Which AMD motherboard for gaming?

[Ryuzaki]

I have been told the Asus M4A89GTD is a superior motherboard for a gaming PC when compared to the Asus M4A79XTD. That's probably true but is the extra $40 spent on the former really worth the improvement it gives? And what enhancement might that be?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131633

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402&cm_re=m4a79xtd_evo-_-13-131-402-_-Product

I mainly want a motherboard that has Crossfire/SLI capability (both appear to fulfill this category), no overclocking or anything, and I was just wondering if making the investment in the M4A89 is a worthy choice

 

[mosox]

The first one has SATA3 - only useful if you plan to buy a SSD. Both have crossfire but not SLI.

 

[Ryuzaki]

So if a motherboard does not have a SATA 3 port, you cannot connect any sort of solid state drive?

 

[tecmo34]

Here is a third option... ASRock Extreme3. It has all the features of the ASUS 890GX board at the 790X pricing (remember ASRock is owned by ASUS).

Yes, you can purchase a SSD with SATA II and be just fine. What is meant by SATA III is getting a SATA III hard drive since it can't even saturate SATA II's bandwidth. You want a Crucial RealSSD C300 for SATA III... IMO

 

[Ryuzaki]

Ok thanks sounds good. I definitely want to get an SSD just not now because they are too expensive but probably some point in the future.

 

[Emperus]

My vote too for the Asrock 870 Extreme3.. And btw, no AMD board features support for both Crossfire and SLI.. It can only be one of that.. Also, boards featuring Crossfire support are more compared to boards featuring SLI support..

 

[mrblurr]

Here is a third option... ASRock Extreme3. It has all the features of the ASUS 890GX board at the 790X pricing (remember ASRock is owned by ASUS).

Yes, you can purchase a SSD with SATA II and be just fine. What is meant by SATA III is getting a SATA III hard drive since it can't even saturate SATA II's bandwidth. You want a Crucial RealSSD C300 for SATA III... IMO

I'm looking at getting this board for some gaming, but I've been an Intel user for a while so I don't know which CPUs are equal to the i5/i7 CPUs, can I get some help? I'd like something with power for gaming like I mentioned earlier.

Secondly, I have a computer already build, my mobo just died which is why I wanna switch to this. I have 6gig of OCZ 1600 RAM, on the specs for the mobo I saw that it supported 1600(OC)...am I good or does that create a problem?

 

[tecmo34]

@mrblurr: I would recommend the Phenom II X4 955 for the CPU. It is one of the best valued price to performance CPU's you can get. It is a very capable gaming CPU. As for the memory, you can run DDR3 1600 on the board but you will have to manually adjust the timings, speed & voltage to do so in the BIOS.

 

[Onus]

mrblurr, that's a great topic to use when starting your own thread.

...otherwise, I agree with Tecmo34. ASRock offers the quality of Asus at a much lower price.

 

[dubsanta]

Extreme3 mobo sounds a great motherboard. (Big shame they don't ship to the UK with such good prices!) I also recommend the Phenom II x4 955 as it's a very powerful CPU with such a low price tag.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Ya I'm planning on getting an AMD Phenom II X4 955 or 965