AM3+ mobo - worth it to upgrade from Thuban 1045T to FX-something 8-core?

[Magic Carpet]

Wow, didn't know there was a PCIE 3.0 board out there for the FX's. Pretty interesting, I wonder how it performs.

It performs admirably, basically this is the "AMD" board to have if you want to run TitanX in SLI. Of course, doing so on X99 would give you better numbers, although you'd have to pay more for that.

My board has USB 3.0, and I'm stuck with PICE 2.0 16x, but I have four of them. Maybe going to populate some more of them sooner or later.

I reckon, that Titan X can be somewhat moderately bottlenecked in some games on PCI-E 2.0. Are you planning to get one? Maybe twoooooo? Definitely swap the board then :biggrin:

Not really PCIe 3.0. Well the board is and communication between the GPUs may be, but the CPU only supports PCIe 2.0.

Just like with the native USB3 ports, as long as it works, who cares? The board uses a PLX switch with additional Pci Express lanes. It's a proven technology. It has actually more PCI-E bandwidth than most budget Intel boards, for a price of just $192. Should be a steal, when on sale.

Indeed i never heard people talking of the Intel chipsets as vastly inferior when the 990X was launched, i did hear no one, and certainly not you, telling the masses to discard outdated Intel MBs...

SB850 was the first southbridge to have native SATA 6Gb/s connectivity. AMD was the first to have six SATA 3.0 ports available natively. Of course, Intel boards used 3rd party controllers and nobody gave a damn about it, because it worked. However, the biggest deal in the pre-Z68 era for me, was the lack of integrated graphics with any sorts of overclocking capabilities of Intel SKUs, whereas with AMD, you could just pick any board based on 760G/785G/790GX/880G/890GX with a processor of your choosing and overclock the hell out of it. Now that is what I called: fleeeeeeeexible :thumbsup:

Today of course things have changed, and AMD is now lagging behind almost everywhere.

 

[Abwx]

SB850 was the first southbridge to have native SATA 6Gb/s connectivity. AMD was the first to have six SATA 3.0 ports available natively. Of course, Intel boards used 3rd party controllers and nobody gave a damn about it, because it worked. However, the biggest deal in the pre-Z68 era for me, was the lack of integrated graphics with any sorts of overclocking capabilities of Intel SKUs, whereas with AMD, you could just pick any board based on 760G/785G/790GX/880G/890GX with a processor of your choosing and overclock the hell out of it. Now that is what I called: fleeeeeeeexible :thumbsup:

Today of course things have changed, and AMD is now lagging behind almost everywhere.

A big advanatage of this plateform is that it s definitly stable and reliable, to compare to Intel s high end X99 wich is bugged to death and wich will require one year at least to get all thoses annoyances sorted out.

That said i think that AMD has missed a big opportunity by not releasing an economical chipset for the FX83xxE series, something like 4 SATA + 4-6 USB3 and a capability for just 2 GFX would had been more than enough for the budget people.

 

[myocardia]

That said i think that AMD has missed a big opportunity by not releasing an economical chipset for the FX83xxE series, something like 4 SATA + 4-6 USB3 and a capability for just 2 GFX would had been more than enough for the budget people.

Do you mean having two 16x PCIe 3.0/3.1 slots? If so, I agree completely.

edit: I guess that for budget boards, two 16x PCIe 2.0 slots would be plenty.

 

[Abwx]

Do you mean having two 16x PCIe 3.0/3.1 slots? If so, I agree completely.

edit: I guess that for budget boards, two 16x PCIe 2.0 slots would be plenty.

Yes, that s it, most of the PC crowd will never get a CF/SLI configuration, this would cover the need of 99% of the users.

This would had somewhat improved the perf/Watt of the plateform, particularly for said E series FXs wich have competitive perf/Watt in respect of the Intel i5 counterparts.

 

[escrow4]

A big advanatage of this plateform is that it s definitly stable and reliable, to compare to Intel s high end X99 wich is bugged to death and wich will require one year at least to get all thoses annoyances sorted out.

That said i think that AMD has missed a big opportunity by not releasing an economical chipset for the FX83xxE series, something like 4 SATA + 4-6 USB3 and a capability for just 2 GFX would had been more than enough for the budget people.

Let's see, 9xx chipsets are nothing but rejigged 7xx chipsets from 2009 or so with:

- Outdated southbridge (Intel is on 32nm)

- Lack of native PCI-E 3.0

- Lack of native SATA/USB 3 especially compared to higher end Z97 and X99

- Lack of mSATA/3.1 and all that new tech coming out

Stable is fine, primitive isn't.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Let's see, 9xx chipsets are nothing but rejigged 7xx chipsets from 2009 or so with:

- Outdated southbridge (Intel is on 32nm)

- Lack of native PCI-E 3.0

- Lack of native SATA/USB 3 especially compared to higher end Z97 and X99

- Lack of mSATA/3.1 and all that new tech coming out

Stable is fine, primitive isn't.

