Building my first Gaming PC (need to change Motherboard)

mark_htfc

mark_htfc

mark_htfc

Associate
Joined
13 Apr 2011
Posts
150
Location
Huddersfield, West Yorks
Hi everyone,

I am unsure where to post this as it mainly concerns the motherboard, but as my order has already been placed I wasn't sure if this was the best section for it as I need it to work with all my other parts that I have ordered.

Long story short, I am building my first ever PC that will be primarily used for gaming (I want it to be able to run BF4 on Ultra settings and set me up for a few years etc), and if I'm honest I am way out of touch. I have used various websites and advice from other people to see if parts would work and wouldn't as building a PC is totally new to me.

Anyway after deciding I would order all the parts from one place rather than various websites, I purchased everything from OCUK last Thursday and at the time everything was in stock, but unfortunately as I had to take out finance to pay for it, by the time finance was fully approved yesterday, the Motherboard is now out of stock and that is holding up my goods being dispatched. I have asked in the help section on here and one of the staff members has said that if I would like to select an alternative replacement motherboard I can do, and let them know tomorrow morning.

The motherboard that I had originally selected was ASRock 970 Extreme4 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard but unfortunately this is now out of stock and I need to change it, so would you be able to help me find a replacement board please, it needs to support the parts that I have already ordered and include onboard sound (although I was told all boards do nowadays anyway), and not an necessity but it would be great if it supported CrossFire and SLI, although I don't know what these do or how much they are actually needed to be honest. I will eventually be using more than one monitor though and maybe in time, use 2 graphics cards but again, I'm unsure on what they are.

These are the parts that I have ordered are,

1. Case - Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black (CC-9011017-WW)
2. CPU- AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor
3. Cooler- Cooler Master GeminII M4 Low Profile CPU Cooler
4. GPU- Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Dual-X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card
5. RAM- Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU)
6. PSU- Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020048-UK)
7. Harddrive- Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM
8. DVD Drive - LiteOn IHAS124-14 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
9. Wireless Adapter - Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter
10. OS- Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-06949)

Additional
1. Monitor- BenQ GW2265HM 22" Widescreen LED Flicker-Free Multimedia Slim Bezel Monitor - Black
2. Keyboard- Gigabyte Force K7 Stealth Gaming Keyboard
3. Mouse- Gigabyte ECO600 1600DPI Wireless Gaming Mouse - Black
4. Speakers- Creative Gigaworks T20 Series II 2.0 Speaker System (51MF1610AA003)

Thanks everyone and sorry for the long post
 
Thank god the board was out of stock otherwise that means you would have ended up with an Asrock board:D

These are good alternatives,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £304.57 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The 990 chipset boards will do SLI/Crossfire properly (running more than a single GFX card to get better frame rates in games etc).


P.S you will need a better PSU for a pair of R9 280X cards should you do Crossfire later on. in fact i would look at a Superflower 550/650W PSU now anyway for a single GFX card rather than the CX600 PSU>
 
Thank you for the quick response, I take it Asrock aren't very good boards then? Originally it was a toss up between the Asrock board and an Asus board that my friend recommended but because OC didn't stock the exact Asus board I opted for Asrock.

Looking at those boards you have suggested, it looks like either the Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 or the Gigabyte boards are the better off the three, out of the two boards, which one would you recommend? Also, as I have taken out finance over 36 months, how will it work with the difference in price?

Regards to the PSU I must admit that was the one component I just through on as I had no idea what was or wasn't good. Again, I am unsure how I would go about asking for that to be changed as the PSU you have suggested is more money than the one I have paid for, and I am unsure how it works with me taking out finance.

Thanks again :)
 
Asrock are not great and have a worse warranty than both Gigabyte and Asus (2 vs 3 yrs), Gigabyte have a UK based RMA center should you for any reason need support from them which the retailer cannot handle for you.

I am not sure either how any of these choices effect your finance arrangements either, this is something you would need to discuss with the retailer (I assume its all from OcUK? if so ask in the customer support section of the forum)

The CX600 v2 is £59.99, this Super flower is still ample power at 550W but importantly rated for a higher efficiency and of a better build quality internally.

YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
Total : £69.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).




Edit,

Just noticed your choice of cooler too, the Corsair 300R can accept a much taller heatsink which will help keep CPU operating temperatures lower due to the physically bigger size and surface area.
 
Thanks :),

All of the build has been bought through OCUK yeah, I have created a thread in the support section when asking about the parts that was out of stock, and it was one of the staff members who asked if I wanted to change it so that my goods could be processed, so I will reply in that thread and ask for clarification before I change my motherboard.

As far as I recall, the price I paid for the Motherboard was £66.66 and the PSU was £49.99. I will again ask how it would work if I was to change the PSU as well.

Other than that, does the build look alright?

I just need to decide which board to go for now.
 
Ta,

I have asked the question in regards to changing parts with the finance etc, so I will wait and see what they come back with. I must admit, in regards to the cooler etc I had no idea what would or wouldn't fit in my case, so I did take a bit of a gamble hoping that the part would fit.
 
I have just checked what price difference your suggestions was to the ones I have bought, the PSU is the same price so hopefully that will not be an issue in changing that, but the Cooler is £3.00 extra and the Motherboard is £25.00 more.

So at least the difference in price isn't too much if I need to pay it out right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom