Future Planning a Mobo Replacment

[Niku-Sama]

ok so its getting time to replace my motherboard, theres been some issues as of late and its probably not long before it's going to have some major issues.

I have a Biostar TA 890FXE, have had it since they were brand new to shelves several years ago and I have pushed it with a estimated 170 watt cpu load since I got it, its had some problems the whole time like incorrectly labled bios options (533Mhz ram setting is actually 667Mhz as well as others) but minor until recently...
OC has become unstable, went from running 3.8Ghz with 800Mhz ram to 3.5Ghz and 637Mhz ram, onboard components are beginning to fail. Onboard sound is gone, jammed a SB Audigy gold in recently, secondary SATA controllers work intermittently. its just had a hard life specs are in the sig. for finer details.

I'm not going to call it future proofing because we all know how that goes, it'll probably be just a motherboard replacement and move everything with it but it could be more.
I just ordered some more ram so i'll be running 16Gb of G.SKILL Sniper 2133 instead of 16Gb of G.SKILL Ripjaws 1333 I had ordered the ram any way because it was always a limiting factor for my system, it was decent ram a few years ago (3) when I bought it but theres so much faster now for the same price I paid for this. so the wife is getting the Ripjaws and that will be 8Gb more than she has and i'll get her faster set plus another set of the same so i'll have 16Gb of 2133

so with that in mind how should I go about a motherboard replacement?
I'm not sure if I should get an AM3+ mobo and move my CPU over with it or if I should save up a little more and possibly wait a little longer (providing nothing else fails) and get a new motherboard AND cpu?
it seems to me that AMD hasn't improved upon efficiency clock per clock much lately on their enthusiast stuff, the mid range APU has improved a lot but its still not quite as brute force as the AM3+ stuff from what I have seen.
then again I haven't been up on stuff recently.

also yes, I've narrowed it down to the mobo. I jammed this all into a mATX board I had laying around and the results are better, but it has no X Fire ability so overall games run more slowly

 

[RGone]

It all depends on money and future intent with 6 or 8 core FX processors...

...I would suggest the Asus board below if you NEVER ever intend to go with a hefty overclock beyond 4.3Ghz with a 6 or 8 core FX AM3+ FX processor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131874
ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0
PCIe slots > 2 (x16 or dual x8)
If you have plans to venture beyond your Thuban processor, there are other Asus boards that of course are very much well suited to the FX 6 and 8 core processors. More money and why I stipulated as above about your FX intentions.


The board below has the CrossfireX limits as shown by the transfer rates fo the PCIe slots. However it may do fairly well if you go to and FX processor and want to clock it up in the 4.5Ghz range or higher with Awesome Cooling.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128651
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P
PCIe slots > 2 (x16, x4) <<ALL 970 Chipset motherboards have that transfer speed in CrossfireX.

You can go with older stuff of course. I expect you can even find an older style 890FX mobo on ebay. It is up to you decide how you really intend to proceed in the processor update scenario.
RGone...ster.

 

[Niku-Sama]

hmm yea asus and I don't get along, learned that one with the Pentium 2 board I had...that was a while ago but it still seems to hold true from what I have seen.

the second gigglebyte board would be good but I would have to have at least 8x on that second slot.

and yea my max on this CPU has been 4.2, was only achievable during the winter in the garage ambient was high 40's F and it was a much more choked off case, brand new case now TONS of fans but I'm still not going deaf so theres room to grow, planning on jamming 2 NMB double thicks on the scyte in the sig and seeing if I can get a more stable daily 4.0.
I've done some more research and it doesn't seem to be any danger of AMD abandoning AM x (+) any time soon and if they continued in the speculation is that they would be backwards compatible although not quite enough info out there to judge if they will do the dual ram controllers again like they did in the past with the DDR 2/3 switch. probably be another 3 years before affordable, compatible, decent timing DDR4 comes out any way.

another issue I just thought of is do the new mobos still unlock the older processors?

that's not much of a thing really any more and my CPU was a 960T to start off with

 

[Johan45]

Some of the new boards have the option and some don't. I'm fairly certain that the GA-990FXA-UD3 (rev. 4.0) does and also has dual x16 for Xfire. I do know that the Rev2 sabertooth and CHV-z don't have the option to unlock cores but they're both great boards to push an 8 core FX on.

 

[RGone]

Niku-Sama, 'johan' is correct in that many of the newer boards are not going to unlock older processors. I don't need such since am on FX processor already. And speaking very candidly, there are not boards still unlocking older processors that "I" would have for FX 8 core processors. Maybe some that will do okay but not one i would have. That simple from where I sit.

