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Which AM3+ board would you choose?
- Thread starter juane414
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2012
If you are planning on really pushing an overclock on the 8320 the evo may not be enough cooler, otherwise I say go for it.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2002
The 970-UD3 is essentially the same mobo as the 990Xa-UD3 which was a very solid mobo for me while I had it. If your not intending to jump on the SLI bandwagon then the 970 is definitely a solid choice. The 8320 VS 6300 is a choice only you can make. I personally have rocked out on both generations of FX 8 core but I do ALOT of multitasking(multiple VMs, transcoding, and gaming all at the same time) and have been very satisfied with them. If you dont do tons of multi tasking you probably wont see much difference between the two chips.
- Thread Starter
- #24
I'm not shooting for an extreme overclock. It would be nice to get 4ghz on air but I'm not expecting to go any higher than that. If I need a little more power in the next few years I'll just convert to water cooling.
- Thread Starter
- #25
Well, I pulled the trigger. Here's what I have ordered so far:
Case: Cooler Master 690 II (RC-692-KKN2) $50 after rebate + free 16gb usb drive
Board: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ $105
CPU: AMD FX-8320 $167 ($13 off with motherboard combo)
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus $15 after rebate
PSU: NZXT Hale 82 750w $40 after rebate
RAM: 2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaws ddr3 1600 (free with motherboard)
Total build cost so far = $385 after rebates and shipping. I only paid shipping on the motherboard. For now, I'm going to pull the old XFX 9600gso, HDD, and DVD-RW out of my current desktop and wait until I can find a good deal on new GPU and SSD, and possibly Blu-ray drive. I really regret not getting an SSD on black friday... but they sold out before I pulled the trigger. I'll probably run Win XP for now but I might just get the $40 upgrade to Win 8 since it's a lot cheaper than getting Win 7 OEM.
Thanks again for the help everyone
I might get a build log going with pics in another thread when I get time to assemble it.
Case: Cooler Master 690 II (RC-692-KKN2) $50 after rebate + free 16gb usb drive
Board: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ $105
CPU: AMD FX-8320 $167 ($13 off with motherboard combo)
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus $15 after rebate
PSU: NZXT Hale 82 750w $40 after rebate
RAM: 2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaws ddr3 1600 (free with motherboard)
Total build cost so far = $385 after rebates and shipping. I only paid shipping on the motherboard. For now, I'm going to pull the old XFX 9600gso, HDD, and DVD-RW out of my current desktop and wait until I can find a good deal on new GPU and SSD, and possibly Blu-ray drive. I really regret not getting an SSD on black friday... but they sold out before I pulled the trigger. I'll probably run Win XP for now but I might just get the $40 upgrade to Win 8 since it's a lot cheaper than getting Win 7 OEM.
Thanks again for the help everyone
I might get a build log going with pics in another thread when I get time to assemble it.
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2012
Well, I pulled the trigger. Here's what I have ordered so far:
Case: Cooler Master 690 II (RC-692-KKN2) $50 after rebate + free 16gb usb drive
Board: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ $105
CPU: AMD FX-8320 $167 ($13 off with motherboard combo)
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 plus $15 after rebate
PSU: NZXT Hale 82 750w $40 after rebate
RAM: 2x4gb G.Skill Ripjaws ddr3 1600 (free with motherboard)
Total build cost so far = $385 after rebates and shipping. I only paid shipping on the motherboard. For now, I'm going to pull the old XFX 9600gso, HDD, and DVD-RW out of my current desktop and wait until I can find a good deal on new GPU and SSD, and possibly Blu-ray drive. I really regret not getting an SSD on black friday... but they sold out before I pulled the trigger. I'll probably run Win XP for now but I might just get the $40 upgrade to Win 8 since it's a lot cheaper than getting Win 7 OEM.
Thanks again for the help everyone
Wow man, you got a great price there! Congrats and make sure we get a shot or two of that puppy in action
- Thread Starter
- #27
Wow man, you got a great price there! Congrats and make sure we get a shot or two of that puppy in action
I'm a pretty savvy shopper I guess. When I look at the deals that I got I even amaze myself. That NZXT PSU was yesterday's shellshocker for $40. Today it's $100. You just don't see good quality 750w PSUs going for $40. If you're patient and wait for sales, and know how to find deals on Newegg, you can save a lot of money.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2002
The CM 690-II is a killer case. I have two of them the 690-II standard, and the 690-II advanced nVidia edition. It may be small but its well laid out even for a pretty chunky custom water loop.
Im sure you already know this but WinXP your only going to get access to ~3.6Gb of that RAM.
Windows 8 isn't awful but if you dont want the microsoft store built right into your OS, or a big button tablet style interface, you may want to save for a copy of win7 instead.
Im sure you already know this but WinXP your only going to get access to ~3.6Gb of that RAM.
Windows 8 isn't awful but if you dont want the microsoft store built right into your OS, or a big button tablet style interface, you may want to save for a copy of win7 instead.
- Thread Starter
- #29
The only thing that actually bothers me about Windows 8 is that it defaults to the new start menu interface. If it defaulted to the desktop and the new start menu just popped up when you clicked the bottom left corner it wouldn't be so bad. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the OS just yet... I do have a copy of x64 Vista that I could use until I make a decision. That would be better than buying Windows 8 and later regretting it.
I would have liked the 690 II advanced but the only two features that I really cared about on the advanced are the front USB 3.0 ports and the rubber grommets. That's not the end of the world. I can live without the grommets and I don't even have any USB 3.0 devices yet. When I do have something that uses USB 3.0 I'll just use the back ports. I had the original 690 case for my gaming rig that I built in 2007, and I loved that case. The 690 II looks like the same thing, only better. I'm sure I'll be satisfied with it. I've never felt a need for a full tower case.
- Joined
- May 10, 2009
You'll like the board. One thing though: If it has "Core Performance Boost", turn it off in BIOS.
My experience has been that the CPB feature should be called "Massive Over-Voltage for Tiny OC".
Other than that, my experience with gigabyte AM3+ boards has been great.
My experience has been that the CPB feature should be called "Massive Over-Voltage for Tiny OC".
Other than that, my experience with gigabyte AM3+ boards has been great.
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2012
Haha, this is how I work too-- Been slowly upgrading my Deneb rig (Now my 8350 rig) peice by peice by getting awesome sales
In fact, I got my 8350 for free (There's a story to that one, look here
Really no other way to shop in this market :\
- Thread Starter
- #32
It's my lucky day! Newegg has $20 off on Windows 7 OEM. That's only $10 more than Windows 8 upgrade would be. I'd rather spend the extra $10 for an OS that I know I like than save a little money to take a chance on Windows 8.
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2012
$235 for board, fx 6300, 1600 ram???? jump on it.
- Thread Starter
- #34
I ended up going with the FX 8320 combo for $35 more. Case and cooler are here. Other parts should be arriving this week. Still waiting for a good sale on an SSD though...
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2012
Nice puchase, juane!
- Thread Starter
- #36
I'm pumped to get this build going! I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to get the parts that I wanted because money is tight, but I found some sweet deals and got most of what I wanted, and some great quality stuff too. I'll be going with my old 9600GSO for the time being, which is fine because I'm not a gamer. I'm also holding off on getting an SSD until I find a good deal. It would have been nice to get a slightly better heatsink and the FX 8350 would be better than the FX 8320, but the Hyper 212+ should be fine for now. Someday I'll get a few more 140mm fans for my case and might even upgrade to water cooling, but I don't have the money for that right now. First priority is getting an SSD and eventually a nice midrange Radeon like an HD 6670 or 7750.
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2012
that'll be a nice rig.
