Sabertooth vs Crosshair V vs GA-990FXA-UD5

[sneejk]

Hello guys,

I'm planning to get new motherboard since on my current i cant get over 4.5 with FX-6300 and i cant decide between those three.

Thing is that i can get GA-990FXA-UD5 for 120$ but dont know how it hadles FX6300. Should i get Gigabyte or just go for Sabertooth or Crosshair V and is the Crosshair worth extra dollars over Sabertooth?

Im planning to go over 5 Ghz. Also im waiting for my new waterloop from EK with 240mm rad to handle the heat from FX6300.

 

[oldbrave]

From the options you've listed there is only ONE choice and that is the ASUS Crosshair V Forumla !

 

[RGone]

What "oldbrave" said...

...I probably would just have given a ^+1 FTW^ with what "oldbrave" said since the principal in my mind is accurate.

However 'sneejk' you said this in your first post.

Im planning to go over 5 Ghz. Also im waiting for my new waterloop from EK with 240mm rad to handle the heat from FX6300.

The +5.0Ghz is what really caught my eye. I know over 5.0ghz is doable.
LINK >>
[email protected]
That link pretty much says it is so and the 5.1Ghz was done on a CHV non-Z mobo. I think there are no more CHV non-Z boards for sale in the Usa at the major E-tailers. Asus is only shipping the CHV-Z boards.

I don't remember C_D's waterblock but he has a three wide radiator with 6 fans in push-pull and he needs it. Did you see the type of Vcore that FX-6300 takes to run at 5.!Ghz? Pretty extreme in my eyes. I have known C_D for a while now and I know he really does not have a personal issue with putting the volts to it if he intends to try for "X" speed.

I may be bordering on TMI (too much info) but wanted to give you a heads-up since it seems we see way too many users that go aground against unrealized expectations.

I see the speeds "Bassnut" and "oldbrave" are running on their FX-8350s and know that my FX-8350 on CHV non-Z board is faster than my FX-8120 in just out and out cpu speed. But I am not seeing the FX-6300s just plain run high cpu speed over their 8 core counter-parts like the FX-6100s and FX-6200s used to do.

Of course every Cpu purchse is a freeken dice roll anyway. But I am not seeing in general where the FX-6300 is a big cpu Mhz flyer. The 8 core 83xx series seem able to go higher, easier, even with more cores, which on the surface seems sort of counter-intuitive.

The reason for perhaps TMI is that we are suggesting a mobo. Well if the FX-6300 does not go WFO as you expect, it will not be the mobo at all IMO. We are now beginning to see some FX-83xx cpus on pretty darn good mobos that struggle to reach a stable 4.55GHz. Something has changed about the PD WFO clocks. More work per-clock than an equal speed of the BD, but seeing more PD that just don't flat out Mhz like the BD did. Just an FYI for and about your prospective purchase. Yep, I know you are going for good cooling. Still just an FYI for the benefit of your mind-set. RGone...

 

[Woomack]

What I'm sure is that you don't want GA-990FXA-UD5

 

[RGone]

What I'm sure is that you don't want GA-990FXA-UD5

I know / knew I did not want one but what exactly is the real reason you have no love for the 990FX UD5? Sounds experiential to me. RGone..

 

[Woomack]

I had 2 of these boards. There are issues with power section and some other things. Generally someone failed it and voltages aren't stable. What is funny, GB said that all is within' specification
Also you really have to know how to set BIOS right for RAID and some other things or performance will be lower than expected.
From other weird things. After harder OC or even memory tweaking you may think that board is dead but usually BIOS is corrupted and there is no other way to fix it than make RMA ( passed that 3 times in 2 months ). Dual BIOS ? ... yes there is, but it's usually not working and since it's Award BIOS then recovery isn't easy if not impossible at home.
All above is about rev 1.0 and 2.0. Now I see there is rev 3.0 so maybe something is better, hard to say.
Anyway it's really better to pay some more for CHV that is one of the best boards that I had ... maybe except that ASUS failed RAID ROM and disabled cache options. I don't know if they fixed that as I gave CHV to my brother some months ago ( with modded BIOS that had RAID ROM from MSI 990FX ) and I just didn't test anything on AMD/FX since then.

 

[RGone]

Thank you "Woomack". Power section was one reason I had said no to the board. Enough that for me, but now I know some of the rest of the story. Thank you again. RGone...

 

[Jagged_Steel]

A few months back I was upgrading the game rig and making a new computer for the wife out of the old stuff. I tried a CHV from Geeks for $149 and they sent me a warped POS that looked like someone had eaten breakfast off of it with a non-functional BIOS chip. There is a thread here about that somewhere. Thinking it must have been a fluke I returned it- full refund and no shipping, and got a $99 refurb Sabertooth because they were out of CHVs. The ST looked pristine when I got it, and performed flawlessly from the get go. I still had the upgrade bug though and wanted to see what the very best (at least most expensive) AMD mobo would do, and saw a CHV OpenBox on Egg for $156 and ordered it too, figuring I would keep whichever board I like the best, as they both had full refund. So for a couple weeks I had both a CHV and Sabertooth and I tried them both out with my current gear, and to my surprise the Sabertooth consistently put out a couple more FPS in games I was testing. Not much, but being a hair better and $65 cheaper I decided to keep the Sabertooth. There are a million things that could have affected why the ST was doing better, but with my gear that was the case and I am 100% happy with the ST.

