Upgrade fever

[wuliheron]

while the 890fx is a decent chipset, I just a little curious as to why you didn't get a 990fx board? were they not available at your Microcenter?

I have 2 890gx (M4A89GTD PRO/USB3) boards in two systems in my home and are wonderful boards, but if I were to select an AMD board today, it would be a 990 of some flavor.

I have to agree. Personally I can live without a lot of bells and whistles like sata 3.0, but my understanding is you'll only be able to use 6 cores of bulldozer on that older model mobo.

 

[jhansman]

I originally was, but the only ones they stocked were Asus Sabertooth ($50 more, out of stock) and three Gigabyte models, of which only one was in stock (also $50 more). I know Gigabyte has a solid following, but I've never owned one and didn't want to try my first on this build. The Asrock's 890FX offering gave me future compatibility with BD plus a ton of other features (including a USB 3.0 front panel), so while it was not my ideal choice, it should serve my purposes nicely while keeping me within my budget. Even if BD gets delayed again (though recent articles are saying Zambezi mid to late Sept.), I can still move to a X6 CPU, which ought to be even cheaper by then. Reviews have been very good for this board, so I'm looking forward to this build.

According to Asrock's site and a pretty good review on Pure OC, (again, sorry but cannot link), this board is 8 core ready.

 

[Rvenger]

You can always just get a 6 core BD CPU too. Not everyone will be investing in the 8 core model anyways.

 

[jhansman]

You can always just get a 6 core BD CPU too. Not everyone will be investing in the 8 core model anyways.

True enough. I ended up ordering the X6 1090T today, weary of reading endless reviews, articles and threads. My head was full of info and I still was agonizing; I may end up wishing I'd waited, but at least I'll be building in a week.

I'll be watching with great interest to see if AMD can get BD out the door next month, and what it really turns out to be. All this speculation here is most amusing.