Kinda Urgent: 990FXA Gaming Replacement / Backup

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moosedoctor

moosedoctor

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My MSI 990FXA's CPU socket broke. I am on the market for a replacement while it is being RMA'd. I will list my parts and uses, and would appreciate if you could point me in the right direction even if it isn't one of the two I listed below.

FX8350: passes very long Prime95 tests at 211MHz x 21 (4431 MHz) and 211 x 21.5 (4536.5 MHz). I want the new board to hit these numbers at a minimum.
Water cooled.
2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 @ 1,833
EVGA 1070 SC
EVGA 600W power supply
USB 3.1 is nice but not a requirement.

I'm used to running Witcher 3 on ultra settings at 140+fps.

Here are the two 970 chipsets I had in mind as a temporary and backup board:

ASRock 970A-G/3.1 $78.99
ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura $103.60

Thanks in advance. I would like to order it tonight so your quick responses would be appreciated very much.

Eren
 
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moosedoctor

moosedoctor

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^ Yes, that is the one.

I've decided to go with the Asus 970 Aura, which lacks 200MHz on the HT compared to the 990fxa (but should not be noticable). Amazon had it for $101 and I get to pick it up in the morning from the Amazon store that is a bike ride away. They have stores now, apparently. Or just pickup locations.

I bought into the 7+1 model based on the argument that northbridge will do fine with a single phase. I hope. The evga 1070 has its own power, and it is the only card I have on PCI. Also the M.2 socket on the Asus was a big selling point for me.

When it comes to MSI..oh, MSI... My 990FXA Gaming is a decent board but there are a couple of things that annoy me to no end= PCIe #1 connector came off along with my wifi card on day 1. Shotty craftsmanship. Next, PCIe locks are very weak. Definitely was not designed with double-slot GPUs in mind. They break easily. Most annoying part is their BIOS. It will ONLY allow you to add or subtract voltage from an unknown, system-determined value. I found by trial and error that +0.09 to +.14v work well with my oc settings, and maintains the CPU at 1.425 max, but you can get there with +.09 or +.14. It offsets CPU voltage accordingly, which I don't like. It is almost impossible to go past it because you aren't in control of the CPU voltage, ever. Also, they market the board as if it had all PCI 16x slots when it really only has one.

With that said, it'll be interesting to see how the Asus 970 scores compared to the brand new 990FXA I'm supposed to receive at the end of the month. I have high hopes from Asus.
 
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atljsf

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connector came off? what are you doing with it?

about the locks, new msi has very good locks, in fact i think those are the same push to eject that asus uses

it has one pci express x16 with all 16 lanes feed

the others are x16 in only the shape, the rest are feed by 8 lanes, especially if there is a pci express gpu inserted, just as the other pcs in the market, with the exception of the x99 which has more pci e lanes to feed all those slots so you can keep 2 slots at x16, not just at x8
 
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junkeymonkey

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thing to look at are the board vrm's with a 120w cpu I don't think I would go with a 4 phase board and if you do any OCing best stick with a 6 at min or the common 8 phase for them

these giga 990fx ud3 boards been a solid workhorse and desgined for ''true'' use with up to 220w chips

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme3/?cat=Specifications

then boards you listed are more for lower 95 watt cpu's AMD liks power get a board that can better give it to it with out issue like the 4 phase getting overheated trying to

[opinion]

 
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junkeymonkey

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my buddy has a gigs 990fx ud3 rev 3 and his son has a asrock 990fx extreme 9 as far as I know there still happy with then 2 ??

for a 970 this look interesting '' The VRM for the CPU features 8+2 phases ''

Read more: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7795/gigabyte-970-gaming-sli-amd-motherboard-review/index3.html

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128898


thing is that 990fx UD3 rev 5 with more features with the 990 chipset is on sale for less after rebates [86 bucks ] hard to over look that

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128859
 
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moosedoctor

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The Gigabyte 970 has pretty much identical features as the Asus that's on its way to me minus an M.2 port. I am a HUGE FAN of the metal reinforced PCIE sockets. HUGE fan. It bothers me that most PCIE sockets are rinkydink cheap pieces of crap and come out occasionally.
 
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junkeymonkey

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biggest plus for me is its not a ASUS then I guess on the pro side of things its one of a few of there boards that don't have 20 bios updates for ''system stability '' yet LOL....... like I tell folks my LAST 3 asus's were my ''LAST'' [opinion] they got more in to hype then support and quality to me these days [more opinion]

anyway just wanted to give you some options to look at

good luck

I guess they could of removed a bunch to make thing not look so bad on it lot missing between 0402 and 0901 ????