Since the rumor is that AMD will not actually release anything in the discrete cpu lineup for desktop until 2016, it would be 'most' unlikely that it will be backward compatible with anything now in the AMD stable. I hear they are going back to a semi-netburst archtecture that is similar to the architecture of the Haswell processors used by Intel today. I doubt seriously that such will fit the socket 942 criteria at all.

It is entirely possible that you can pay so much attention to the older cpus and not the newer FX lineup that you can wind up handicapping yourself if you move to FX before the end of 2015. I don't suggest you move to FX and because of that I might even shop ebay to find a full on n0t AMD 9xx chipset and run that Thuban you have now for all it is worth and wait out 2015 altogether. Just how my thinking has become with nothing new to upgrade to with AMD. I have more than one FX-8 core so I am not hurting for something to run by any means. Just FYI from as big a picture as I can paint. Good fortune to you sir.
RGone...ster.

 

[Niku-Sama]

hmm when I read that info before I thought I was going to have almost 2 years before they came out with something new but I forgot its 2015 now so around about a year....no sence in spending a bunch o money on something that's going to be replaced faily quickly. I found the order for my current motherboard in my newegg order history and it was 2/10/2011 so just shy of 4 years, I think I got my monies worth out of it.

after helping bulid 3 computers now I wound up sticking MSI boards in them and have been pleased with them, they fit the users budgets and I knew it wasn't a crap brand, maybe I can get something to hold me over for sub $100. if it doesent unlock I guess I could always push 4 cores harder than 6

 

[caddi daddi]

I'd keep the thuban and update the board if you stay amd, the thuban is a great chip.
2133 ram is fx ram, 1600 ram for thuban.

 

[RGone]

I'd keep the thuban and update the board if you stay amd, the thuban is a great chip. The Thuban is 'great' chip unless you get awesome AM3+ mobo and mighty good cooling to push the FX-8core into the 4.6 to 4.8Ghz range for all day, every day use. That cooling is not so very cheap.

2133 ram is fx ram, 1600 ram for thuban. I agree with C_D here. You can get DDR3-2133 but it needs to be some tight stuff so you can tighten way on up for use at about DDR3-1600 with a Thuban processor. However the extra price for DDR3-2133 will be wasted for use at a much later date, since the next version of AMD will likely be DDR4.

RGone...ster.

 

[bob4933]

Can I persuade you to go intel? Haha

 

[caddi daddi]

nothing wrong with going intel, i did and I'm one of the worlds biggest amd fanbois!!!!

 

[RGone]

I have thought Intel over the last 3 days. Put all the numbers in. Got a overall price of about $2100.00 but doing some looking in the background, the X99 is just not showing real success. Not success for a bunch in other words.

Then I went back and looked at the reviews from the same site and same author from Sandy Bridge-E to Hawell-E and nothing exciting going on. Few more cores. Few more Sata Ports and Usb 3.0 support as you move toward Haswell-E but that is it. Few points in benches. I think I will buy a pistol instead or take a trip to MA. Hehehe.
RGone...ster.

 

[bob4933]

I have thought Intel over the last 3 days. Put all the numbers in. Got a overall price of about $2100.00 but doing some looking in the background, the X99 is just not showing real success. Not success for a bunch in other words.

Then I went back and looked at the reviews from the same site and same author from Sandy Bridge-E to Hawell-E and nothing exciting going on. Few more cores. Few more Sata Ports and Usb 3.0 support as you move toward Haswell-E but that is it. Few points in benches. I think I will buy a pistol instead or take a trip to MA. Hehehe.
RGone...ster.

I'm a HUGE proponent of cost/benefit ratio. The 5820 is "there" in terms of brute power. But combining a 300$ motherboard and 200$ ram, that fades pretty fast.

Considering fx chips really need a healthy over clock to be competitive, that requires a stout motherboard which also deteriorates the cost/benefit ratio for these things.

Rigjt now it seems a zero sum game, but the power favors the one side of the house unfortunately. Pcie lanes, core count, single threaded performance.... its a miracle amd has any sales at all . Luckily for them, ignorant buyers (myself included unfortunately...) pair an 8 core fx chip and a cheap mobo and call it a day.

Knowing what I know now, I wish I went i7, albeit inferior performance for applications I use.

