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I am in the market for a new AMD motherboard that has the following features:
Any AMD motherboard recommendations? FYI, My current build is:
Thanks |
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the closest to meeting your needs without going to a server board is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128509&Tpk=gigabyte%20990fxa-ud5 it has 4 USB 3.0 ports (2 rear USB 3 ports and a header for an additional 2 front panel USB 3.0 ports) it supports a max of 32GB of memory, (64GB is more common for server boards) also understand that going to server motherboards means that you will lose onboard USB 3.0 and in most cases, onboard audio, you will also go out of the ATX spec which means you may have to build your own case if you want something that will hold the motherboard, provide the standard airflow that most consumer addons are designed around and also have enough space for large videocards. if needed, I recommend going with the 990fxa-UD5, then add an extra pci express x1 USB 3.0 card (to meet your requirement of 5+) Understand that most professional application suits are designed around a 16GB memory environment and unless you are running many professional applications at the same time, you will not easily exceed 16GB memory usage, this is why it is common to see a workstation system with 32GB of RAM, and a 12-16GB RAM disk and a dedicated SSD for the professional application, (eg if the application allows more than scratch disk, then you check the ram disk and the SSD, then you add yet another SSD which will hold the content that you are working on, then if needed, another large SSD which holds the OS and the various installed professional applications PS for gaming performance the Phenom II x6 1100t is a far better CPU for gaming than any of the current FX 8 core chips. AMD sacrificed a great deal of single threaded performance to add 8 threads, (they basically decided to redefine what a CPU core is, by using one of the components that make up the traditional CPU core, this allows them to take a quad core chip, add a little extra cache and a few other components to make the core handle an extra thread, then call it an 8 core chip (intel's implementation of this was called hyperthreading, (while AMD did double more components in their implementation, the vast majority of the processing components are shared between the cores, thus causing issues such as additional load one 1 core will effect the performance of another core, eg if you look at the die image of an FX 8 core chip, it looks a lot like a quad core chip also most current games will only use 2-3 cores at most http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8150-zambezi-bulldozer-990fx,3043-6.html
I was considering the 990fxa-UD5 but it lacks number of USB 3.0 I need. What do you think of the 990fxa-UD7? Any major benefits over the UD5? 1
the UD7 just offers more pcie x16 slots and not much else, no need for that unless you want to do 3 way SLI none of the motherboards seem to be offering 5+ USB 3 ports so if you want that, you will have to add something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815201051 |
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Personally, I would wait until Piledriver comes out. I'm sure that a slue of new motherboards will come out that support the latest standards (maybe even better chipsets). I've always had great success with Asus motherboards, and I recommend Asus over all of the other brands. |
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If you want a board that supports 64GB, the only place you will have any luck is with an Intel 2011 board. I am yet to see in AMD motherboard that supports this, as most boards only support 4 DIMMS, which in todays market equals a maximum of 32GB of RAM (4 x 8GB). Some 2011 socket motherboards support up to 8 DIMMS, which at the moment is the only way of using 64GB RAM on a desktop motherboard (unless you use an EVGA SR-2/X Board, which are socket 1366 and 2011 Xeon Boards) |
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Thanks catchatyou, I ended up getting the 990FXA-UD7 because I couldn't find the UD5. So far so good, PC purring like a kitten. The upgrade to SATA3 and USB3.0 was defiantly worth it. |
