Overclocking on the ECS KA3 MVP Extreme

[robodude666]

Hey guys,

I saw the review on this site on this motherboard and I was amazed at the 2.7GHz overclock Blake got! In every review I read, they only managed to get 2.0 -> 2.3/2.4GHz at MAX. So I was wondering if you, or other people you know, had good successful overclocks on this motherboard.

I am also wondering what cooling you would suggest. Should I go with high end air such as the Tuniq Tower? Or Liquid Cooling with the D-Tek FuZion.

You also think its worth liquid cooling the northbridge? Or should I get a heatsink like the ThermalRight HR-05?

Thanks for your help,
-robodude666

[gvblake22]

I think a good air cooling solution should be enough for most people (assuming you want to stay withing a safe voltage range for your components).

I found that investing $10 or so in an external temperature probe of some kind was worth my while to get accurate temperature readings from chipsets, RAM, HDD's, GPU's and CPU's, case, etc. That way you know if your heatsink is getting the job done or not.

[robodude666]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

I think a good air cooling solution should be enough for most people (assuming you want to stay withing a safe voltage range for your components).

I found that investing $10 or so in an external temperature probe of some kind was worth my while to get accurate temperature readings from chipsets, RAM, HDD's, GPU's and CPU's, case, etc. That way you know if your heatsink is getting the job done or not.

Thanks gvblake22 for your reply :)

I will try staying in the safe voltage range as much as possible, but if the HTT can't go ant higher and its pretty low I would need to start increasing the voltage.

I have taken care of the temperature stuff. I am working on a project with 4-6 temperature probes, 4-6 fan control, CCL and LED controller all controlled by a lovely 128 x 128px 1.4" OLED display and a couple of buttons.

I will have it in my 5.25" bay and it will be used for monitoring my system's temperatures. I will have many cool features such as temperature controlled fans, alarm if temperatures go too high, LED control via temperature and sound. Big fun expensive project =D I can start a project log here once I get some of the things working.

-robodude666

[gvblake22]

Wow, that sounds awesome!! Please do post up a thread with some pics once progress has been started!

As for you overclocking adventures, what kind of overclocking success have you had with this board so far? What are your full system specs?

[robodude666]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

Wow, that sounds awesome!! Please do post up a thread with some pics once progress has been started!

As for you overclocking adventures, what kind of overclocking success have you had with this board so far? What are your full system specs?

Oh, don't worry. I go trigger happy with the camera. Someone asked me to take a couple of pictures of something I was selling and I ended up taking 150 :P I will have some videos too ^^

Actually, I don't have the system yet. If everything, financially, goes well... Then I would buy the system first or second week of April. I like to do a lot of research before I buy hardware because it ain't cheap stuff and will be with me for a while. At least until AM3 =P.

I originally wanted to get a LC system but then a couple of people on another forums suggested I should just go with a really good air system and it should do me just well. So I want to see what other people got with this motherboard and what type of cooling they are using. I searched around and didn't find many people using this motherboard. ECS has never been known for their overclocker friendly BIOS.

-robodude666

[gvblake22]

Lots of pictures and researched knowledge, I like you already!

[robodude666]

Originally Posted by gvblake22

Lots of pictures and researched knowledge, I like you already!

Hey, your not bad yourself mate

So, I am guessing no one knows of anyone who used this motherboard? Are there people with any sort of overclocking knowledge out there that know if its worth while for me to LC the NB whenever I upgrade to LC.

[gvblake22]

I've done my fair share of overclocking, and I've only upgraded the chipset cooling once (to a Swiftech MCX159) and I can't say that it allowed me to get much (if any) higher of an overclock. However, it did make the system cooler and quieter, so in that sense it was a good purchase. As far as liquid cooling goes, I say get a good air cooler to start out with and go from there. If you find that you are seriously crippled by temperatures and know more of an overlcock is possible, then I say look into some kind of watercooling. Same goes for the chipset.

[robodude666]

What if the overclock is being limited by the motherboard's ability? How would I know if the overclock is being limited by the hardware or by the temperatures?

[gvblake22]

Well, if it is temperature limited, you should be able to look at an actual temperature value and determine that it is too high to be safe. If it is hardware limited, your temps will be in check but benchmarks and stability testing programs will error out. To further test hardware overclocking limitations, you can reduce the overclock a slight bit when you get instability and if it tests stable again and your temps haven't changed, then you know it's the hardware.