# Best cheap LGA1156 motherboard for overclocking? [Second hand]



## Arooon (Mar 28, 2019)

Hey everyone,

Me and a few friends are trying to build really cheap but also decently performing gaming PCs as a competition - with the best performing PC winning.

I’ve got a few parts (PSU, GTX 960 2GB, storage) and I think I’ve decided on a CPU after much research - the Xeon X3440 a LGA1156 socket CPU with 4 cores, 8 threads and decent OC ability as it’s a Xeon. 

Originally I was considering an Asus P7 H55-m motherboard as I’d heard it’s a decent mobo - it’s found cheap on eBay and can OC apparently. *However* I’ve also read some cannot OC - the bios does not allow it. And I’ve read some don’t OC very far at all. 

So I need help deciding on a decent but also cheap (£40 ish) OCable LGA1156 mobo. I’m not too familiar with older parts like this so any help would be much appreciated - maybe the Asus board is perfectly fine after all!

Any information on OCing on this board or other boards that would be better will be really appreciated. Thanks!

I’ve seen a couple of different variants of this board one with a ‘SI’ at the end - which is the one I heard doesn’t OC. And the others I can find have a ‘LX’ at the end, I don’t know if this means anything.

Ive also heard the P55 chip set is better for overclocking than the H55 - maybe I’ll keep an eye out for a cheap GA P55 USB3.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 28, 2019)

Best i could find for £40 on ebay is this, seems it has some OC ability

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H55M-S2V-rev-14#ov

Couple of options here for bids

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_...&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=GA+P55+USB3&_sacat=0


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## LFaWolf (Mar 28, 2019)

You are looking at the wrong platform. The 1156 CPUs have poor single thread performance, which most older games require. Very few games, unless the newer ones, can even utilize the extra cores.

You should be looking at the 1155 platform. Older i5 2500k can be had for similar price if not slightly more than the X3440. Not to mention, a lot of 2500k can be overclocked to very high level. Then it could be just a case of luck of the draw - whose 2500k is better overclocker. The extra threads of the X3440 will not be useful for games. The problem is still the same - good 1155 motherboards will not be easy to find, but in reality, there are more 1155 boards than 1156 boards out there.

Here is a performance comparison.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Xeon-X3440-vs-Intel-i5-2500K/1288vs804


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## Arooon (Mar 28, 2019)

LFaWolf said:


> You are looking at the wrong platform. The 1156 CPUs have poor single thread performance, which most older games require. Very few games, unless the newer ones, can even utilize the extra cores.
> 
> You should be looking at the 1155 platform. Older i5 2500k can be had for similar price if not slightly more than the X3440. Not to mention, a lot of 2500k can be overclocked to very high level. Then it could be just a case of luck of the draw - whose 2500k is better overclocker. The extra threads of the X3440 will not be useful for games. The problem is still the same - good 1155 motherboards will not be easy to find, but in reality, there are more 1155 boards than 1156 boards out there.
> 
> ...


Thank you so much for this help! I’ll do some research and see what I can find for pretty cheap, any recommendations on good overclocking 1155 boards?



tigger said:


> Best i could find for £40 on ebay is this, seems it has some OC ability
> 
> https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-H55M-S2V-rev-14#ov
> 
> ...


I’ll have a look around for these. Thank you so much for the help!


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## LFaWolf (Mar 28, 2019)

If you are going for very high OC such as >4.5GHz, ASUS Maximus boards are unrivaled during this time period, but also more expensive. However, boards such as MSI P67 GD65 can achieve ~4.3 GHz without breaking a sweat. As a matter of fact, most mid-tier and up 1155 boards from ASUS and MSI should have no problem hitting 4.3GHz for most of the 2500k out there (most of the 2500k are great overclockers). My ECS P67H2-A2 was able to hit 4.3GHz for my i7 2600k at stock VCore.

I have no experience with Gigabyte 1155 boards, but do avoid EVGA for their 1155 boards (mine has stability issue).


