 1:53 pm

Have you considered getting a really low power via? it should have all the features you are looking for and will run cool and quiet

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Mon May 28, 2007 11:47 pm

Taidi, thanks, I will check out those links.

Would be happier to find a board that works out of the box without need for fixes etc. and is undervoltable.

santacruzbob I did consider a mini-iTX VIA solution but drifted towards a mini-ATX form factor when I realized I had the space for that and it's wider selection of mobos and a bit more long term flexibility (I may one day use this PC elsewhere). I also have heard too many stories about flaky VIA chipset behaviour and they appear to be perpetual underperformers relative to Intel and AMD offerings. I know I do not need a huge amount of processing power here but I do like the idea of the overhead a Brisbane core would give me, and expect the system would idle at around 45 W which is not so bad.

Thanks again to all and still open to hearing board suggestions.

Dave M

bendit · Post by **bendit** » Tue May 29, 2007 2:21 am

I have a Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 board that has this 6150/se chipset and it supported the brisbane with the shipped bios. it also undervolts (haven't tried underclocking). Mine is full size but I think there are new uATX Gigabyte boards with this new chipset. No DVI, however.

dave_in_gva wrote:
I was initially recommended a mobo with the AMD 690 chipset and this mobo uses the NVIDIAÂ® GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 or GeForce 6150SE / nForce 430 Chipsets.

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Tue May 29, 2007 3:31 am

Hi Bendit, thanks. I'll check this out. I don't need DVI out, VGA is fine.

Have you been happy with the board in terms of stability etc.?

Thanks again,

Dave

bendit · Post by **bendit** » Tue May 29, 2007 4:38 am

its been great. the one chip design is nice and simple and cool and the bios has plenty of options. I love it and I am usally an ASUS man.

Its a very tested and refined chipset. There has been a lot of discussion on the 6100 6150se chipset here that you should search for. You also might want to check out the 690v chipset at Newegg. All the best.

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Thu May 31, 2007 6:09 am

Viable options seem to be:

Asrock AliveNF6G-DVI
Gigabyte GA-M61PM-S2

A little more has been written about the Asrock board here and it does seem to have given some users problems with Brisbane CPUs.

I've not seen anyone report on experience with the Gigabyte board and a Brisbane chip but think I've seen somewhere that people have undervolted/underclocked it.

Any general thoughts on these two contenders? Both are available locally for almost the identical price.

Best,

Dave M

karsekongen · Post by **karsekongen** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:40 am

Hi

Yeasterday I bought an ASUS M2A-VM HDMI and i'm satisfied

It undervolts from bios, my cpu is running 1.0 vcore.

It's 690G though,l but it is supposed to perform better an consume less than 6150.

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:10 am

Thanks for this. I'll add it to the list of mobos I'm now considering. Currently these are:

AsRock AliveNF6G-DVI
GIGABYTE GA-M61PM-S2
ASUS M2A-VM HDMI

The Asus has more video capabilities it seems. These are unimportant to me as I really do not foresee this build ever running as a video server. It's a dedicated audio server build that will run 24/7 and not even have a monitor. It will be accessed remotely from a laptop through Remote Desktop Connection.

The other thing I notice about the Asus is there seem to have been people saying the northbridge chipset cooler got very hot. I am after a low power system that I can cool with a Scythe Ninja Rev. B in passive mode on the CPU and a single Scythe Kama Bay 120mm case fan.

My interest in undervolting the CPU (planning on a Brisbane) has been to keep system temps down as I do not need much grunt to serve audio files via Foobar and surf the net but I may just go with Cool N Quiet as it seems like many users report similar wattage draws.

Best,

Dave M

dave_in_gva · Post by **dave_in_gva** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:13 am

By the way, do you have a link confirming lower power usage and better performance of the 690G chipset over the 6150?

Thanks.

karsekongen wrote:
It's 690G though,l but it is supposed to perform better an consume less than 6150.

Dave M

Shuriken · Post by **Shuriken** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:28 am

Power Consumption (and general 690G Performance):
http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q1/am ... ex.x?pg=16

M2A-VM HDMI Review:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=e ... =376&pid=2

karsekongen · Post by **karsekongen** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 4:01 am

The Northbirgde cooler does get very hot without airflow.

I use a 120mm (5volt) case fan wich keep the chipset 30 degress or something.

=assassin= · Post by **=assassin=** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 1:26 pm

Bendit wrote:I have a Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 board that has this 6150/se chipset and it supported the brisbane with the shipped bios. it also undervolts (haven't tried underclocking). Mine is full size but I think there are new uATX Gigabyte boards with this new chipset. No DVI, however.

I'm in need of a replacement motherboard, and was looking at this, could you tell me about:

1) If the onboard audio is ok/acceptable

2) If it seems easy to setup

3) That it's completely stable

4) Whether it's possible to fit a large heatsink on the CPU like a Scythe Samurai Z

5) Whether removing the RAM sticks become an issue, as the PCI-E slot looks close, so longer cards could end up in the way.

6) If the 4 pin CPU fan connector on the board poses a problem with standard 3 pin connectors

Thanks for any details you can provide, no matter how small.

AM2 microATX board that undervolts/underclocks

AM2 microATX board that undervolts/underclocks

me too

VIA