First of all, the SATA ports are not provided by the 9xx chipset, but the SB950. They are a 2-chip set. Second, they have had native SATA6G for quite some time, and had six complete SATA6G ports before Intel did.

Thirdly, the 990FX has 32 lanes of PCI-E 2.0, which is equivalent to 16 lanes of PCI-E 3.0. So, again, AMD had better bandwidth for PCI-E before Intel did.

 

[AtenRa]

I have an AM3+ mobo, one of the earlier ones. It's an ASRock 990FX Extreme4.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme4/?cat=Specifications

Memory
Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology
- 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots
- Supports DDR3 2100(OC)/1866*/1800*/1600*/1333/1066/800 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 64GB**

PCIe
- 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE2/PCIE4 @ x16 mode; PCIE5 @ x4 mode)
- 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
- 2 x PCI slots
- Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
- Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ and SLI™

SATA
6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by AMD SB950, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, JBOD and RAID 5), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors by Marvell SE9120, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions (SATA3_8 connector is shared with eSATA3 port)

USB 3
2 x USB 3.0 Ports (Etron EJ168A)


------------------------

You need to get an H97 or above to have the same or better features than this board. So going for a Core i5 Haswell will add close to $200 more than getting the FX8310/8320E CPU alone.




-----------------------------

As for the PCIe, have a look at the following

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...s/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review-21.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/pci_express_scaling_game_performance_analysis_review,11.html

Just a reminder, Socket 1155(IvyBridge) and 1150(Haswell) only have up to 2x PCIe-Gen3 with 8x lanes, that is the same as 2x PCIe-Gen2 16x lanes in the AMD 990FX.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

Unless you want to SLI Titan-X there is no performance advantage with Gen 3 over 16x Gen2.


----------------

As for M.2, Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer has M2.0 Gen-2 2x

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/Fatal1tyKiller/Fatal1ty 990FX Killer.html

ASRock’s motherboard is the world’s first and only motherboard that implements a Gen2 x2 M.2 socket. The onboard M.2 socket is a new interface for connecting Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) solid state drives or other devices with a smaller and more flexible physical specification, together with more advanced features.

ASRock’s motherboard supports M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s modules and M.2 PCI Express modules up to Gen2 x2 10 Gb/s, which is 2X faster compared to other M.2 Gen2 x1 solutions that are limited to 5 Gb/s. It pushes your NGFF SSDs to their limits while reducing tons of load time and boosting overall performance.

 

[Dave2150]

Thirdly, the 990FX has 32 lanes of PCI-E 2.0, which is equivalent to 16 lanes of PCI-E 3.0. So, again, AMD had better bandwidth for PCI-E before Intel did.

My old backup system, an x58 system, has 40 PCI-E v2 lanes and was released in 2008.

You are wrong again, obviously totally clueless on the subject.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My old backup system, an x58 system, has 40 PCI-E v2 lanes and was released in 2008.

You are wrong again, obviously totally clueless on the subject.

On their Consumer platform, X58 was Enthusiast.

 

[AtenRa]

My old backup system, an x58 system, has 40 PCI-E v2 lanes and was released in 2008.

You are wrong again, obviously totally clueless on the subject.

When you call someone clueless you better be 100% sure of what you are talking.

Intel X58 only has 36x PCIe Gen 2 lanes. The rest (6) are coming from the sounthbridge (ICH10)

The AMD 990FX Chipset provides 32x PCIe Gen 2 lanes plus another 6x1 for a total of 38x.
An additional 4x PCIe-Gen2 lanes are provided for the Alink Express III connection between the 990FX and the southbridge SB950.

 

[Enigmoid]

When you call someone clueless you better be 100% sure of what you are talking.

Intel X58 only has 36x PCIe Gen 2 lanes. The rest (6) are coming from the sounthbridge (ICH10)

The AMD 990FX Chipset provides 32x PCIe Gen 2 lanes plus another 6x1 for a total of 38x.
An additional 4x PCIe-Gen2 lanes are provided for the Alink Express III connection between the 990FX and the southbridge SB950.

Got to put things in perspective. Intel's x58 lanes are going right from the CPU, AMDs are getting routed through Hypertransport 3.0 with a bidirectional bandwidth of 41.6 GB/s. With a PCIe 2.0 x1 link providing a bandwidth of 1 GB/s this is roughly equivalent to 42 lanes. However this is for the connectivity of the entire IO system of the computer.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Intel's x58 lanes are going right from the CPU

Look at the diagram again. The 36 PCI-E lanes are coming off of the IOH, the CPU connects to the IOH via QPI. Not at all much different than AMD3/+ CPUs connecting to the northbridge via HT, and then the PCI-E fanning out from the northbridge.

 

[Dave2150]

On their Consumer platform, X58 was Enthusiast.

I think the majority of posters here know this.

He made a blanket statement, "AMD had better bandwidth for PCI-E before Intel did".

He didn't differentiate between mainstream and enthusiast, neither did I.

 

[Dave2150]

When you call someone clueless you better be 100% sure of what you are talking.

