[ITXbuilder]

I'm interested in building with this board but am confused by the specifications.

On one hand, Zotac specs this board as accepting 65W Max CPU's (NewEgg also reflects this) but Zotac also says that 95W+ CPU's have been tested on the board.

http://downloads.zot...mb/cpu/a126.txt

Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.00GHz
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz
Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHz
Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.40GHz

All 95W Quads.

More shockingly, the 130W Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is also on the tested list.

So, am I safe putting some MOSFET heatsinks on this board, running with a 95W 45nm Q9400?

[ZOTAC Support]

As long as your system has sufficient cooling and your operating temperatures are within the acceptable parameters for your components, there should be no risk to your devices. If your board components experience high temperatures as result of running a higher TDP CPU, you may indeed want to look into MOSFET cooling.

[Captain Crunch]

ZOTAC Support, on 24 February 2010 - 02:50 PM, said:

As long as your system has sufficient cooling and your operating temperatures are within the acceptable parameters for your components, there should be no risk to your devices. If your board components experience high temperatures as result of running a higher TDP CPU, you may indeed want to look into MOSFET cooling.

Curious, why even mark the board "65W TDP Max" if it electrically is compatible with much higher loads?

Does running a 95W+ chip void the warranty?

[ZOTAC Support]

65W is the recommended CPU type due to the concern that a higher TDP processor will contribute to heat which the systems cooling solution will not be able to dissipate sufficiently.

The G43 chipset itself has a TDP of 24W (22W with integrated graphics disabled), and a T_C-MAX (maximum operating temperature) of 103 °C.

]Thermal Design Power is specified as the maximum sustainable power to be dissipated by the (G)MCH. This is based on extrapolations in both hardware andsoftware technology.Thermal design power (TDP) is the estimated power dissipation of the (G)MCH based on normal operating conditions including VCC and TC-MAX while executing real worst-case power intensive applications. This value is based on expected worst-case data traffic patterns and usage of the chipset and does not represent a specific software application. TDP attempts to account for expected increases in power due to variation in (G)MCH current consumption due to silicon process variation, processor speed, DRAM capacitive bus loading and temperature.[/quote][quote name= said:

Even for those of you who know how to push our Products to the limits, if anything goes wrong, we will service it free of charge providing all aftermarket modifications are reversed prior to sending in the product for repair or replacement.

ZOTAC should honour your warranty as long as you make sure to send the board back in the original factory configuration during RMA.