What is the best AM2+ Motherboard

[Martimus]

I haven't seen much on the net about the new Spider Platform MB's other than they performed well and had a good feature set. I haven't seen any actual reviews for any of them, so I wanted to ask here: Which ones are the best, and why? If anyone has any links to RD790 MB reviews, I would love to see them!

Thanks for your help!

 

[heyheybooboo]

Topic: What is the best AM2+ Motherboard?

The usual suspects have 770-, 790x- and 790fx-chipsets -- Gigabyte, MSI, Asus and DFI.

I'm not 100% sure what qualifies as a 'Spider' ??? Is that a quad-Crossfire 4x PCIe2? That would be 790fx-chipsets with 4x PCIe2 x16 slots (afaik with four cards would run x8/x8/x8/x8)

For some reason I'm thinkin' the max lanes per mobo with PCIe2 is currently 42. I don't know if my brain just farted - or if future chipset revisions will change the total available PCIe lanes.

The rumahs on the internets have the Foxconn A79A-s 790fx rolling out this quarter as the first with sb700 - only quad Crossfire would be with single-slot 3850s because of the way Foxx layed out the PCIe x16 slots.

Gigabyte just released a bios update to run Agena/Phenom on 770- and 690g-chipsets.

I think the 'rollout' is slow because:

1) Waiting for 1st revs with sb700 - don't want to flood the market with sb600 product;
2) Crossfire drivers for quad platform not available until the end of this month;
3) Driver release for quad timed for intro of X2 vid cards; and
4) The Phenom TLB errata.

Or it just might be hard-luck AMD going one step forward, two steps to the left, two steps back, three steps to the right and three steps forward.

In other words, normal.

 

[Martimus]

I'm sorry that I did not elaborate. The 790FX MB's are for sale now, with four of them available on NewEgg (NewEgg Link). The problem I had was that I couldn't find a single review for any of them. I wanted to wait until either BullDozer or Nehalem to update my computer, but mine pretty much gave up the ghost about a month ago, and I was looking into getting a Phenom setup since they were cheap and I trust AMD more than Intel, just from my past experiences. Plus, I really like the huge price advantage of AMD.

I don't plan on ever hooking up a quad CF setup, so the 790X would probably be the chipset for me. I didn't even know it existed until you just mentioned it, so now I have a new idea of what to get. Thanks! I see there is one available at NewEgg now: the GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-DS4. Does anyone know anything about that board?

 

[heyheybooboo]

Off the top of my head I think the guys at the XS forum put the torture to a 9500 Phenom and the MSI K9A2 CF

I'll keep an eye out for that gigabyte board

 

[Martimus]

Thanks!

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
Off the top of my head I think the guys at the XS forum put the torture to a 9500 Phenom and the MSI K9A2 CF

I'll keep an eye out for that gigabyte board

I found a review linked on their own website. Obviously if they are linking it, it isn't hte most objective, but it is a start: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa...07/12/21/msi_k9a2_cf/1