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Z97 or 990fx

I

ironmask

Member
I need to upgrade mobo so that I can get some extra ports. I have a basic board right now that is am3+. I know this is a speculative question, but do you think that the am3+ socket is dead and spending $230 on 990fx wouldn't be as wise as getting a z97 board with an i7? I don't care about benchmarks among the processors, and I think real life differences would be negligible. Just wondering if I'll ever see an option to really upgrade CPUs on the 990.

I have this right now for a mobo.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97_LE_R20/specifications/
 
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Real life differences between the processors are far from negligible. Whether you want benchmarks or not, the Intel chips are faster. Am3 is completely dead
 
What extra ports do you need? Perhaps it would be possible to achieve what you want without replacing the entire motherboard.
 
nitromullet said:
What extra ports do you need? Perhaps it would be possible to achieve what you want without replacing the entire motherboard.
Click to expand...


I'd like more SATA ports. I have four on my board, and they're all used. I'd like to add two more drives to run the data drives in RAID to have a local backup.
 
ironmask said:
I'd like more SATA ports. I have four on my board, and they're all used. I'd like to add two more drives to run the data drives in RAID to have a local backup.
Click to expand...

I don't think I would spend $230 just to add RAID to an existing system. If I was in your shoes I'd pick up a decent z97 board and an i5 4670K for ~$400 (or an i7 4790K for an additional $100), which gets you RAID and a performance boost. Then you could also sell your AMD motherboard/CPU to recoup some of the costs.
 
I have an 8320 now which I am happy with. I was going to buy a board to oc it but not if the am3+ has no chance of coming out with a newer better chip.
 
What about a PCI-E 4-port RAID controller card? They make some with Marvell chipsets that are fairly inexpensive ($10-15 per port).

Edit: That board you linked has SIX SATA ports. As does any board with the AMD SB950 Southbridge, unless the board maker includes a 3rd-party controller for more ports.

Since the 990FX also uses the SB950, just like your existing board, you wouldn't be gaining anything there.
 
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VirtualLarry said:
What about a PCI-E 4-port RAID controller card? They make some with Marvell chipsets that are fairly inexpensive ($10-15 per port).

Edit: That board you linked has SIX SATA ports. As does any board with the AMD SB950 Southbridge, unless the board maker includes a 3rd-party controller for more ports.

Since the 990FX also uses the SB950, just like your existing board, you wouldn't be gaining anything there.
Click to expand...

Holy mother of god, you are right. All this time, the two extra ports were covered by the gpu a bit, so I couldn't see them. I can't say I looked too hard. I just assumed they'd be next to the others. The other reason for a board upgrade on this chip is to overclock it. I bought it a year and a half ago not knowing anything about overclocking, so I bought a board without heat sinks on the vram. As I have read, I shouldn't overclock on this board. Now that I have found the extra ports, that's one down.
 
Meh... Maybe not killer o'clock... At stock voltage, you ought to be able to hit 4.3-4.4 safely. Once you start jacking up voltages, that when things start getting iffy.
 
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