AARGHH! I'm getting nowhere

banjoted

banjoted

banjoted

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I'm currently running an FX-6300 and HD 7950 on a Gigabyte DA-970A-DS3 but want to upgrade so I can try my hand at overclocking. I want something decent with possible support for SLI/Crossfire. But researching it is proving a nightmare?

I seem to have got it down to a million different boards, but for example:

ASRock 990FX Extreme3
ASROck 990FX Extreme4
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5

Or even the 970 variants of all of those. Plus, some folk tell me to go for Asus boards. Are they good? What would be the best Asus board?

And (final question) would any of these boards be sufficiently similar to my current DA-970A-DS3 to make a non-Windows 7 reinstall unnecessary?

Please, any help would be awesome.
 
The Giga UD5 is a monster as is the ASUS Crosshair V. The choice is yours really both will do an amazing job of clocking your system.
 
OK, reckon I've narrowed it down to three:

Crosshair V Formula
Sabertooth 990FX
Fatal1ty 990FX Professional

As I say, I want a board on which I can get a good overclock and retain the chance for possible future Crossfiring.
 
The UD5 is cheaper than the three.

And with a strong 3 year UK based warranty makes it even sweeter.
 
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The Crosshair is the best out of those you list for sure. The UD5 is worth considering still.
 
banjoted said:
What compromises would I make getting a UD5 over the Crosshair?
Click to expand...

I dont think there are any, both boards looked like they are packed full of expansion/options.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3891#sp
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/CROSSHAIR_V_FORMULA/#specifications


edit,

And (final question) would any of these boards be sufficiently similar to my current DA-970A-DS3 to make a non-Windows 7 reinstall unnecessary?
Click to expand...

You should be ok I believe.
 
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banjoted said:
OK, reckon I've narrowed it down to three:

Crosshair V Formula
Sabertooth 990FX
Fatal1ty 990FX Professional

As I say, I want a board on which I can get a good overclock and retain the chance for possible future Crossfiring.
Click to expand...

I'd personally go for the crosshair v formula.

I've used the sabertooth and fatality and the crosshair v formula z (not the older one which is just crosshair v formula)

In all honesty I like all the boards but the crosshair the most. All 3 motherboards are good its a tough choice so yeah my opinions the crosshair.
 
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My choice would also be the formula, the fatal1ty looks a nice board with top end features but reviews state they are not the best of overclockers
 
Crosshair, then UD5 and Fatal1ty being last choice.

Crosshair and UD5 build quality is on par with the main difference being the crosshair has loads of fancy features while Gigabyte has all of the essentials and no added crap. I believe the Gigabyte board had a few issues with voltage drop in the past but this was fixed via a bios update, while the crosshair never had any problems. The Sabertooth gen3 is the current newest am3+ flagship board, with features and quality on par with the Crosshair but also has PCIe 3.0 (a gimmick, but a nice shiny gimmick at that!). The board is also slightly cheaper.

The fatal1ty has the highest power phasing out of the three with 12+2 but in terms of build quality it is the worse of the three. This has been evident with people trying to compare overclocks between the boards and struggling to get stable power delivery at high voltages on the fatal1ty despite the 12+2 phasing. These are voltages you probably wont go near though, having said that, my money is that if you want to guarantee getting the most of your CPU, the Crosshair is the way to go!
 
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