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Haswell based Motherboards and Overclocking

miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835
in Hardware

In a few posts recently I stated that mini ITX boards can overclock just as well as their  micro ATX and standard ATX counterparts.  While this may not have been a true statement in generations past under the Haswell infrastructure it is.  Obviously there are limits but for the most part a capable mITX board will provide the exact same OC and FPS as the most expensive standard ATX boards on the market (within a margin of 5%).

That is not to say mATX and standard ATX don't offer features you simply cannot find on a mITX MB but for most gamers those features will never be utilized and thus are a waste of money.  Even this forums resident experts will say it's better to go for a solid single GPU setup over the headache that is SLI/Xfire.  They will also tell you that for a strictly gaming PC more than 8Gb of Ram is also a waste (but 16Gb can at times be found at a cheap enough price it doesn't hurt to pick it up).  The same can be said for sound cards.  Take away SLI/Xfire, excessive amounts of ram capacity, and sound cards and mITX will offer you the exact same OC/FPS performance as any form factor above it.

The following are recent video clips from some of the more prevalent youtube based computer part reviewers.  Linus from NCIX's Linus Tech Tips and Tiny Tom Logan from OC3D.  If you are curious about what you are getting for your money do yourself a favor and watch both of these videos.

 

Linus:

 

Tiny Tom Logan:

 

TLDR:  With Haswell based MBs expensive mATX and standard ATX form factors are more about aesthetics and e-peen than actual OC performance and FPS vs their much smaller mITX cousins.

Comments

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,531
    Originally posted by miguksaram

    In a few posts recently I stated that mini ITX boards can overclock just as well as their  micro ATX and standard ATX counterparts.  While this may not have been a true statement in generations past under the Haswell infrastructure it is.  Obviously there are limits but for the most part a capable mITX board will provide the exact same OC and FPS as the most expensive standard ATX boards on the market (within a margin of 5%).

    Within 5% is a long, long way from being "exactly the same".  With Haswell, the maximum safe overclock on a pretty good motherboard with a decent cooler might well be within 10% of the stock turbo.

    I can understand going with Micro ATX, though it's not something I'd do myself.  But not Mini ITX unless you need the small form factor.  Why would you want to make the board unnecessarily cramped?  Why would you want to have to worry about whether your CPU cooler will block your memory?  Why would you want to have to worry about whether your video card will block your SATA ports?

    Once you start wandering into $200+ motherboards, I'd agree that that's a waste of money unless you have unusual needs.  But it's not like you save a ton of money by going with Mini ITX.  Ignoring shipping for simplicity, New Egg currently has 11 Z87 motherboards at $120 or less.  Three are Micro ATX and eight are full ATX.  The cheapest Mini ITX is $135.  Make it Z87 instead, and New Egg offers 22 motherboards for $125 or less--none of which are Mini ITX.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

    Well, a big part of that is that Intel moved a lot of the voltage regulation for Haswell on-die, so it's not part of the motherboard any longer. It makes a lot less distinction between feature-rich full sized ATX boards and their smaller counterparts.

    I think this is a lot of what is limiting Haswell overclocking as well - in the past you could have full-sized ATX boards with grossly oversized voltage regulation to handle overclocks on TDPs that were 2-3x in excess of nominal. Now you have voltage regulation that is static in the die, and is sharing under the same heat spreader with that same excess TDP.

  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835
    Originally posted by Quizzical
    Originally posted by miguksaram

    In a few posts recently I stated that mini ITX boards can overclock just as well as their  micro ATX and standard ATX counterparts.  While this may not have been a true statement in generations past under the Haswell infrastructure it is.  Obviously there are limits but for the most part a capable mITX board will provide the exact same OC and FPS as the most expensive standard ATX boards on the market (within a margin of 5%).

    Within 5% is a long, long way from being "exactly the same".  With Haswell, the maximum safe overclock on a pretty good motherboard with a decent cooler might well be within 10% of the stock turbo.

    I can understand going with Micro ATX, though it's not something I'd do myself.  But not Mini ITX unless you need the small form factor.  Why would you want to make the board unnecessarily cramped?  Why would you want to have to worry about whether your CPU cooler will block your memory?  Why would you want to have to worry about whether your video card will block your SATA ports?