 

[bmwbaxter]

Hello guys,

I'm planning to get new motherboard since on my current i cant get over 4.5 with FX-6300 and i cant decide between those three.

Thing is that i can get GA-990FXA-UD5 for 120$ but dont know how it hadles FX6300. Should i get Gigabyte or just go for Sabertooth or Crosshair V and is the Crosshair worth extra dollars over Sabertooth?

Im planning to go over 5 Ghz. Also im waiting for my new waterloop from EK with 240mm rad to handle the heat from FX6300.

Crosshair V is a great board, I loved mine! I can't speak about the other boards but I can say you won't be disappointed with the Crosshair V.

 

[sneejk]

Thanks for the input. I guess i will go for Crosshair V then and my SSD upgrade will have to wait . But currently out of stock in computer shop close to me. Just wanted to know if there's much difference between the boards since there prices are not in the same range.

 

[RGone]

@ sneejk, I like the CHV even in non-Z for my FX-8350. The bios is a dream compared to some. The LLC circuit operates like I expect it to act. I could go on likely. BUT that does not mean the Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 is not a good board. It is. From a close friend with both the CHV non-Z and a Sabertooth 990FX non-R2.0, he likes his Sabertooth 990FX just a shade better. It does CHV type things a little differently.

Over the last year or so, it seems at least 6 maybe 7 users in the AMD cpu section bought the Sabertooth non-R2.0 board because I recommended it time and time again. None of those have ever had a bad word to say about their Sab990FX.

I think it sort depends on whether or not one just wants to go WFO on some manner of very super cooling. DICE/LN2 or similar. Then I would likely say CHV and nothing but. If that is not your intent, then I would have no qualms about you getting the Sab990FX board. 5 year warranty for the Sab990FX versus 3 year warranty on the CHV. Don't know if that is of value to you.

This board at this price >> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131877

This board at this price >>
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157267

The same buddy that has CHV and Sab990FX has also bought the Asrock Fatal1ty mobo and he likes it very well. In fact last I talked to him after h*ll he had getting the Fatal1 Asrock up and going with a flash of bios to the later version...well now he also is raving about the Fatal1. I think his Fatal1 Asrock has an FX4170 in it running 24/7 at 4.8Ghz on water.

We all have our choices and it is best to ask from those that overclock if you intend to do so. Standard running...crap nearly any board can do that. Then pitch overclocking into the mix and all bets can be off. How easily it is to setup the bios and when setting something in bios seeing the outcome that was expected means a h*ll of lot.

The CHV, the Sab990FX and maybe only lately the Asrock Fatal1ty, seem to do what is expected when overclocked all things being equal. Now at the two price points that only vary by $10Usd in above links; I would likely go Sab990FX, but if I wanted a new fun ride...I might even go with the Fatal1 board. Just for the journey since I now know what my buddy has to say about his with the latest bios.

I think if you stay towards the top tier of boards, you will not be disappointed in your results. Remember any electrical component can fail. Heck you might have a DOA on any board.

EDIT:
After re-reading what I wrote, I might make this add; in the overall scope of things, you also want a board that is common to others. There are many of us in this forum that you can ask about overclocking CHV and Sab990FX here in the mobo section and there are people here who know how to overclock and have good results. Now that does mean something to me.
END EDIT.

RGone...

 

[sneejk]

Hey again,
i was gone for a while, was installing new waterloop and leak test for 1 day also had some private problems but i would thank you all for the time for your posts, really appreciate it.
I ended up buying new Gigabyte-990FXA-UD7 for 60 bucks on auction. For that kind of money i think is a good decision. After all i can sold it for higher price and buy better mobo if it turns out bad for OCing. Probably it will come in next 2 weeks. Cant wait to try it

 

[RGone]

Hey again,
i was gone for a while, was installing new waterloop and leak test for 1 day also had some private problems but i would thank you all for the time for your posts, really appreciate it.
I ended up buying new Gigabyte-990FXA-UD7 for 60 bucks on auction. For that kind of money i think is a good decision. After all i can sold it for higher price and buy better mobo if it turns out bad for OCing. Probably it will come in next 2 weeks. Cant wait to try it

Glad some things are sorting out. We don't see a lot of the UD7's in the forum. Just the cheaper UD3's. It will be nice to see how the UD7 is doing. One user in the forum was between the UD7 and some other not cheap boards and he mentioned VRM issues with the UD7 as his 'wondering' issue about the board. I have not seen the VRM as an issue mentioned in some of the UD7 threads I have followed lately so maybe there has been a change for the better.

Good luck man and keep us updated.
RGone...

 

[ssjwizard]

Provided the board you ordered isnt in a terrible state of disrepair you should be quite happy with your UD7. I have used a handful of 9xx series Gigabytes and none of them have been disappointing. It may not be as awesome as a CHV but its no slouch either.