 

[RGone]

Pcie lanes << that one is not in Intel's court unless you are willing to buy a +$600 cpu. The mobo makers have left off the extra chip for more PCIe lanes and now it is all hinged on whether you buy one of the big boy cpus. The entry level $389 dollar cpu has only 28 lanes and it takes the next one up to get a real 40 lanes. That board of course to use those lanes is a mite more pricey.
RGone...ster.

 

[Niku-Sama]

i'll actually push faster than 1600
I still bus and multi overclock instead of just multi like a lot of people seem to have gone back to doing like back in the old days.

235x15, HT bus is left alone with some added juice
its usually 250x15 but since the instabilities its been dropped

load times are pretty sweet, would be even better with an SSD I am sure and that's where the computer seemed to be lacking.

the 2133 was $70 bucks though with better timings at 2133 than mine are at 1600 and as some one said I'd probably be able to really tighten up those timings at 1600. maybe i'll see a cas 7 if I really worked it

 

[bob4933]

Pcie lanes << that one is not in Intel's court unless you are willing to buy a +$600 cpu. The mobo makers have left off the extra chip for more PCIe lanes and now it is all hinged on whether you buy one of the big boy cpus. The entry level $389 dollar cpu has only 28 lanes and it takes the next one up to get a real 40 lanes. That board of course to use those lanes is a mite more pricey.
RGone...ster.

Man, you are a bucket of information. I must have looked at something else a while, I had no idea the fx 8 cores had 40 pcie lanes. Thanks

 

[Niku-Sama]

impending doom is closer than I thought for this board.

booted up today, booted fine but one windows loaded it told me I needed to restart for new hardware settings. I looked into it before I did. the CPU shows up as a 960T again. The mobo changed it on its own with out any action from me but it never gave a failure error on post not did it revert completely back to stock because the rest of my OC settings are still in place.

theres a $460 bonus coming my way. taxes will eat about $120 of that so that will still leave me with enough to get a SSD and Mobo

 

[Niku-Sama]

had some un expected expenses come up, random good deals and I cracked a tooth in the back of my head so I had to get a crown.
I have enough for a mobo still but I am struggling to make a decision on some.

heres what I am looking at...

ASRock 990FX Extreme 6
ASRock 970 Performance
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer
MSI 990FXA-GD65V2
MSI 970 Gaming
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3

I'm sure people are wondering why I haven't bought the gigabyte board yet and that's because I am still trying to figure out if theres going to be a clearance issue with the heatsink on the board and the cpu heatsink I have.
Plus I wanted to get some input on the others while I am checking on that. as you can see the price range is about $120 but cheaper would be better of course so theres a few lower ones in there.

I like the idea of the mSATA connector on the ASRock boards but I am concerned with their bulid quality/bios options. I get reports that they are a little lacking in those areas
I've built other computers with MSI boards for my wife and friends and was pleased with the bios options, the sacrificed some of the gimmicky "features" for better quality components it seems. last MSI board I owned was Socket A
Gigabyte is Gigabyte, well rounded well regarded dual 16x slots are nice but that board seems cluttered, that bugs me. the 4x slots are too close to the 16x rendering them useless for me as they would suffocate my cards. I kinda feel like if those weren't there I would save money on something I wasn't going to use any way.

I'm aiming for atleast 16x and 8x express slots(dual 16's would be nice though), support for 8 cores only for power consumption headroom. I've been thinking on what people have said before and i'll probably take a moderate upgrade to see what comes out in a few years. upgrade the board and probably a decent 4 or 6 core processor I can overclock if I find this cpu is on its way out aswell as my board. the rest of everything will migrate later on or to other computers.

 

[Xenohitsu]

saw this the other day. New budget 970 board: http://www.fudzilla.com/news/motherboards/37227-biostar-releases-budget-am3-board-for-enthusiasts

 

[TorqueRanger]

The MSI 970 Am3+ Gaming board is a really nice setup and that's what I am using in my current build listed in my Signature .. But what was explained to me was the MSI 970 Gaming Cpu socket gets really hot cause the MB has a max rating of 125w so if you plan on using 125w cpu then I would watch the socket temps or just add a small fan to back of the mb to cool the socket ..

 

[Niku-Sama]

hmm yea just skimmed through that thread in your sig. I don't think I have room for a fan back there
lemme know how you like the board though

edit:
my wifes computer just **** the bed doing a bios update, it was a MSI, we'll see how well they handle this since I did everything by the book on the update that might have an affect on who I pick for mine.