Motherboard Purchase Help!

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oakcatton

oakcatton

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Oct 31, 2012
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I just got my Crucial m4 for my pc and, when I was installing it, realized that my motherboard only has SATA 2 3GB/s for it, seeing that it's a year old now. So i decided I should get an upgrade, and by searching for the last half an hour on the internet, I saw this recommended on a website = 'ASRock 970DE3/U3S3 AM3+', so I went on amazon and it's 50 pounds... should i get it? Is it too cheap? Or is there a motherboard a bit more expensive that is a lot better? Thanks in advance:)

PC Specs :
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955 3.20Ghz Black Edition
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3
RAM - 4GB Kingston 1333Mhz
GPU - MSI Twin Frozr III R7870 OC Edition
SSD - Crucial M4 64GB
HDD - 160Gb hard drive, don't know anything about it!😛

~Oak~
 
hello... you can run your Sata 3 drives in your Sata 1 or 2 machines... and you will experience a great improvement...

I only upgrade my Motherboard when I'm ready to upgrade my CPU to a newer generation... So what i'm saying here is... Does this new motherboad allow you a CPU new generation upgrade... or are you just upgrading for Sata 3 for your SSD? I would not recommend that upgrade to anyone.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sata-6gbps-performance-sata-3gbps,3110.html
 
I have seen alot of problems posted lately with Asrock motherboards, don't know if they have a quality control problem or not so I just stay away from them, I like ASUS or Gigabyte for quality. This board is not to bad for the price and you can swap all of your components over. GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3, plus you can upgrade the processor later on if you want.
 
if you want a better motherboard but cost more money, maybe you could try ASRock 990FX Extreme3 AM3+
but I think you better to go for SSD to make a greater performance unless you want to do some overclocked :)

edit: oh you already have SSD, so to max the SSD of course you need SATA3, but the motherboard would be your choice :)
 
Asrock motherboards are fine.

However, that motherboard uses the old AMD 770 chipset, and the SATA3 ports are not chipset-based. So they're probably not going to be much better than SATA2 ports.

A 900 series motherboard would be a better idea. Don't get an expensive one like that GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 though.
 
Ironsounds... I was thinking about upgrading to a new cpu, but the problem is, is that when I bought my pc a year ago, I cheaped out on the case and now with my 7870 I got, I run battlefield 3 and the sound of the card is incredible...seriously! I have to keep the side window open! So I was thinking of getting a Cooler Master HAF 912, but then I wouldn't have any money for a cpu!:S

knightdog56 thanks for the suggestion and advice!😛
 
JED 70, i was more looking at the change from 3GB/s to 6GB/s!/:

Sakkure, It's just i don't want to cheap out now and then in a years time have to buy another motherboard!:/
 
For a more appropriately priced motherboard for your system, I would suggest the Asrock 970 Extreme3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157280&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=


Yeah, I see your point. On the other hand, you don't want to put diamond-studded alloys on a Fiat Panda either.
 
Realize that but I'm saying that SSD is still going to scream at 3Gbps compared to a HDD. Wife has a SATA3 SSD on a SATA2 port and it's still night and day difference. I've got the opposite - SATA2 SSD on a SATA3 port and love it (too lazy to swap them...).
 
Sakkura, just put the model name of that motherboard into amazon and this review came up.

I bought this board due to the cost / feature list, I was not bothered about crossfire so decided to take the plunge after reading a few decent reviews, it is also "8 core ready* - this could not be further from the truth.

I installed my fx8120 cpu and fire it up, everything worked perfectly first time, installed windows and decided to have a play about, at 3.1ghz it isnt particularly breath taking however most people know the fx series have good overclock potential - unless you are using this board.

Unfortunately after I had bought the board I stumbled upon a forum thread stating the 4+1 power phase on this board is not sufficient for an 8 core bulldozer cpu, this is very true.

I am using an arctic freezer 13 pro heatsink which keeps the core temps very low, however any attempt at overclocking it results in it throttling itself due to the cpu socket area (mosfets / vrms) getting rediculously hot.

Running prime95 at its stock settings of 3.1ghz the socket temp hits 62 degrees - it throttles at 65 degrees - there is literally no headroom for any sort of overclock, total shame as the core temps of my cpu are very low.

Asrock advertise this as "8 core ready* - this is very misleading, very few people will run the fx 8120 / 8150 at stock speeds so do not buy this board.

On a plus point, the bios works very well, it flashed straight away and I was very happy, until I tried to overclock the cpu and realised it just is not possible with this board.

Tempted to contact Amazon and return it, in my opinion it is bordering on false advertising, the 8120 has a turbo core function, I can't see how this board will even allow the chip to run with the turbo core function due to the heat the mosfets / vrms generate.

Spend some more cash on an 8+2 power phase to save yourself the dissapointment I am having.
 

I think the AM3+ would work pretty long time since the new Steamroller will be using AM3 😀
 

Yep. They went from Bulldozer to Piledriver recently, and Steamroller's their next generation.

I've looked around a bit, and the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 is probably the cheapest board that would handle an 8-core FX processor well. Its price approaches that of boards with the more feature-rich 990X and 990FX chipsets though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
 
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