Thinking about upgrading motherboard in a few months... Newbie needs advice!

ryryryan · 12 Jan 2010 at 20:09

Okay, so my current rig is a phenom 2 x4 940 (OC'd a touch to 3.3) with a 4890 GPU, 6 gig DDR2 RAM but I'm unsure of the motherboard. Only 1 PCIe slot and obv DDR2. I have the coolit A.L.C (which I realise may not of been the best of choices), a 15 in one card reader thingy mablob, 1 hard drive (unsure of specs, just a standard 750gb one with PC) and just a DVD-rw drive. My psu is possibly 650 or so, and I have an Antec 900 case. Currently I'm in uni and pc is at home so I can't check further into the specs, but if needed i'll update when it arrives in a week or so.

I bought it from ************ last summer and realise I should have gone for a better motherboard really. So my question is this; realistically, how difficult would it be for me to change my motherboard to a more futureproof one? Bearing in mind I've never built a PC and would have to learn how to do so obviously (I've checked out tons of vids on YouTube so I have a rough idea). Also, I have the coolit a.l.c so that would probably make life more difficult? I'm no idiot though and am actually very keen on learning how to build a pc anyway, all it is is that I'm a bit new to this.

So say I replace my motherboard, and obviously RAM too, would these be good choices to go for (£300 ish budget. Possibly more if needed):

This for the motherboard as it seems to have all the latest specs I'd need:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-231-GI

And this could be the RAM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-193-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

So what do you guys think? Any advice would be much appreciated!!

EDIT: Also, forgot to ask, what kind of process would I need to go through with installing this motherboard in terms of all my data? Would I need a fresh install of windows 7 (so wiping my hard drive I guess?) or would it work straight off the bat? Also, I ugraded from vista for my PC (from a disk I got for ordering vista with free upgrade) so would that install properly on my PC or would I need to buy w7 if I do need a fresh install? Sorry for all the questions, but I new you guys were the best to ask!

Quixote · 12 Jan 2010 at 20:44

Its really important to realise that while AM3 CPU's are backwards compatable with AM2+ boards, AM2+ CPU's are NOT forwards compatable with AM3 boards.
With your AM2+ 940, you CANNOT use any AM3 board with DDR3, you MUST use an AM2+ board with DDR2.
I'm curious why you want to upgrade the motherboard anyway ? Doing so will not bring any performance increase unless it allows you to overclock further. DDR3 brings, in practical terms, no noticable real-world speed increase over DDR2. All AM3 CPUs so far have been backwards compatable with AM2+ boards anyway (depending on bios updates) and theres a fair chance future ones will be too.
In any case, if you do need to upgrade your motherboard for any reason, then you should choose from AM2+ DDR2 boards.

ryryryan · 12 Jan 2010 at 20:55

Ah I see, bummer. Which would make my upgrade kinda pointless unless I'm also upgrading my CPU... Darn! Well, that totally puts that to rest. Won't be upgrading my motherboard for a long time then, my CPU is fine as is and DDR2 will easily do for now. The main reason for wanting to upgrade was really just to futureproof it a bit for a few hundred quid with adding DDR3, SATA3, USB3.0 support and mainly I'd love to do crossfire in the future. But I'll have to hold out till I can upgrade the CPU too then (and maybe in the process the CPU cooling). Darn that,s gunna take me ages to save up! Thanks for the help though

Quixote · 12 Jan 2010 at 21:27

Well, theres every chance the 6 core chips released next year will also include AM2+ DDR2 support, in fact there are so far no AMD chips without AM2+ support. In any case your CPU is pretty powerful & not likely to need upgrading for a while.
USB 3.0 support is already available/ about to be available in pretty reasonably priced add on cards, so you can add that in later easy.

ryryryan · 12 Jan 2010 at 21:51

That's fair enough then. Now if only I could add crossfire easily

not that I'll be using it for a long time. Ideally, I'd like to have an AMD3 supported motherboard with 2 PCIe slots for GPU's and a 965 BE CPU (or whatever you guys suggest as the best at that time), all in time for the 6000 series of ATI cards, which I would eventually crossfire. Well, as said all that in an ideal world that is anyway

Uriel · 13 Jan 2010 at 13:36

Unfortunately there's little to no availability in the UK but Jetway have some interesting boards that could offer you the sort of feature set you're after.

I've mentioned them in this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18006005

The one I've got my eye on is the HA08 Combo L, a 790G board, offering native support fot AM2 and AM3. It has 2 DDR2 slots (max 4GB) and 4 DDR3 slots (max 8GB). Crossfire (PCI-E 2.0 2x8 lane) is supported. It's full ATX too. AM2 CPUs only work on the board with DDR2 but AM3 CPUs will work with either DDR2 or DDR3. Could be a very convenient upgrade path.