Future looking AMD AM3+ motherboard for use with Phenom II x4 965

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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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My brother has had a motherboard failure in his current AM3 board. We RMA'd the board to ASUS and they sent us back the same board which worked for exactly 24 hours and then failed in the exact same manner (after 3 weeks of processing time). He's basically blown off dealing with it since. As a birthday gift for him I was considering buying a nice high end motherboard for him that he will be able to drop a new processor into 2 or 3 years down the line, while also replacing his current board. He currently has an Phenom II x4 965 with some variety of DDR3-1600, Coolermast Hyper 212+, GTX 460 1GB etc. Pretty run of the mill mid range build from 2010.

I'm trying to find one with decent overclocking capability (heatsinks on VRMs, chipset). USB 3.0 is a must. SLI compatibility would be good if the price is right, but I'm not willing to pay much more just for that. The goal is that when Steamroller comes out (eventually, if it does...) that he will have a solid board to drop it into, but that the board will still overclock his 965 pretty well. I had it at 3.9 on his old board, not sure if its the processor or board holding it back, but my guess is board.

I live near a Microcenter. Here are the two I'm considering at the moment: ASRock 990FX Extreme4 and Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3. Anything ASUS is absolutely out of consideration, I've had so many bad customer service experiences with them that I refuse to spend my money with them under any circumstance.

I've learned over the years that sometimes you'll get a mobo with just some weird quirks to it, I'm looking for some personal experiences you all might have to help me figure out which one to get. Need some help for considersations off of the spec sheet! Thanks guys
 
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lagokc

Senior member
Mar 27, 2013
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If he has a cheap case or power supply consider replacing that as well, it's unusual for motherboards to fail repeatedly like that.
 
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garym

Junior Member
May 1, 2013
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Yeah, I would definitely check other components like the power supply out. I had a power supply that fried a couple of boards before I finally bought a power supply tester (only like $10-$20) and found the culprit.





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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
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lagokc said:
If he has a cheap case or power supply consider replacing that as well, it's unusual for motherboards to fail repeatedly like that.
Click to expand...

The power supply and case are fine (at least brand wise), Antec 300 and I believe it is an Earthwatts unit in the 500 range. Nothing sketchy or no-name. We also tried a different power supply to no avail

The reason it failed twice is because Asus never actually fixes anything you send them half of the time. They just half assed the repair and so whatever "fix" they did failed. I'm fairly certain too, it was literally exactly the same problem (something PCI-e related)

They did exactly the same thing on an EEEPc I had as well. It wouldn't charge, so I sent it in for RMA (Internationally by the way, so it took 3 months to get there, get "repaired", and get back to the country I was in). Very clearly said it would not charge. Their solution? Replace the battery. They literally just put in a new battery and sent it back without testing if it would charge, because I could not charge it when I received it 3 months back. Luckily Amazon stepped up and replaced it for me even after it was months out of the sales return period. I had a fuse of some sort blow on a different ASUS motherboard I sent in. They sent it back, unfixed, with a letter that said "You did this so we're not fixing it," even though it just spontaneously popped (I think a case fan died violently and took the mobo with it). Long story short Asus is allergic to repairing their products.

To be safe, we might use the replacement power supply we got to test it instead of the original one though given that it could have been the source of the problem originally. Thanks for the heads up so far guys. I do enough PC building that I think I will get one of those testers, especially if its only $10-20. Which model did you get garym?
 
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garym

Junior Member
May 1, 2013
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Well the Gigabyte board will definitely be a relief for you as I have bought four different ones for family and friends builds. Not one problem yet. I have had very good luck with AS Rock brand too.
 
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lagokc

Senior member
Mar 27, 2013
808
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I've actually had similar problems in the past with Asus. Great boards, terrible customer service and warranty support (at least in North America). I am so glad they spun off Asrock.
 
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chucky2

Lifer
Dec 9, 1999
10,018
37
91
So close to Haswell at this point in time. I know it'd be extra, but if you have the time, why not just wait a month, get a budget Haswell board, a budget Haswell CPU. The Haswell board out to last a long time as long as it's from someone like Gigabyte, and likely even a budget Haswell CPU will run as fast or faster than what he's got now.

Just a thought...

Chuck
 
nenforcer

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
1,775
14
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If you want SLI support from AMD it has to be the AMD 990FX chipset. I personally really like the ASSRock Extreme 9.

What ASUS board did your brother have the trouble with, BTW?
 
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PG

Diamond Member
Oct 25, 1999
3,426
44
91
I just have a little strategy tip for you. Don't go to Microcenter and just buy a motherboard. Get a bundle of some kind, with the board you want of course, and then sell the cpu. That will effectively make the board cheaper for you. My suggestion is to get the FX-8320 as the cpu in your combo. It is fairly cheap at Microcenter and should sell for a decent price on ebay, the for sale/trade forum here, or wherever you want to sell it. Just leave it sealed, it will be worth more that way.
 
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Headfoot

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2008
4,444
641
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nenforcer: the faulty ASUS was a M4A77TD

That is an excellent point PG, I ended up finding a solid deal on a 970A board off of NewEgg at the end of it all after I settled that SLI probably wasn't going to happen (GA-970A-UD3, well reviewed). I'll keep it in mind for my next MC trip.

I have now tested the power supply, but I'm not sure how to interpret the results. I know some deviance from the rated power number is acceptable, but I am unsure what degree of variance is acceptable. Here are the numbers the power tester garym suggested has pulled:
-12v: 11.4 (most concerned about this)
+12v1: 12.1 (12 volt rail on the 24 pin connector)
+12v2: 12.0 (from both PCI-e 6 pin and motherboard 4+4pin)
+5v: 4.9
5vsb: 5.1
+3.3: 3.2
PG: 310ms
Double checked the brand and it is one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152035. So it's not the Earthwatts unit I thought, that one is in my other brother's computer! :D

For reference, the brand new replacement power supply we bought to originally, to test if the first power supply (whose measurements are listed above) was faulty, has identical readings except that -12v is 11.5 instead of 11.4 and PG is 360 instead of 310.

Research online has lead me to believe on the +v that +/- 5% is acceptable: but I can't get solid information on whether the -12v can be as low as 11.4. All the discussion I've found so far online is using readings from Speedfan which I'm not sure are comparable to what I've measured with the power supply testing doodad.
 
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VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,572
10,208
126
I have the ASRock 990FX Extreme4. It's a nice board, and it has six AMD SATA6G ports, two Marvell SATA6G ports, and a floppy and IDE port too.
 
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