FX6300 + Asus M5A97 or Asus M5A97 LE or compatible Gigabyte

aromal

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Jul 4, 2007
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Hi community,

I am in the process of finalizing the various components required for my next build and bit overwhelmed with the choices of MoBos and moreover the long term stability and compatibility between various components.

Proposed build
Processor FX 6300
MoBo Asus M5A97 or LE version or ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2
Case : N300 Cooler master + 350w coolermaster power supply
Drive 1 : Samung 840 Pro 128 ( OS Drive )
Drive 2: 7k2 rpm SATA HDD for Data
Memory : G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) PC RAM (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL)

I am looking at USB 3.0 on case front and 6Gbps SATA +graphics support.

Please see whether the combo above is good to go with which motherboard considering the requirements listed. Hope the overall system is upgradeable too from the MoBo perspective.

Thanks.


 
Solution
If you're looking to have USB 3 on the front of the case, the motherboard needs to have onboard USB 3.0 headers, which the M5A97 LE does not have. The M5A97 (non LE) is $3 more, and has onboard USB 3.0 headers.

The ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2 also does not have onboard USB 3.0 headers, does not have SATA 6gb/s, and uses the 760G chipset where the other two use the 970 chipset (which I would reccommend with the FX-6300)

I would go with the Non LE M5A97.

Edit: The only one with onboard graphics is the ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2. However, it uses the 760G chipset and no USB 3.0 headers like stated above.

potatofarms

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If you're looking to have USB 3 on the front of the case, the motherboard needs to have onboard USB 3.0 headers, which the M5A97 LE does not have. The M5A97 (non LE) is $3 more, and has onboard USB 3.0 headers.

The ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2 also does not have onboard USB 3.0 headers, does not have SATA 6gb/s, and uses the 760G chipset where the other two use the 970 chipset (which I would reccommend with the FX-6300)

I would go with the Non LE M5A97.

Edit: The only one with onboard graphics is the ASUS M5A78L-M LX V2. However, it uses the 760G chipset and no USB 3.0 headers like stated above.
 
Solution

aromal

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What do you think about Asus M5A88-M ? Is it a good board to consider ? If not I will need to look at M5A97. With M5A97 would I need to have graphics card ? or is it inbuilt ?

 

potatofarms

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The M5A88-M does not have USB 3.0 headers for the front panel of the case, but it does have onboard graphics.
With the M5A97 you would need a graphics card of some sort (doesn't have to be expensive) as it does not have onboard graphics.
 
I hope you are not planning to power that system with the included 350w Cooler Master PSU? It is crap and way underpowered. Get a good quality 650w PSU from Corsair Antec Seasonic XFX and stay away from Cooler Master PSU they are not the best. The one thing to note is that the PSU is the heart of your system and if it blows it can take the rest of the system with it.

A friend of mine had a Cooler Master PSU go and it took his motherboard ram and HD 6950 with it. Because he went with a cheap PSU it cost him over $400 to get his system back up and running and still does not have a GPU as good as the one that died.
 

aromal

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Went for LE version, could have scouted for the non LE version. But overall I am very happy with the M5A97 series. They are definitely VFM motherboards for the price. Display card has to be bought but its not very costly and gives better features wrt gaming and dual monitor set ups for office.