AMD AM3+ Motherboard Thread

[Soulkeeper]

My motherboard on my c2d server just fried today
AMD needs to hurry up !

I might hold out for matx or the 32nm apu's also
my other system needs an upgrade too

 

[darkswordsman17]

So this begs the question, why were there manufacturers releaseing 800-series AM3+ boards if the 900-series is going to be ready? My theory used to be that 900-series was going to be late, so they needed a stopgap solution for the BD CPU launch. But apperantly that's at least in part not true.

Because they can? This way they can get rid of more 8 series chipsets (which they likely already had bought), possibly for a bit of a premium. Plus it probably gave them a bit of help in prepping the new boards as well and figuring out if they needed to change much in their power setups.

It looks like the retention bracket on all boards except gigabyte's have went on a diet.

I believe AMD actually spec'ed that after board makers complained that their previous/current one was taking too much space on the board. Stock coolers don't need all of that, and aftermarket coolers have their own brackets so it wasn't necessary either way.

 

[Mem]

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 below.

It's on their website but what the heck I'll list here anyway for the lazy ,

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3891#ov .

 

[drizek]

ASRock confirms UEFI. I hadn't seen it until now.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=890fx%20deluxe5

The weird part though is that it is an 890FX and not a 990FX, and yet it still supports UEFI. How does that work?

Also, it has gold capacitors that the old version didn't. Why?

Review: http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1267.html

 

[dawp]

I'm pretty sure asus has uefi on their M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, which is a AM3 board.

As far as the caps are concerned, that may just be a change of vendor. I wouldn't worry too much about that unless the new caps fail and cause trouble.

 

[drizek]

They advertise them as "Premium Gold Caps are luxury capacitors. These 100% Japan-made solid capacitors are sleek, high gloss caps with a premium gold coating representing long life and stable performance."

I just don't see the point in having caps that are made out of gold...

 

[jcniest5]

I'm pretty sure asus has uefi on their M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, which is a AM3 board...

No, that board doesn't have UEFI BIOS on it. It's still text-based BIOS, unless Asus has switched to UEFI later on. I owned one up to December '10 or January '11 and it was conventional BIOS.

 

[dawp]

They advertise them as "Premium Gold Caps are luxury capacitors. These 100% Japan-made solid capacitors are sleek, high gloss caps with a premium gold coating representing long life and stable performance."

I just don't see the point in having caps that are made out of gold...

I doubt they are made out of gold. that would make the board very expensive. I don't think they're even gold plated, just gold colored. It's all marketing, nothing more.

ya notice they did not say 'gold plating', just gold coating.

 

[dawp]

No, that board doesn't have UEFI BIOS on it. It's still text-based BIOS, unless Asus has switched to UEFI later on. I owned one up to December '10 or January '11 and it was conventional BIOS.

you're right, I have 2 in my house, should have remembered.

 

[dma0991]

Almost all new motherboards should have UEFI. It would be a shame if the manufacturers did not include it in the 800 and 900 series boards. IIANM some of the E-350 boards have UEFI and I don't see why its new bigger brothers don't have it.

 

[Mem]

Almost all new motherboards should have UEFI. It would be a shame if the manufacturers did not include it in the 800 and 900 series boards. IIANM some of the E-350 boards have UEFI and I don't see why its new bigger brothers don't have it.

I think only Gigabyte don't have UEFI on their AM3+ 900 series models if you check their website,the Asus,MSI,Asrock do on their 900 series.

 

[dma0991]

I think only Gigabyte don't have UEFI on their AM3+ 900 series models if you check their website,the Asus,MSI,Asrock do on their 900 series.

I'm not sure when Gigabyte will implement UEFI BIOS to their 900 series boards but as of now Gigabyte has a UEFI version called TouchBIOS that was introduced together with the Intel Z68 chipset. The earlier and current version of P67 and H67 does not have TouchBIOS either.

Maybe Gigabyte might introduce TouchBIOS on their later revisions but I'm not a big fan of their interface. The best looking UEFI BIOS to me is from Asus.

 

[Mem]

I'm not sure when Gigabyte will implement UEFI BIOS to their 900 series boards but as of now Gigabyte has a UEFI version called TouchBIOS that was introduced together with the Intel Z68 chipset. The earlier and current version of P67 and H67 does not have TouchBIOS either.

Maybe Gigabyte might introduce TouchBIOS on their later revisions but I'm not a big fan of their interface. The best looking UEFI BIOS to me is from Asus.

Yep I prefer the Asus/Asrock UEFI personally,btw I read the Asus 990FX Sabertooth should be around $220 so not bad at all.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Love how the sockets all went black,really makes it stand out.

Not that a socket color makes any difference but it does give the motherboards a nice first impression

Is triple sli gonna be full 16x?

 

[Mem]

Pre-order pricing has appeared in UK for Gigabyte models http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/AMD+AM3%2B+(900+Chipset)/ .

