Recommendation for 990FX Board Around £120?

Ro-Tang Clan

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Jun 22, 2013
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Hi,

My current 990FX board is on it's way out and instead of fixing it or RMA'ing the thing, I figured I would just buy another one (not willing to wait for RMA)

So my question is, can anyone recommend a board within this price bracket and that fits my preferences please?

Preferences -
¬ 24bit/196Khz lossless support
¬ Clear CMOS button (handy when overclocking)
¬ 8+2 Power Phase
¬ USB 3.0 Header
¬ UEFI

I have been looking at the Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 board as it does come with most of my preferences, although I'm unsure on the lossless audio. Is someone able to confirm this please? I really like the colour scheme of the Gigabyte board, but unless you're spending a lot more for the UD7, it doesn't look like the UD5 (model within budget) has all the features.

My current board is a MSI 990FX-GD80 and honestly, it does everything I need. It is a little outdated though and I'm rather sad that despite being an avid MSI fan, they seem to have neglected AMD users and concentrate on the Intel side of things. Intel are now using their Military Class 4 components, while the 990FX-GD80 is trotting along with the Military Class 2 lineup despite being the top AM3+ board MSI has to offer. Although that said, I love the fact this GD80 board includes clickBIOS and a Clear CMOS button along with lossless audio support.

I can purchase another 990FX-GD80 board for £115: http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-990FXA-GD80-Motherboard-Processor-AMD990FX/dp/B004ZHC1X8/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1394880363&sr=1-2&keywords=MSI+990fx

Is it worth buying another of this board because it does everything I want, or is it worth looking at the other brands?
 

Ro-Tang Clan

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Jun 22, 2013
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I Didn't even know this board existed haha, thanks for that I'll have to research it. Just having a gander at it, it looks similar to the Asus Crosshair V Formula-Z by the way it looks. The colour scheme doesn't match my build, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't really matter. It's just nice to have something that fits the colour. (NZXT Phantom 410 Gunmetal with white LED fans& RAM). Many thanks for the suggestion though, atleast I have 1 other to consider now :)
 


I find this onehaving a lot off functions for the price so i would find i being worth it.
 

Ro-Tang Clan

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Jun 22, 2013
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Yeah it does have a lot of features for the price, especially the high end audio. Although it's catered towards earphones and headsets, I won't be using one of those. Instead I use a HDMI cable from the graphics card into a Yamaha RXV775 (7.2ch) home theatre receiver.

The only thing I can't find info on is whether it has a Clear CMOS button or not. I've had to use it a few times on the GD80 board.

I know this is out of my initial budget, but I've just seen the ASRock 990FX Extreme9 board for £150 which looks awesome and is a hands down win over the other boards I've seen in terms of features and hardware. The only downside with this board from what I can see is that people are reporting it runs really hot, with some people reporting 50C on idle. Is this true? Do you know anyone with this board to confirm?
 


I don't know about the 990fx extreme 9s heating problems so no answer to that and there is a clea rcmos button called reset instead off clear cmos.
 

Ro-Tang Clan

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Jun 22, 2013
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Thanks for confirming the stability of the Killer board, it sounds like the MSI board I have now. I was able to run my FX-8320 on 4.2GHz on stock voltage before I bumped the Vcore to 1.40007V and now I run 4.5GHz. I do think I can push it further, but I see no reason to be honest. At this current voltage, it's not stable at anything above.

The Killer does seem like a really nice board for the price, packed with a ton of features oozing of quality, but I think I'm going to spend the extra £30 to get an ASRock Extreme 9 board. I think it's the red and black colour scheme that's putting me off the Killer, otherwise it would of been a solid buy.

Had it of not been for people on this thread, I wouldn't of even considered ASRock. I just thought they were a cheap (in quality) knockoff manufacturer. Many thanks from everyone!