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## Arooon (Mar 28, 2019)

LFaWolf said:


> If you are going for very high OC such as >4.5GHz, ASUS Maximus boards are unrivaled during this time period, but also more expensive. However, boards such as MSI P67 GD65 can achieve ~4.3 GHz without breaking a sweat. As a matter of fact, most mid-tier and up 1155 boards from ASUS and MSI should have no problem hitting 4.3GHz for most of the 2500k out there (most of the 2500k are great overclockers). My ECS P67H2-A2 was able to hit 4.3GHz for my i7 2600k at stock VCore.
> 
> I have no experience with Gigabyte 1155 boards, but do avoid EVGA for their 1155 boards (mine has stability issue).


Thank you again, this really helps! I’ll have a look on eBay now 



LFaWolf said:


> If you are going for very high OC such as >4.5GHz, ASUS Maximus boards are unrivaled during this time period, but also more expensive. However, boards such as MSI P67 GD65 can achieve ~4.3 GHz without breaking a sweat. As a matter of fact, most mid-tier and up 1155 boards from ASUS and MSI should have no problem hitting 4.3GHz for most of the 2500k out there (most of the 2500k are great overclockers). My ECS P67H2-A2 was able to hit 4.3GHz for my i7 2600k at stock VCore.
> 
> I have no experience with Gigabyte 1155 boards, but do avoid EVGA for their 1155 boards (mine has stability issue).


I’m only looking for a moderate OC, this is just a little project competition thing, I’ll probably sell the pc on afterwards (or keep it as a memeory).



LFaWolf said:


> If you are going for very high OC such as >4.5GHz, ASUS Maximus boards are unrivaled during this time period, but also more expensive. However, boards such as MSI P67 GD65 can achieve ~4.3 GHz without breaking a sweat. As a matter of fact, most mid-tier and up 1155 boards from ASUS and MSI should have no problem hitting 4.3GHz for most of the 2500k out there (most of the 2500k are great overclockers). My ECS P67H2-A2 was able to hit 4.3GHz for my i7 2600k at stock VCore.
> 
> I have no experience with Gigabyte 1155 boards, but do avoid EVGA for their 1155 boards (mine has stability issue).


What do you think about this board? https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/223453516980


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## LFaWolf (Mar 28, 2019)

That ASUS board is a 4-phase board and not a good OC, and being a H67 chipset, I am not sure it has unlocked multiplier. Does it need to be m-atx format for you?


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## Arooon (Mar 28, 2019)

LFaWolf said:


> That ASUS board is a 4-phase board and not a good OC, and being a H67 chipset, I am not sure it has unlocked multiplier. Does it need to be m-atx format for you?


No it can be any form factor, yeah that doesn’t look to good. I’m just looking for board with decent overclocking potential - nothing crazy. And probably max £50. Thanks.


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## LFaWolf (Mar 28, 2019)

Do you have a CPU already? If not, there are some combos there that can be had. 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-P8P...099362?hash=item3b2e137c22:g:6dsAAOSwq5FchYsP

You want to have a minimum of P8P67 for overclocking. No LE or LX variants. Deluxe or Pro are 1 level up from the P8P67. However, you won't be able to get any P8P67 or above for £50. 

Do you already have the DDR3 memory? Just need the CPU and motherboard?


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## newtekie1 (Mar 28, 2019)

Arooon said:


> the Xeon X3440 a LGA1156 socket CPU with 4 cores, 8 threads and decent OC ability as it’s a Xeon.



I can tell you from my experience that the whole "it overclocks better because it's a Xeon" hasn't applied since the early 775 days.  You'd be a lot better off with something like an i7-870, which will allow a much higher multiplier, and not force you to rely as much on FSB overclocking.



LFaWolf said:


> You are looking at the wrong platform. The 1156 CPUs have poor single thread performance, which most older games require. Very few games, unless the newer ones, can even utilize the extra cores.
> 
> You should be looking at the 1155 platform. Older i5 2500k can be had for similar price if not slightly more than the X3440. Not to mention, a lot of 2500k can be overclocked to very high level. Then it could be just a case of luck of the draw - whose 2500k is better overclocker. The extra threads of the X3440 will not be useful for games. The problem is still the same - good 1155 motherboards will not be easy to find, but in reality, there are more 1155 boards than 1156 boards out there.
> 
> ...



