ASRock 970 EXTREME3 vs GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3 (or recommend another)

[FreaK367]

Hello, I'm new to the forum and I joined to get opinions of others on these two motherboards. I am going to build a new PC on a budget, and I want to know what the best choice of motherboard is between the ASRock 970 EXTREME3 and GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3. Or if there are any better out there at a similar price.

I already have a power supply and graphics card I am going to continue using, so I am looking to buy a new Motherboard, Processor and RAM to finish my new computer.

I'm from the UK, so forgive the .co.uk website

ASRock 970 EXTREME3
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...+PCI-Express+ATX+Motherboard+?productId=48564

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=970 extreme3

GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...+PCI-Express+ATX+Motherboard+?productId=48467

http://il.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4122#ov


Future specs of the new system:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
PSU: OCZ ZS Series 550W 80+ Bronze
GPU: XFX ATI Radeon HD 6850 XXX 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express
CPU: AMD Bulldozer FX-6100 3.30GHz (3.90GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 6 core
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black LP (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz 1.5v (going to eventually buy another 8GB for 16GB total)
Motherboard: ?

I'll be gaming with the system like I do with my current quite old system... as well as general use, photoshop etc..., In the future I might decide to Crossfire if games become more demanding. But that isn't essential.

Advice/Opinions?

Thank you in advance. , and I appreciate any help.

 

[merz.38]

Is there any reason why you aren't considering Intel products?

I used the benchmarking results on P95's website and built my buddy an outstanding desktop a few months back. From what I remember all the comperably priced intel chips blew the amd chips out of the water.

Also for the record, the board I picked was a gigabyte w an X58 Chipset. I thought that the Gigabyte was a very nice board for the money, it had a lot of nice features and everything went together flawlessly.

 

[FreaK367]

Is there any reason why you aren't considering Intel products?

I used the benchmarking results on P95's website and built my buddy an outstanding desktop a few months back. From what I remember all the comperably priced intel chips blew the amd chips out of the water.

Also for the record, the board I picked was a gigabyte w an X58 Chipset. I thought that the Gigabyte was a very nice board for the money, it had a lot of nice features and everything went together flawlessly.

Budget really, it's quite strict since I don't have a stable income at the moment, I have an intel now in an Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.0 GHz, which isn't great, it handles itself mostly well but struggles at times.

An AMD Bulldozer greatly outperforms my current processor, yet when looking at prices online, somehow my current core2 duo still costs more at retail than the virtually brand new bulldozer processors which destroy it, and I've had mine for over 4 years. Intel processors are so expensive.

Even looking at the minimum possible Intel i5, it still costs more than the FX-6100. It doesn't feel like I'm getting value for money, even though Intel products are generally quite high quality.

I'm not looking for extreme performance, the stock FX-6100 will be a huge boost from what I'm used to and looking around the internet people have been able to quite easily get a stable overclock of atleast 4.2 GHz, some up to 5+ on the FX-6100. Which is always an option in the future.

I think it has a lot of potential.

Mainly though, like I said, it's all about budget.



EDIT: I'm not fully set on a Bulldozer processor, reading around the internet people seem to be ripping them apart, I bought the GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3 motherboard because I trust Gigabyte more, AM3 processors work with AM3+, so I'm open to looking at them if anyone can recommend an AM3 processor at a similar price.

 

[RGone]

I bought the GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3 motherboard = So you have bought AMD board already and no sense in backing up now. Get the FX-6100 if that was your first choice. And mainly because the Thubans have just about vanished from many places in retail since AMD intended to force people to buy the FX-series even if it performed less well in single threaded applications like many folks tend to use on the desktop currently.

 

[FreaK367]

I bought the GIGABYTE GA 970A DS3 motherboard = So you have bought AMD board already and no sense in backing up now. Get the FX-6100 if that was your first choice. And mainly because the Thubans have just about vanished from many places in retail since AMD intended to force people to buy the FX-series even if it performed less well in single threaded applications like many folks tend to use on the desktop currently.

