Which AMD870 Mobo ?

stone-69

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Oct 25, 2010
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Hello everybody

I'm putting together an AMD based gaming rig around the $900 mark.

So far I've picked out :
GPU ASUS ATI Radeon 5850 (already bought second hand)
Case Antec Six Hundred (already bought)
CPU AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Cooler Coolermaster hyper 212 plus
PSU OCZ ModXStream Pro - OCZ600MXSP-EU
HD SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB
DVD 24x48 LiteOn iHAS324-32
Fan Arctic Cooling ARCTIC F12 PWM

I want the newest chipset, I'm on a budget and I'll only be using a single graphics card, so I've concluded that an 870 based mother board should be the right choice. But which mother board ?

From extensive research I've narrowed it down to :
ASUS M4A87TD EVO
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3
ASRock 870 Extreme3

Which one is the best ? Some reviews favors one, some favors the other.
I expect to be doing a moderate amount of overclocking.

And regarding memory - Is this a sensible choice :
Corsair XMS3 2x2 CMX4GX3M2A1600C7

Thanks in advance.
 
Out of those three, i'll recommend going for the Asrock 870 Extreme3.. It has support for using two video cards in 8x + 8x config which is better (when putting two cards in Crossfire) compared to a 16x + 4x config.. Further, it has a good build quality, nice features and good overclocking potential.. Should be perfect for your needs..

P.S. - If you have plans of employing only one card and using the other slot for a physx card, then it is ok to choose any motherboard based on your budget.. In this case, i'll recommend the MSI 870A-G54.. Your RAM choice is good in any case..