The lower performance there is largely due to the lower clock speeds of the Xeon, the numbers get much closer when looking at a higher i7-870/875K.

But, yeah, if gaming is your only concern, the 2500K is going to be the best option for a dirt cheap gaming processor.

Just know that to overclock you need a P67, Z68, or Z77 motherboard.


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## LFaWolf (Mar 28, 2019)

newtekie1 said:


> The lower performance there is largely due to the lower clock speeds of the Xeon, the numbers get much closer when looking at a higher i7-870/875K.



Not really. The 870 differs from the 2500k by over 10% in base clock, and 100 MHz in boost, but single threaded performance is behind the 2500k by 45%. It is the difference in architecture.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...Intel-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-i7-870/1288vs804vs832


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## newtekie1 (Mar 28, 2019)

LFaWolf said:


> Not really. The 870 differs from the 2500k by over 10% in base clock, and 100 MHz in boost, but single threaded performance is behind the 2500k by 45%. It is the difference in architecture.
> 
> https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...Intel-i5-2500K-vs-Intel-i7-870/1288vs804vs832



And that is why CPU Mark isn't a good test to go by.  The real world results are much closer between the two, especially in games:

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/107?vs=288

I mean, I still go with the 2500K because it is better, just not that much better.  And really, paired with a GTX 960 at 1080p, I don't think either will really be the bottleneck with AAA games.


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## Arooon (Mar 29, 2019)

LFaWolf said:


> Do you have a CPU already? If not, there are some combos there that can be had.
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-P8P...099362?hash=item3b2e137c22:g:6dsAAOSwq5FchYsP
> 
> You want to have a minimum of P8P67 for overclocking. No LE or LX variants. Deluxe or Pro are 1 level up from the P8P67. However, you won't be able to get any P8P67 or above for £50.
> ...


I can get the memory from CEX for £16 so that’s not a problem really, thanks!



newtekie1 said:


> I can tell you from my experience that the whole "it overclocks better because it's a Xeon" hasn't applied since the early 775 days.  You'd be a lot better off with something like an i7-870, which will allow a much higher multiplier, and not force you to rely as much on FSB overclocking.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Okay thank you! Yeah looks like I’m going with a 2500k.



newtekie1 said:


> And that is why CPU Mark isn't a good test to go by.  The real world results are much closer between the two, especially in games:
> 
> https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/107?vs=288
> 
> I mean, I still go with the 2500K because it is better, just not that much better.  And really, paired with a GTX 960 at 1080p, I don't think either will really be the bottleneck with AAA games.


This sounds really promising then! Thank you!



LFaWolf said:


> Do you have a CPU already? If not, there are some combos there that can be had.
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ASUS-P8P...099362?hash=item3b2e137c22:g:6dsAAOSwq5FchYsP
> 
> You want to have a minimum of P8P67 for overclocking. No LE or LX variants. Deluxe or Pro are 1 level up from the P8P67. However, you won't be able to get any P8P67 or above for £50.
> ...


Is this board any good for overclocking? It’s the cheapest decent looking (VRM heatsink, 8pin CPU) I can find right now. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/253329020642
However it is H77 so I don’t know if that would work for OCs.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Mar 29, 2019)

Arooon said:


> I can get the memory from CEX for £16 so that’s not a problem really, thanks!
> 
> 
> Okay thank you! Yeah looks like I’m going with a 2500k.
> ...



Not really. Look for any Z board, z77 etc they are really the only ones that will probably have OC options in the bios.


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## Arooon (Mar 29, 2019)

tigger said:


> Not really. Look for any Z board, z77 etc they are really the only ones that will probably have OC options in the bios.


Okay, I’ll keep an eye out, thank you.


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