A Few Words on Overclocker Mainboards

What do you usually mean when you say “overclocker mainboard”? It is a mainboard that should know to increase frequencies and voltages, isn’t it? But what frequencies and voltages, in what intervals and with what increment should these be? I don’t think parameters need to be listed, because if we give it a little bit more though, they all become secondary. Yesterday overclocking to 200MHz FSB was enough, and today we are not happy if we can hit only 500MHz FSB. Today one parameter is important, tomorrow, there will be others, so we will not be able to list them all. Overclocker mainboard is a mainboard for overclocking fans, i.e. it should meet their demands to the utmost, but how and with the help of what parameters and features, is a less significant detail in this case.

From this standpoint, a good or “normal” mainboard will be the one that will suit the needs of an average overclocker. In other words, it should be able to overclock easily and quickly. In fact, there is nothing complicated about it, it doesn’t necessarily have to support any unique “technologies” and bear numerous reviewers’ awards. There are a lot of examples, when the simplest mainboards, the youngest models in the product lineup coped perfectly well with overclocking objectives. Any mainboard may actually be a “normal overclocker” solution, although it is actually not exactly like that in reality.

Excellent overclocker mainboard should also meet the demands of extreme overclockers, computer enthusiasts and benchers. The basic set of features will not be enough by definition here. It should be a special highly robust solution developed with a lot of advanced features in mind. Designing a mainboard like that takes a lot of time and finances, so you will probably find them among high-end elite models. Fine tuning techniques applied to an excellent overclocker mainboard will ensure a higher performance level than a “normal” overclocker mainboard can offer, it is fit for record-breaking achievements and extreme experiments.

There is one more category that is often left out for some reason: commencing overclockers. Experienced overclockers are usually indulgent to them at best, while benchers-enthusiasts may act sort of semi-contemptuous. However, the interests of this particular user group should also be taken into account for the mainboard to get the title of the best overclocker product. There is nothing complicated about overclocking, as long as you understand the basic principles that never change, figure out BIOS fine tuning techniques and take into account the peculiarities of your particular CPU model and memory type. It is pretty simple, but you have to do some reading first, while you may want to get the results here and now. All the automatic overclocking tools are being developed specifically for users like that. Of course, you cannot get the same performance level as you would in case all parameters are set manually, not to mention the advanced mainboard options that allow sorting out the most optimal settings experimentally, but you can see the result immediately and without much effort.

It is a very hard task to design a mainboard that will meet the demands of all overclocker groups that is why very few manufacturers actually go for it. Developing and manufacturing a mainboard like that requires quite a bit of additional investments, but far not every mainboard should be an overclocker one. Office computers do not need to be overclocked, so most mainboards have very little of none of overclocking related features for the sake of keeping their end-price down. If a mainboard maker decides to design a mainboard with some overclocking friendly features, they usually implement some basic options. DFI, however, uses different approach. Instead of rolling out regular overclocker solutions or mainboards without any overclocking friendly options at all, they are focusing on the needs of overclocking fans and computer enthusiasts in every product they build.

You may think that this strategy is a faulty one, because far not every PC user gets down to overclocking and among those who do, the percentage of extreme overclocking fans is pretty low overall. So, it turns out that they narrowed down their efforts to a very specific user group instead of expanding their effort for a much broader audience. However despite all expectations, this approach resulted in a remarkable victory for DFI. Extraordinarily extensive overclocking friendly features of their mainboards distinguished their products from competitors. The company got a very active and dedicated fan base, so that even those guys who do not feel like going into overclocking just yet decided to go for a DFI mainboard just for the sake of it.

Even before we start discussing our today’s hero - DFI LANParty LT X38-T2R mainboard, we can say that it will not be suitable for a commencing overclocker. It is designed for computer enthusiasts and boasts a humongous set of options. So our today’s review will help reveal all these numerous unique features, will show if the board is suitable for a regular overclocker and can be used for “normal” non-extreme overclocking experiments as successfully as for extreme ones.