Best AMD AM3 motherboard...?

gurusan

gurusan

gurusan

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Yes, I am considering going AMD.

Now, I want the best AM3 mobo, but am a bit hesitant to spend 160 quid on an amd motherboard..but I may do it anyway :/

After a little research it seems the best are:

  • MSI 790FX-GD70
  • Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD5P
  • Asus M4A79T Deluxe

Which is the best of these 3 and why? I don't care about crossfire or anything...just want a very good overclocker.....

Also, what's better about the UD5P compared to the UD4P?
 
Im looking at AM3 also. From the reviews I have read the MSI 790FX-GD70 seems to generally come out on top in terms of recommendations. Take a look over at bit tech, they have reviewed the big three.

My friend has a Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD5P and I must say its a fantastic looking board and managed to get his 720 up to 3.6GHz on stock volts. Obviously it does depend on the chip but still. It does have some great features like the clear cmos buttons, dual lan, big heatsinks etc etc and he is really impressed with it.

Personally, I would go with the MSI from what I have read. I never thought I would say that after my current MSI board being pretty poor!!!
 
I've got the MSI and it's great for clocking, got my 720 stable at 3.6 recently but had to downclock it because the current weather is cooking my PC, problem with living in an attick room realy.
 
k thanks for the input.

Also is there any reason to get the 550 BE over the 250? Does having the unlocked multi help at all? Seeing as most of these crap out around 4ghz I wouldn't think they would be FSB limited?
 
The Athlon 250 is dual core designed and the 550 is a quad locked down from what is going about on the net. As tom's hardware found, as with the 720, it maybe possible to unlock these cores but it is hit and miss. The BE just makes it easy to overclock.
 
lukext said:
Im looking at AM3 also. From the reviews I have read the MSI 790FX-GD70 seems to generally come out on top in terms of recommendations. Take a look over at bit tech, they have reviewed the big three.

My friend has a Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD5P and I must say its a fantastic looking board and managed to get his 720 up to 3.6GHz on stock volts. Obviously it does depend on the chip but still. It does have some great features like the clear cmos buttons, dual lan, big heatsinks etc etc and he is really impressed with it.

Personally, I would go with the MSI from what I have read. I never thought I would say that after my current MSI board being pretty poor!!!
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Incidentally it is also stable at 3.6GHz on the 64-bit Windows 7 install, and the same stablility at 3.6GHz (wi-fi drivers excluded) for the XP 32 bit install. Considering they are supposed to clock better on 32-bit (for a variety of reasons) it would appear that only the upper limit is affected when you wander away from stock volts; either that or it is more Windows 7 magic! :D
 
An unlocked multi makes OCing easier, mainly because you can just whack it up a few notches and not have to worry about the fiddly business of changing the FSB. Most 720's Iv heard of can run at 3.2 at least with just a multiplier increase.
 
just out of interest Fenris, what cpu cooler are you using?

And yeh, personally, I'd go with the black edition, esp as its only £12 more - its easier, saves time and its 100Mhz faster!!!!
 
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Why buy high end mobo with low end dual core?

Anyway, personally i would go with the native 250, but only with a cheaper mobo. With high end mobo i would look at the tri-core or a quad core.

Unless you get lucky with the phenom dual core and unlocks to a quad core, that would be nice!
 
lukext said:
just out of interest Fenris, what cpu cooler are you using?
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Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer.

It's a right B**** to fit because you need to bend the mounting bracket attached to it while holding the cooler itself down, it does however fit and is a very good cooler, keeps my 720 nice and cool.

Personaly if your looking now I would get the Titan Fenrir as it's getting awesome reviews and looks better than the sunbeam (both temps and asthetics)
 
gurusan said:
Because quads are useless for me at this point (gaming and general pc use), I will upgrade to 3 or 4 core in the future though and want a good mobo to support future upgrades.
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Fair enough :)

What hapened to your previous rig anyway? Sold it off? Personally i would probably go for the 250 by the way, it has great potential as a HTPC processor, maybe it can be undervolted\underclocked to reach 45w or less power consumption too.

What are your thoughts on it anyway?
 
I'm still on my "previous rig" :) Only changing as I want something new to play with (been on 775 and core 2 chips for 3 years now) and a future upgrade path.

I will probably get the 550 BE chip as it's not much extra and probably has slightly better resell value...not to mention the unlocked multi might come in handy.
 
Fenris said:
Personaly if your looking now I would get the Titan Fenrir as it's getting awesome reviews and looks better than the sunbeam (both temps and asthetics)
Click to expand...

yeh, im wondering if i could stick with the cooler i have (zalman 9700 copper flower type thing) which would save £30.

And good choice gurusan. Any reason your goin for AMD Phenom II over i7?
 
lukext said:
yeh, im wondering if i could stick with the cooler i have (zalman 9700 copper flower type thing) which would save £30.

And good choice gurusan. Any reason your goin for AMD Phenom II over i7?
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The 9700 will work fine....

and I don't want to go i7 because it's too expensive.
 
Just get the Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P from reading reviews etc it does just as well as the UD5P & its a good £50 cheaper.

My UD5P clocks my 955BE to 3.6GHz on stock volts, I've also had it at 3.8GHz but really isnt neccesary at all.

I'm sticking with Gigabyte from now on, you cant beat their UK rma service if anything goes wrong - 5 working days.

Asus upto 2 months, goes back to Taiwan, MSI ends up going back to Poland apprently not sure on time of rma.
 
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