Motherboard advice needed.

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fonoi

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Hi

I am looking to purchase a new motherboard soon. The motherboard will be paired with the AMD socket AM3 Phenom2 x4, Quad-core 965 (3.4Ghz) Black edition processor.

My choices are as follows :

M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 - This one is pretty new, with the 880G chipset and usb 3.0

Crosshair III Formula - This one is slightly older with the 790 chipset, usb 2.0 but comes with a really nice sound card.


Which would you recommend? or do you have other reccomendations under the 2k price tag.

Thanks
 
Do not go for AMD please.........you will be tearing out your hair!!!!!! intel QuadCore, i5 or i7.
 
P00HB33R said:
Do not go for AMD please.........you will be tearing out your hair!!!!!! intel QuadCore, i5 or i7.
Click to expand...

No you will not. I am living proof!! Shoo fanboi, shoo!

Back on topic...
OP - do you see yourself needing USB3 and SATA3? Do you think you will be running a dual GPU setup? Knowing the answers will help choose a suitable motherboard.
 
P00HB33R said:
Do not go for AMD please.........you will be tearing out your hair!!!!!! intel QuadCore, i5 or i7.
Click to expand...

I have used AMD for many years at home, and I use Intel at work. I like AMD and have never been let down by any AMD product yet.
 
Are you going to be doing some extreme over-clocking? Talking about over 4GHz here? I'd get ther CIIIF
Will you be buying a USB3 device soon or SATA3 drive? if yes then go the other one.
 
Archer said:
No you will not. I am living proof!! Shoo fanboi, shoo!

Back on topic...
OP - do you see yourself needing USB3 and SATA3? Do you think you will be running a dual GPU setup? Knowing the answers will help choose a suitable motherboard.
Click to expand...

Good questions actually. No I dont have a high need for SATA3, USB 3 though may be beneficial.

For now, it will be single GPU.
 
Pasted so to check side by side.
ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 - AMD 880G CHIPSET - INTEGRATED ATI RADEON HD 4250 GRAPHICS WITH 128MB DDR3 SIDEPORT MEMORY - AMD AM3 CPU ONLY PHENOM II, ATHLON II, SEMPRON 100 SERIES, 4X DDR3 (MAX 16GB 2000MHZ OC) 5X SATA (RAID 0,1,5,10 JBOD) 1X IDE, 1X E-SATA, 2X PCI EXPRESS 2.0 X16, 1X PCI EXPRESS 2.0 X1, 3X PCI, 12X USB 2.0, 2X USB 3.0, 2X FW, 10/100/1000 GB LAN, REALTEK ALC 892 8 CHANNEL HIGH DEF AUDIO, 1X DVI, 1X D-SUB, 1X HDMI, 1X E-SATA, 1X FIREWIRE, 1X OPTICAL S/PDIF OUT, 1X PS2 KEYBOARD/MOUSE COMBO PORT - ATX FORM FACTOR - KEY FEATURES, TURBO UNLOCKER (ON DEMAND REAL TIME CPU BOOST) CORE UNLOCKER (UNLOCK EXTRA CORES ON YOUR CPU!) TURBO KEY II (TURN UP SYSTEM PERFORMANCE) ASUS XTREME DESIGN

ASUS CROSSHAIR III FORMULA - AMD 790FX CHIPSET - AMD SOCKET AM3 ONLY ;PHENOM™II /ATHLON™II /SEMPRON™ 100 SERIES PROCESSORS, 4X DDR3 (MAX 16GB 1333MHZ) 5X SATA (RAID 0,1,5,10 JBOD) 1X PATA, 2X PCI EXPRESS 2.0 X16, 3X PCI EXPRESS X1, 1X PCI, 12X USB, 2X FIREWIRE, 1X E-SATA, 1X FIREWIRE, 1X CLR CMOS SWITCH, 1X PS2 KEYBOARD, SUPREMEFX X-FI AUDIO CARD, X-FI CMSS®-3D, X-FI CRYSTALIZER™, OVERCLOCKING FEATURES - MEMOK! , CPU LEVEL UP , 8+2 PHASE CPU POWER DESIGN, IROG, ASUS TURBOV , COP EX (COMPONENT OVERHEAT PROTECTION - EX) VOLTIMINDER LED
Click to expand...
 
If I had to choose it would be ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3,

wrt SUPREMEFX X-FI AUDIO CARD, how much better is it compared to REALTEK ALC 892 8 CHANNEL HIGH DEF AUDIO?
 
Drake2007 said:
If I had to choose it would be ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3,

wrt SUPREMEFX X-FI AUDIO CARD, how much better is it compared to REALTEK ALC 892 8 CHANNEL HIGH DEF AUDIO?
Click to expand...

Good question, I am not an audio buff but I believe having a card as opposed to onboard improves performance.

I will be doing fairly heaving overclocking I guess.
 
:whistle: The Phenom 2 is productivity oriented
:twisted: The Intel I series is gaming and productivity.

Check out this review on Toms Hardware

Im not a fanboy, just trying to give the guy some good advice based on my experience and millions of other people out there.
 
If you don't need Crossfire or uATX and don't have cash to burn, I would suggest the M4A87TD/USB3 for R972.
It's the one I'm going to get but nobody seems to have stock. It sounds like they are all waiting for a shipment that is due to arrive on 12 November.
In the meantime, it would be good to hear if anyone can think of any reason not to go for it.
 
P00HB33R said:
:whistle: The Phenom 2 is productivity oriented
:twisted: The Intel I series is gaming and productivity.

Check out this review on Toms Hardware

Im not a fanboy, just trying to give the guy some good advice based on my experience and millions of other people out there.
Click to expand...

AMD = gaming
Intel = gaming + productivity.
At least get that right! I'm actually rather shocked that you think that currently AMD beats Intel on the productivity front.

Back to the OP - if you see yourself having a dual GPU setup, and want SATA3/USB3 then you'll want to look at a 790/890FX board. That gaurantees you having enough PCIe lanes for the dual GPU setup, and then you must just pick a model with USB3. Something like this or this . Without dual GPUs you can drop down to 890GX or even 870 boards which should save you around R500.
 
Archer said:
AMD = gaming
Intel = gaming + productivity.
At least get that right! I'm actually rather shocked that you think that currently AMD beats Intel on the productivity front.

Back to the OP - if you see yourself having a dual GPU setup, and want SATA3/USB3 then you'll want to look at a 790/890FX board. That gaurantees you having enough PCIe lanes for the dual GPU setup, and then you must just pick a model with USB3. Something like this or this . Without dual GPUs you can drop down to 890GX or even 870 boards which should save you around R500.
Click to expand...

Lol now you are just complicating things, two very nice options I did not even look at.

My first feeling is to go for the crosshair as it is a proven board, but then again future proofing is not a bad thing at all. To the Intel vs AMD crowd, this is for motherboards the cpu has already been decided on but thank you.
 
fonoi said:
Hi

I am looking to purchase a new motherboard soon. The motherboard will be paired with the AMD socket AM3 Phenom2 x4, Quad-core 965 (3.4Ghz) Black edition processor.

My choices are as follows :

M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 - This one is pretty new, with the 880G chipset and usb 3.0

Crosshair III Formula - This one is slightly older with the 790 chipset, usb 2.0 but comes with a really nice sound card.


Which would you recommend? or do you have other reccomendations under the 2k price tag.

Thanks
Click to expand...

http://www.prophecy.co.za/asus-m4a89gtd-ddr3-pcie20-crossfirex-usb3-p-66030.html
 
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