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/970-PRO-GAMING-AURA/HelpDesk_Download/
 
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moosedoctor

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Did not get resolved exactly the way I was hoping. Turns out both the 990FXA and the 8350 bit the dust. The Asus 970 Aura arrived last night. I have my FX6300 on it. It manages to match or beat the single core scores of my 8350. Single core is what matters for gaming so far anyway, so I don't expect a huge dip in fps. I'm actually able to overclock the EVGA 1070SC way farther and stably than I ever could with the 990FXA + 8350 setup.

6300vs8350_firestrike_extreme.jpg

a>



I tried and found different setups for different situations. Keeping the bus at 200 and just playing with voltage & multiplier yields better gaming results. Up the bus to 211 and multiplier 21.5 with the right voltage will get you better CPUZ and possibly 3dmark and cinebench, but it most likely will not be stable enough to pass a 15 minute Prime95 fft test.
 
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junkeymonkey

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good deal, that looks better than having nothing working at all

enjoy

I all ways built AMD and AM3+ is what drove me to intel for my first time ever in 16 years - I did 3 build 3 cpu's [tried all in each board] sets of memory , ect,,,, and was never happy or satisfied finely cut my losses and got this z87 and never looked back . cant say in any way it was a wrong move .. far happier now that Am3+ was a total let down over what I got from AMD in the past heck I used my older 939 and Am2 more then the new ''better'' AM3+ builds


anyway glad you got something going your way and hope you the best with it
 
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moosedoctor

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Agreed - I am thinking about making the switch over to the blue team as well. I have never had a non-overclocked AMD because they just don't keep up. I enjoy working and tweaking it, but not when it dies running on a very stable speed. Goes for both the CPU and the chipset in my case. Also while we're on the topic - I REALLY like what Intel's done with the CPU pins (or lack there of).

I still have to keep AMDs close though. I build custom, console-looking 4K Windows PCs and SteamBoxes.

As soon as the RMA's are done I think I might sell the FX6300, FX8350, MSI 990FXA Gaming and Asus 970 Gaming. That should buy me a 6600K and a piece of cardboard to glue it on.
But seriously, I really like what Asus has done with their boards and BIOS. What chipset or board would you recommend if I want to hold onto my Vengeance LP DDR3 until it's time to double up on the 1070s? (so I don't need more than 1x16x pcie)
 
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junkeymonkey

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well ??? I'm pretty happy with this asrock z87 extreme 6 I'd say its been one of the better boards I've had in awile

I aint too hip on the skylake and how it tends to strand you to that malware called windows 10 .. and I never cared about these ''cross over platforms like how 775 was ddr2 and ddr3 and skylake is a ddr3 to ddr4 ''combo'' memory controller

I don't see myself doing a build any time soon with the state things are in today , just a bunch of junk that don't seem to work too well together and your personal computer is now a public one and then unlike the good old days its now they don't support you and your needs but you now got to support them and there needs .. then once I cant use windows 7 anymore i'll be all Linux or just may not even do anymore new builds ,
 
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atljsf

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the pins are delicate so looks nice no to have any, but intel just replaced pins with those stupidly delicate surface contacts that end damaged just by looking at them

each concept has pros and cons

about killing the 8350 days ago jayz2cents on youtube had a similar situation ,a bad overclock killed cpu with a too high voltage

weird to see how many people end happy with a 6 core cheap cpu from 2012
 
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junkeymonkey

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well with my first AM3+ my buddy and I got all the same parts except the cpu's he get a 8100 and I got a 6100 and the 8100 was stronger but not by much like one test we did he did it in 18 sec and I did it in 20 sure was not like any WOW between the 2 so for the cost between them I was ok

then like his scores above the stress on the cpu used is the physics test score and the physics score FPS . that all cpu and you see the slight difference from that in his runs the rest is all card

matter of fact you see the 6100 had a slightly better graphics score and his card was able to boost a tad bit higher as well

kinda makes the 8350 look a bit underwhelming for the cost of the 2 chips . no wow factor at all
 
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moosedoctor

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Luckily I had this 6300 laying around. I put it on the Asus 970 with a water cooler. By the way I really like Asus' BIOS setup screen. Loadline calibration is a great function that MSI does not have. Back to the 6300=great overclocker. It is currently running at 4551.4 Mhz with a 21.5 x 211 overclock. Never had one that went 30% over factory stably and do it at 1.416v, below max voltage. Even my 8350 wouldn't Prime95 past 4.4-4.5Ghz.
 
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moosedoctor

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Um so I played around with bus & multiplier very gently, got it up to 4600 stably, but I cut back down to 4553 because/thereby I am still able to type and porn.

