Are AM3 boards not up to DDR2 board standards?

[FishAk]

I'm upgrading an OEM Pentium D 915 to an Athlon X4. I have 3 X1Gb sticks of DDR2 533, so, ya... not the fastest stuff on the block.


I'm considering DDR3, but I need a AM3 board for that. For the DDR2, I can buy an Asus M4A785-M, which looks like a pretty good board. I see few problems reported with it. If it doesn't arrive DOA, than it has a great chance of lasting, from what I can see.


But the AM3 boards I looked at in the $60-$90 range seem to have a lot of complaints of going Tango Uniform a few weeks to several months down the road. The Ethernet, sound, or video seem particularly vulnerable, but there are lots of reports of the board itself simply not POSTing any more. Are these boards really junk? Do I need to spend closer to $200 to get a decent DDR3 board? I'm wondering if it costs more to build these boards, and to compete with the DDR2 boards, they had to cut too many corners.


With the price of DDR2 1066, and DDR3 1333 about the same, I'm starting to think that I should just go with the DDR2 board, and not worry about using the memory on a future build.

 

[m33pm33p]

I'm upgrading an OEM Pentium D 915 to an Athlon X4. I have 3 X1Gb sticks of DDR2 533, so, ya... not the fastest stuff on the block.


I'm considering DDR3, but I need a AM3 board for that. For the DDR2, I can buy an Asus M4A785-M, which looks like a pretty good board. I see few problems reported with it. If it doesn't arrive DOA, than it has a great chance of lasting, from what I can see.


But the AM3 boards I looked at in the $60-$90 range seem to have a lot of complaints of going Tango Uniform a few weeks to several months down the road. The Ethernet, sound, or video seem particularly vulnerable, but there are lots of reports of the board itself simply not POSTing any more. Are these boards really junk? Do I need to spend closer to $200 to get a decent DDR3 board? I'm wondering if it costs more to build these boards, and to compete with the DDR2 boards, they had to cut too many corners.


With the price of DDR2 1066, and DDR3 1333 about the same, I'm starting to think that I should just go with the DDR2 board, and not worry about using the memory on a future build.

I can honestly say I see where your coming from because when I decided to start my first build I saw a lot of negative reviews as well. I can also tell you that now after about 2 months my AM3 build has yet to see even a hiccup other than the bad memory I got from GEIL to start. Ive got an ASUS M4A77TD and its worked flawlessy. I recently purchased an M4A89TD PRO because I got it at such a good price and Im sure its going to work just as well.

Think the people with problems for the most part are trying to push things to far performance wise and are ending up with hurt feelings. I say go for it if thats what you want, if all else fails almost everything has a decent enough warranty now days. Just stick to the main motherboard producers, (no cheap knockoff brands)

 

[Computers_Plus]

There is always a chance of getting a bad board regardless of the socket platform or who it's made by and yes there are some brands more prone to problems than others but if you are going to upgrade or do a whole new build always try to get the newest platforms, Pretty much all newer boards now are designed to use DDR3 so I would go with that because as buss speeds increase you need memory that won't cause a bottleneck in the rest of the system.

 

[fffblackmage]

Get DDR3, not more DDR2. DDR2 has hit the end of the road. With DDR3, you may still be able to use them if you decide to upgrade the cpu+mobo.

 

[nenforcer]

DDR3 memory will be good for the next generation.

I just read something here on AT I believe which said DDR3 memory production has peaked and prices should be near lows while DDR2 is no longer being manufactured and thus will have higher prices for legacy systems.

I wouldn't cripple a new build with those slow sticks of DDR2 and just bite the bullet and buy what is current for AM3 which is DDR3.