[AMD Phenom II X4 AM3] - Motherboard selection

[iNSiGMA]

Hi OC Community,

I am the process of planning a system upgrade and am trying to pick a good motherboard to mate with an AMD Phenom II X4 945 Debev 3Ghz.

I have been out of the hardware loop so long, that I don't know which chipset(s) to shoot for. I would like to have some USB 3.0 ports among all the other standard equipment. Where can I find the differences between the current AMD Chipset features/performance?

And I am also wondering about the current state of onboard graphics ... Can they run Team Fortress 2, Portal, and the Command & Conquer 4 reasonably well? The reason I even consider onboard graphics is to save money (initally anyway) but I still need gaming power.

Right now I have a XFX nVidia 6600 GT, how does the latest/greatest onboard video compare to that? I could invest is a new ~$50 card, but I do not know if that is no necessary. What would you think?

Thanks for any/all of your time and input.

 

[Archer0915]

If you hold off a week or two you will be able to get a boatload of information on the 890GX series chip sets.

 

[jarlmaster47]

890gx for the win!!! get that

 

[iNSiGMA]

I guess really at this point my only concern is: SB710 vs SB750...

I can save $30+ going with SB750 and still get the features I need/want, but I read on Tom's Hardware the SB750 is "reputed" to have better USB & SATA performance... ?

I don't want to get the SB710 and then find out it takes 2 minutes to transfer a 100 MB file via USB


Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-motherboard-guide,2546-6.html

 

[Archer0915]

What the reviews dont mention is every aspect. USB 2.0 is USB 2.0 in essence anyway. The main impact is usually a CPU hit when USB bus is loaded and that is where you start seeing problems. That being said the SB 750 rides about the same as the 710 for most things and I doubt you would notice a speed difference.