    Once you start wandering into $200+ motherboards, I'd agree that that's a waste of money unless you have unusual needs.  But it's not like you save a ton of money by going with Mini ITX.  Ignoring shipping for simplicity, New Egg currently has 11 Z87 motherboards at $120 or less.  Three are Micro ATX and eight are full ATX.  The cheapest Mini ITX is $135.  Make it Z87 instead, and New Egg offers 22 motherboards for $125 or less--none of which are Mini ITX.

    Not that your entire argument is invalid but I'd recommend you take the time to compare your thoughts to other experts such as those I linked in my OP.  Regarding the percentage difference for example I could link a number of posts where you yourself stated there are limits to where percentages really don't matter.  This is one of those examples.  Don't agree?  Watch the videos please.

    The reason you see the numbers you listed is because mITX is still niche while standard ATX is very much the norm.  The few Z87 mITX boards listed cannot simply be compared to every other Z87 board in your search as the features and quality are not the same.  As far as cramped is concerned there is also the flip side of that coin.  Having excessively underutilized space makes little sense either, especially when you aren't taking an actual performance hit (there are plenty of parts that easily match up with mITX MBs and cases in that form factor).

    I will concede that standard ATX is generally easier to build with due not having to efficiently utilize the board space.  While mITX boards will require more forethought though that is usually the case when you are talking about efficiency.  After owning full/mid-sized towers for years and recently building my wifes mATX based system I've come to appreciate just how much power you can pack into a small system without having compromise the overall power of the system.  This is especially true for those that either move or simply travel often.  If I can have a system I can easily take on a plane as carry-on and still have the same power as one which I could why exactly should I choose the latter?

  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910
    I am not sure there would be much point in going for something like the micro atx unless the onboard video was an nvidia gtx 770/780m.

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835
    Originally posted by lizardbones
    I am not sure there would be much point in going for something like the micro atx unless the onboard video was an nvidia gtx 770/780m.

    Did you mean mATX or mITX.  Assuming you meant the smaller form factor mITX then unless you're considering a SLI/Xfire setup with cheaper cards (there is plenty of evidence as to why on a new build you SHOULD NOT do that) I don't follow you line of logic here.  Not to mention you placed a "m" after the card types you listed which is reserved for the mobile version (found in laptops).  Care to explain what you mean?

  • IselinIselin Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719

    Yes, the Haswells do seem to be a lot less particular about MBs when it comes to OC performance. I looked at many reviews and comparisons when I was building my new system a couple of weeks back and saw that the cheaper Z87s were achieving essentially the same performance as the pricier ones.

    Having said that, I did eventually go up a couple of notches  from the bottom and got the MSI Z87-GD65 board. It was roughly a $50 upgrade from the bottom Z87 but worth every penny IMHO.

    The audio is much better than normal--something I noticed immediately with the clarity and fidelity running through my ancient Klipsch 4.1s. I was previously using an old AuZen Prelude that I kept putting in system after system after trying the on-board audio and finding it lacking. I can now finally retire that board since the audio on the MB blows the Prelude out of the water.

    I'm not sure if the "Killer Network" card, drivers and software is really that much of an upgrade over standard on-board NICs but it works well.

    The OC? So far I'm running just a modest rock solid 4.2 OC (with the ram running easily @ 2400 CL10) and will take it up to the 4.5 - .7 range once my 4th floor non-AC condo cools off a bit in a month or so.

    MSI also seems to have a well-deserved good rep for using top quality components on this board and so far it all works well - even the infamous Haswell USB3 issues seem to be non-existent.

    Tiny Tom also did a review of this board a while back which influenced my decision:--10/10 in all 3 categories (performance, price and presentation) from him is not a bad place to start when shopping for a MB :)

    Video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYg1pIbRCs&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLD15E20DE202F5B1F

    Article: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/msi_z87_gd65_gaming_review/15

     

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  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835

    For those that feel mITX and cases meant to accommodate that form factor and not much else this is now available or rather will be in October:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/news/prodigy-m-bitfenix-micro-atx-mini-itx,23879.html#xtor=RSS-998

    http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/news/show/81,bitfenix-launches-prodigy-m/

    http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy-m/

    BitFenix's has listened to the community and has released their original mITX based Prodigy in a new mATX form factor as the Prodigy M.  As far as I can tell the overall dimensions of the case are the same though that doesn't really come as a surprise as the original case was one of the largest available mITX based cases around, minus Caselabs beast that is but then again that is what Caselabs is known for.

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