Pricing is cheaper then their Gigabyte P67 counterpart model to give you an idea.


Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 AMD 990X £99.95
Gigabyte GA-P67X-UD3-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) - B3 Revision £136.99

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 AMD 990FX £169.99
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) - B3 Revision £199.99

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 AMD 990FX £209.99
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) - B3 Revision £289.98

UK pricing inc VAT( including value added Tax) above is Gigabyte AMD 900 series compared Gigabyte Intel P67 UK pricing to give you an idea.(AMD models are in bold)

 

[Mem]

Nice ASUS Sabertooth 990FX,ECS A990FXM-A and MSI 990FXA-GD80 Preview @hardwarezone http://www.hardwarezone.com/product-guide/view/177751 .

 

[Mem]

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_crosshair_v_formula/ .


ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX Motherboard Review@OCC.

Overall, the ASUS Crosshair V Formula is one motherboard that deserves to be held on the pedestal it created. Throughout the whole review, it did not falter and not once did I have a problem with the usability. NVIDIA users will definitely be pleased with the inclusion of SLI support and the ability to use the ROG Xpander, giving users the freedom to finally choose their path. I am looking forward to seeing the future AMD AM3+ boards from ASUS and its Thunderbolt add-on for the combo set.

 

[Mem]

Asus Sabertooth 990FX review@guru3d http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-sabertooth-990fx-review/ .

The design quality is great, the features good and the aesthetics, though personal, are good. The SaberTooth series always manages to impress in terms of value for money versus good looks. The TUF SaberTooth 990FX lives up to that reputation alright, definitely a recommended as ASUS will offer 5 years warranty on the product now as well. Chipset wise things look a tad underwhelming compared to the 800 series, but perhaps the release of Bulldozer processors will change that.

 

[Mem]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1626/1/


MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard Review@Legitreviews.

Legit Bottom Line: The MSI 990FXA-GD80 motherboard proved to be a solid performing platform, but it really needs AMD's upcoming Zambezi processors to really show what it can do and those aren't out yet!

 

[Bacstar]

I have the Crosshair III now. Looking forward to upgrading to the V when BD becomes available

 

[Mem]

I have the Crosshair III now. Looking forward to upgrading to the V when BD becomes available

Hard choice between this and Sabertooth .

 

[Mem]

Biostar TA990FXE

http://www.techpowerup.com/146669/TSeries-TA990FXE-Leads-AM3+-Charge-for-Biostar.html

Biostar is keeping a low profile with high-end motherboards, these days. It's been a long while since the company released its last TPower-branded motherboard, but has been pushing its 'value' TSeries motherboards into every segment. One such offering for the AMD socket AM3+ platform is the Biostar TSeries TA990FXE. Based on the AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset, this board packs a lot of high-end styling with its heatsinks and components load-out. It packs a 4+1 phase VRM to power the AM3+ socket, and dual-channel DDR3 memory. Current generation Phenom II, and future FX Series processors are supported.

Expansion slots include four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (x16/x4/x16/x4), and two PCI. There are five internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports, with the sixth one being assigned as eSATA

 

[Mem]

Another Sabertooth 990FX review@HardwareCanucks here http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/43653-asus-sabertooth-990fx-am3-motherboard-review.html

When it comes to the Sabertooth 990FX itself, we are admittedly impressed. At first, the concept behind ‘The Ultimate ‘Force’ series seemed a little unusual to us since there was nothing lacking in the build quality and reliability of run-of-the-mill ASUS motherboards. However, the increased focus on monitoring and management is what we really like. This motherboard has 6 fan headers that can be fully controlled in the BIOS or in Windows via the TUF Thermal Radar utility. It is a dream come true for control freaks.

 

[drizek]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1626/1/


MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard Review@Legitreviews.

WTF?

Benchmark Results: The MSI 990FXA-GD80 didn't do so hot in our SATA III testing. The average read in HD Tach was only 195.07MB/s while the ASRock 890FX Deluxe4 averaged 241.73MB/s. The average write speeds were a much closer margin with only ~12MB/s seperating the two boards.

Isn't 195MB/s SATA II speeds? Anyway, their C300 should have been getting closer to 270MB/s.

As if everything else wasn't bad enough, this might be reason enough to go SB.

 

[drizek]

Another Sabertooth 990FX review@HardwareCanucks

Here we ran into an I/O limitation when extracting. Our hard drive simply isn’t fast enough to write the data being extracted by highly clocked AES NI-capable chips (Sandy Bridge/Gulftown/Clarkdale).

Somebody just misspoke...

How could they be testing a 990FX board with SB/GTown/Cdale? They obviously have a BD ES over there since no current AMD chips supports AES-NI, although I think a PII X6 shouldn't have trouble doing AES at 220MB/s.

Of course, again, the problem is that htey maxed out at 220MB/s on the their C300. I expected better read performance than that.