Anyway I played around with it, ran CPU-Z benchmark at least 20 times, and every time I come up way higher than my 8350 did. It always comes up with 1340 single core and 6603-6605 multiple core. What blew my mind is when I hit validate & compare. HOW THE F am I the second highest AMD multiple score in the entire thing? A 9000 series AMD beat me by a few points. The rest are i-7 obviously.
 
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junkeymonkey

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the 8350 here by mad shot is higher at a slightly less overclock ?? page 3 I assume you higher clock helped on single ?

poljda on 4 - so on looks like depends on the overclock ??

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/share-your-cpuz-benchmarks.216765/page-3


try this

http://www.numberworld.org/y-cruncher/


on Linux but windows runs are close to the same that I seen here on my 2 rigs

A LINUX RUN ----
Processor(s): Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz
> Logical Cores: 4
> Physical Memory: 16,756,445,184 bytes ( 15.6 GiB )
> CPU Frequency: 3,398,990,144 Hz
> Program Version: 0.6.7 Build 9457 (Linux - x64 AVX2 ~ Airi)
> Constant: Pi
> Algorithm: Chudnovsky Formula
> Decimal Digits: 1,000,000,000
> Hexadecimal Digits: Disabled
> Threading Mode: 4 threads
> Computation Mode: Ram Only
> Working Memory: 4,859,459,952 bytes ( 4.52 GiB )
> Logical Disk Usage: 0 bytes ( 0 bytes )
> Start Date: Wed Feb 25 03:01:59 2015
> End Date: Wed Feb 25 03:05:01 2015
> Computation Time: 174.334 seconds
> Total Time: 182.220 seconds
> CPU Utilization: 385.460 %
> Multi-core Efficiency: 96.365 %


Processor(s): AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight-Core Processor
Logical Cores: 8
Physical Memory: 16,720,162,816 bytes ( 15.5 GiB )
CPU Frequency: 4,715,679,744 Hz

Program Version: 0.6.8 Build 9461 (Linux - x64 XOP ~ Miyu)
Constant: Pi
Algorithm: Chudnovsky Formula
Decimal Digits: 1,000,000,000
Hexadecimal Digits: Disabled
Threading Mode: Thread Spawn (1 Thread/Task) -> ? / 8
Computation Mode: Ram Only
Working Memory: 5,092,016,776 bytes ( 4.74 GiB )
Logical Disk Usage: 0 bytes ( 0 bytes )

Start Date: Mon Aug 3 10:54:20 2015
End Date: Mon Aug 3 10:59:00 2015

Computation Time: 265.643 seconds
Total Time: 280.166 seconds

CPU Utilization: 737.512 %
Multi-core Efficiency: 92.189 %


you see that overclocked is slower then that stock i5 ??
 
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atljsf

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i never quite understood why amd 8 cores cpus underperformed when compared to i5

is it just the shared cache memory per eacg 2 cores? just that?

even knowing that a i5 is faster, i would like to make my own fx8350 pc, even now knowing that ryzen will be launched this february 28 and probably there will be reviews the first day of march

i hope they release a mini itx cpu and mainboard for a great price, i want to make also a ryzen pc
 
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junkeymonkey

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like I say AM3+ is what drove me to intel for mt first time ever in 16 years and cant say in any way it was a wrong move . way far more satisfied

proved to me why when AMD chips are referred to as ''good enough '' now . yup it may of been ''good enough '' but not near as good as intel offering

to be honest that ryzen i'll bet will be another ''good enough'' platform as well once folks get them in hand and realize they were once again hyped up from the speculation reviews they see now on it [opinion]
 
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atljsf

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yes, unfortunately, that is a posibility

but from the first reports, doesn't seem to be the case

anyway, we need amd, there is only two cpu manufacturers now

intel had the abusive idea of offer a 1700 dollars cpu last year

if they were the only ones, they would charge you for that much for a simple i3, so single core celerons for everyone in the future

even if they fail to deliver, we need them to keep trying to confornt the intel giant, it has been a bully for too many years

btw, they finally paid the fine imposed for forcing companies to not to buy amd products, yes, finally they paid that

one fun thing, intel gpus are using amd technology now, such is the world we live now
 
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atljsf

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while the higher end cpus is intel only, i will never have the money to buy one, of those, same for the 95% of the rest of the world

very few millions of people will buy the faster and expensive i7 at 1000 or more

middle or low market is what moves the world

rarely you go to a company and everybody has i7, most will have i3, from 2013 if lucky

about market, well, market and what you buy, usually has no correlation, untill market forces a company to close and vanish in the history, you keep buying, as many of us did with amd, while their cpus didn't deliverecwhat most people liked, they still work well, still let people join pc masterrace and have a great experienc with their pcs, unless they overclock and kill mainboard and cpu, just as this same thread reports
 
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