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Socket AM3 Motherboard Reviews

R

Raanan

Junior Member
Hello all,

I've been looking into AMD for a bit now and I've noticed something bothersome. I can't seem to find many AM3 motherboard reviews. Anandtech has a good one here but even that is 6 months old. Do any of you know a good place to get some good AM3 motherboard reviews?
 
Most boards perform the same. Unless there is a major change to the board or something others don't have many will just do several boards and if they perform about the same call it a day.

When I get a board I look for the chipset I want and then its price and features. I prefer Gigabyte but if Biostar or asrock has better features/price then the gigabyte then I get that one.

Anything you are looking for?
 
If its any help... my MSI 890GX board is quite the performer. Currently the FSB is set to 243Mhz at stock volts OCing my 1055T to 3.4-4.0 with turbo enabled.

No issues with sleep/resume or problems with drivers and LAN/Sound/onboard GPU. All 4 slots have 2gb sticks of 1600Mhz ram. Only prob is the limit of fan posts (1 4pin CPU and 1-2 3 pin).
 
Well, if performance isn't really a factor then I guess what I'm looking for is a solid feature set that's going to last me a while. To that end I would want SATA 3 and USB 3, 2x PCI-E 16x slots, and at least 4 fan posts (3 or 4 pin doesn't matter). So far from what I've looked at, USB 3 is the hard one to find. The ASRock in the review I linked above looks damn near perfect for what I want but I can't find it from a retailer that doesn't gouge shipping prices to my state.
 
You in the US? What is your budget for a board?

How soon are you going to order? I ask as the AMD 9xx chipset will be out next quarter.
 
Don't expect to find many AMD motherboard reviews here at Anand, you will find a dozen or 2 Intel reviews though. I wonder why? $$$$
 
Marlin1975 said:
You in the US? What is your budget for a board?

How soon are you going to order? I ask as the AMD 9xx chipset will be out next quarter.
Click to expand...

I'm in Alaska. We're a part of the US but most shippers (and retailers, subsequently) treat us like a foreign country. Amazon is one of the few exceptions. Zipzoomfly.com used to be really good but they've really started to suck the past year due to barely ever having anything in stock.

I don't really have a budget. I'm designing a system now to get a ballpark figure for how much it's going to cost for the level of hardware I want. That way I can save up for a while and not break the bank to build a new box. That being said, I won't be ordering for a while so I'll be paying close attention to the new chipset.

I've always been an Intel guy due to lower power/greater performance but if AMD keeps up the competitive pricing for the performance, I'll probably defect to them.

Thanks for the link, tl60. I'm checking that site out right now!
 
I would estimate $120-150ish for a good board when the 9xx chipsets come out. Close to $200 if you want the 990 (or high end) board. The 970 will be cheaper.

The AM3+ will be backwards comp. with AM3 CPUs so you can get a new board but use a cheaper old chip till prices drop. So $60+ depending on what you want.

Video card. Depends on what you want. $20 to $XXX+. My GTS450 was less than $100 and a lot of good cards can be had in the $150ish range.

Ram can drop or jump anytime. But 4gig for $40 or 8gig for $80 is easy now with many much cheaper after rebate.

Hard drive starts at $40 for 7200rpm 500gig and goes up from there. Amazon was a little cheaper than newegg here for the one i got.

Power supply a decent one is around $50. Less with rebate.

DVD drive can be had for $20ish

case depends. I got my grandmother one for $18 but mine cost more. So be cheap or picky and costly.
 
In general I'd say Gigabyte and Asus have the most reliable mobos and last year Asus was listed as having the best customer service. Gigabyte boards have extra copper to prevent overheating and 2 bios chips in case of a bad flash, both of which are particularly appealing to enthusiasts. A quick google search for "review am3 usb 3 sata 3" brought up reviews for an MSI mobo as well as Asus and Gigabyte.

http://www.google.com/search?source...aKlweXq73UBw&start=0&sa=N&fp=67f8506433722ca6
 
Raanan said:
Hello all,

I've been looking into AMD for a bit now and I've noticed something bothersome. I can't seem to find many AM3 motherboard reviews. Anandtech has a good one here but even that is 6 months old. Do any of you know a good place to get some good AM3 motherboard reviews?
Click to expand...
Theoverclocker.com

Download issue 7

Some good reviews init

---------------- Now playing: Hill, Steve & Hardforze/Pete Millwood - Wonderwall via FoxyTunes
 
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