[SOLVED] OLD DOG >> Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H REV 2.0

[Alvin Smith]

Hello, All,
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE

Trying to build a [ Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H REV 2.0 ] based system (original, factory BIOS.) ...
Some questions, … I have all the NEW OLD STOCK parts (NIB and still sealed) … I want to do a few little tweaks to maximize performance ... ATHLON II x4 @ 2.9 GHz (stock). .. 750W PSU ..
So … I would like to Max-Out the main RAM and I have conflicting claims as to the total ram supported and also the max speed of various selections of DDR3 … And .. Even the multi-channel reqs are not clear … Obviously, I would like only two sticks, in DIMM slots 3 & 4, and I do not know if the Max RAM supported is 8GB or 16GB … It might also be good to know what the latest (most speed + most cores) CPU this REV 2.0 mobo supports. .. Finally, I would like to know the best solution to adapt a four lane PCIe/nVME SSD , if that would even work (Even a slow SATA 6GB drive would be OK.)

 

[Lutfij]

Alvin! How you doing, man?!!?!?!?!?! Queue dancing pink elephant! 😀

Talk about a stroll down memory lane. back then the colors were what distinguished who made the boards. According to their support site, the max ram supported is 16GB. When you split that across 4 slots, then you have 4GB's per slot. Stick to DDR3-1600MHz 1.65v ram kits or a 4x4GB DDR3-1600MHz 1.65v ram kit to avoid having the memory controller run hot.

If you're able to fire 'er up with bare minimum parts, make sure you're on(update to) the latest BIOS for that motherboard. Then you can look at dropping in a Phenom II in there. I would advise against the FX series of processors.

As for storage, you're best off going for concurrent gen (SATA)SSD's and taking advantage of the chipsets native SATA 6Gbps support. You could shoe horn a PCIe based SSD onto the PCIe slots but that would mean one slot is left for the GPU and PCIe SSD's would need more than 1 lane.