Intel X58 only has 36x PCIe Gen 2 lanes. The rest (6) are coming from the sounthbridge (ICH10)

The AMD 990FX Chipset provides 32x PCIe Gen 2 lanes plus another 6x1 for a total of 38x.
An additional 4x PCIe-Gen2 lanes are provided for the Alink Express III connection between the 990FX and the southbridge SB950.

Err, all you did was to reinforce my point that Intel had more PCI-E lanes than AMD did, even when the 990X chipset was brand spanking new, many moons ago.

X58 has 40 usable PCI-E lanes - that is fact.

Where exactly did I say that they all came off the CPU? That's right, I didn't.

 

[AtenRa]

Err, all you did was to reinforce my point that Intel had more PCI-E lanes than AMD did, even when the 990X chipset was brand spanking new, many moons ago.

AMD 790FX launched in 2007, it had 32x PCIe-Gen 2 lanes. That was released one year before Intels x58 chipset.

Edit: 790FX diagram added

X58 has 40 usable PCI-E lanes - that is fact.

Again, x58 only has up to 36x PCIe-Gen 2 lanes. Have a look at the Intel diagram above.

Where exactly did I say that they all came off the CPU? That's right, I didn't.

There was no PCIe integrated in to the Nehalem, all the PCIe lanes were coming from the X58 and ICH10/R.

 

[AtenRa]

Got to put things in perspective. Intel's x58 lanes are going right from the CPU, AMDs are getting routed through Hypertransport 3.0 with a bidirectional bandwidth of 41.6 GB/s. With a PCIe 2.0 x1 link providing a bandwidth of 1 GB/s this is roughly equivalent to 42 lanes. However this is for the connectivity of the entire IO system of the computer.

Nehalem didnt have PCIe integrated in to the CPU, the PCIe lanes are coming from the northbridge (x58) and the the southbridge (ICH10/R).

 

[VirtualLarry]

He made a blanket statement, "AMD had better bandwidth for PCI-E before Intel did".

He didn't differentiate between mainstream and enthusiast, neither did I.

Sorry, I should have. I meant their respective consumer platforms. Intel didn't get that kind of PCI-E bandwidth on their consumer platforms until the introduction of PCI-E 3.0 x16 on Ivy Bridge. So everyone clamoring for PCI-E 3.0 on AMD platforms seems to forget that AMD's AM3/AM3+ chipsets already had that kind of PCI-E bandwidth (when dealing with two video cards).

 

[Enigmoid]

Look at the diagram again. The 36 PCI-E lanes are coming off of the IOH, the CPU connects to the IOH via QPI. Not at all much different than AMD3/+ CPUs connecting to the northbridge via HT, and then the PCI-E fanning out from the northbridge.

Nehalem didnt have PCIe integrated in to the CPU, the PCIe lanes are coming from the northbridge (x58) and the the southbridge (ICH10/R).

Forgot I was talking about Nehalem. I apologize.

 

[soccerballtux]

It's a M5A97.I don't really need much pc power right now, so I'd like to avoid any spending on the pc. Fx-8xxx need some 50€ on top of my sale

in that case just keep the X6 and overclock it to 4Ghz. They'll pretty much all hit 4ghz.

 

[docp]

hey all,
i am also stuck in similar issue of upgrade.
what processor you suggest for gigabyte ga880ga ud3h mob.
i would like fx.
which one to get.

old is athlon x4 635 which went caput second time without any kind of overclock.

thanks.

 

[lopri]

VL,

Not sure if you near microcenter but 8320e is under $100.- and 8370e for $120.-

FWIW, I don't think there is enough performance difference to warrant the expense.

I had no idea these things were below $100. Maybe I will finally try one out just for the heck of it. Were they at those prices last year? I wish I had known about it before the winter. XD

 

[Enigmoid]

hey all,
i am also stuck in similar issue of upgrade.
what processor you suggest for gigabyte ga880ga ud3h mob.
i would like fx.
which one to get.

old is athlon x4 635 which went caput second time without any kind of overclock.

thanks.

Your motherboard does not support anything newer than PII unless the manufacturer released a BIOS update.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3789#ov

Looks like it is possible on certain revisions.

http://www.gigabyte.eu/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3789

Looks like its the 8120 or 6350. The board will not OC well.

Your board looks old and may be a revision that does not support AM3+ CPUs.

 

[docp]

i dont intende to overclock at all. all i want is stable system.

 

[crashtech]

I think a Phenom II x6 (Thuban) would be the best bet for the above-mentioned system.

Something like this.

 

[AtenRa]

hey all,
i am also stuck in similar issue of upgrade.
what processor you suggest for gigabyte ga880ga ud3h mob.
i would like fx.
which one to get.

old is athlon x4 635 which went caput second time without any kind of overclock.

thanks.

What is the rest of the system ?? what do you use your PC for ???

It may be better to get a new motherboard and CPU instead. Something like FM2+ and Kaveri or H81 and dual core Haswell.