It was what I initially wanted, before trying to find positive feedback and finding almost every benchmark, review and comparison being very negative.

I just figure 6 and 8 core processors are the future, I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 - 10 years or even less, 6 and 8 cores are rocking in almost every gaming rig like Quad cores are now. Only problem with them being this early is not a lot really utilizes all of the cores, I hear even windows 7 has problems and people are hoping windows 8 will make more use of them.

That's unless Intel or AMD end up reliably and cheaply producing stock 5+ GHz Quad cores once things become more demanding. I'd guess though the future lies in more cores. Sort of like it did/does with GPU's with regard to CUDA cores/Stream Processors.

Buying the Gigabyte motherboard and 8gb of 1600MHz Vengeance RAM a couple of days ago was more of an impulse buy since I had my mind set on AMD, after spending a lot of time since then doing my research, I feel I may have rushed it a little. Then again, I am on a budget, going intel like going with Nvidia is often the more expensive choice, probably more of a difference between Intel and AMD rather than ATI and Nvidia though.

If there's any promising future processors that will be using AM3+ though, then I could upgrade to that eventually since Bulldozer so far hasn't really had the impact AMD hyped it up for, so a 4100 or 6100 would suffice as long as I wasn't waiting too long for a new AM3+.

 

[iWANTaPC4myBDAY]

NEVER EVER RUSH ON DECIDING PARTS ON A PC

some word of advice, and IM 12 YEARS OLD. I MAY BE A KID, BUT I KNOW MY STUFF.

anyway, you should always get a checklist of what your pc needs.

here is one you should follow:

Who is going to build it/am i going to build it?

hard disk drive or solid state drive?

RAM?

PROCESSOR?

MOTHERBOARD?

VGA CARD?

CASE?

DVD-RW OR BLU-RAY?

SPEAKERS?

OPTIONAL STUFF--

DO I WANT A HEADSET?

WEBCAM?

COOLER FOR HARD DISK DRIVE?

LIGHTS?

hope this helps

btw this is my pc

1x parts and assembly – 1 year parts and labour warranty 1 $70.00 $7.00 $77.00
Patriot Signature 4GB Single DDR3 1333 1 $18.00 $1.80 $19.80
AMD Athlon II x4 631 2.6Ghz FM1 CPU 1 $65.00 $6.50 $71.50
Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 500GB SATA3 7200RPM 16MB HDD 1 $59.00 $5.90 $64.90
AsRock 970-Extreme3 AMD 970 DDR3 Motherboard 1 $94.00 $9.40 $103.40
Powercolor 1GB 6570 PCI-E VGA Card 1 $49.00 $4.90 $53.90
SHAW Titan-G7 Tower Case with PSU 1 $50.00 $5.00 $55.00
LG SATA Black DVD RW 1 $19.00 $1.90 $20.90
Ritmo HS-102 Neck Band Headset 1 $4.00 $0.40 $4.40
RITMO RF-2220 Hard Disk Cooler - Dual Fan 1 $4.00 $0.40 $4.40
A-Power PCI USB2.0 Card - 1 Year Warranty 1 $9.00 $0.90 $9.90
AeroCool Infinite Panel Mobile Rack - 2.5" IDE HDD Enclosure & 25-1 Card Reader 1 $5.00 $0.50 $5.50

USB 2.0 HEADSET JACK CONVERTER ADAPTER (EXTERNAL SOUNDCARD): $2.30
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/USB-2-0-...50190183?pt=AU_Components&hash=item35b3d29967

HDMI TO SVGA CABLE: $2.95
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/HDMI-Gol..._Accessories_Wires_Cables&hash=item4cf9fd42be

15-PIN VGA FEMALE TO FEMALE ADAPTER CONVERTER CHANGER: $1.00
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/15-Pin-V...25?pt=AU_CablesConnectors&hash=item4cf6784699