Which mobo should I get?

[ave200]

Apologies if this is not the right place to ask this question.

My current specs are:

AMD A10-5800K Black Edition
EMAXX A55FM2HD-iCafe Motherboard
Radeon HD 6570
4GB of RAM
Corsair H60 2nd gen Liquid Cooling

I'm currently choosing between these 2 MBs:

MSI FM2 A85XA-G65 and Gigabyte GA-F2A85X-UP4

The MSI mobo also has that OC Genie II and the Gigabyte Mobo has an advance mode BIOS environment/interface which would allow for easy tweaking if I'm correct.

And with this upgraded build I'll introduce myself to overclocking. I'm also aiming to upgrade my memory (probably a G.Skill Ripjaws-X) and video card to a Sapphire HD 7770 1GB GDDR5 VAPOR-X O.C. once I save up some more.

So, which mobo should I get?

Also, can you guys point me where I can learn how to properly overclock the A10-5800K once everything's in place? I've tried the AMD Overdrive but whenever I set the CPU clock past 3.80GHZ stock Windows disables Aero and performance just drops.

 

[stickmansam]

Get the gigabyte one but both are good boards and should give you all the options you need to OC.
Since you are trying to OC yourself OC genie is not that necessary

IMHO I would get the cheaper one

Best way to OC is to go into the bios on startup and change the multiplier for the cpu clock there

Here is a nice overview but it is for ASUS boards
http://translate.google.cz/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/procesory-pameti/26006-navod-jak-vyzdimat-maximum-z-amd-trinity-na-desce-asus

EDIT: Found this guide based on the gigabyte board but should be very similar for MSI board

http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.ca/2012/11/amd-trinity-overclocking-guide-on.html

These guys like the gigabyte more

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3393/8/three-amd-a85x-socket-fm2-motherboards-review-conclusion

Guru3d likes both of the boards

 

[ave200]

Get the gigabyte one but both are good boards and should give you all the options you need to OC.

IMHO I would get the cheaper one

Best way to OC is to go into the bios on startup and change the multiplier for the cpu clock there

Here is a nice overview but it is for ASUS boards
http://translate.google.cz/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http://pctuning.tyden.cz/hardware/procesory-pameti/26006-navod-jak-vyzdimat-maximum-z-amd-trinity-na-desce-asus

EDIT: Found this guide based on the gigabyte board but should be very similar for MSI board

http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.ca/2012/11/amd-trinity-overclocking-guide-on.html

Thanks for the reply. I'll read the guide later as I'm going out to buy some dinner and look around if I can get better deals on the 2 mobos. In one store both have a price of around $140 it's $10 more than what Newegg's price on the Gigabyte Mobo but I really can't afford buying on the net and Newegg doesn't ship where I'm from AFAIK. Dang, maybe if I just Googled harder I wouldn't be bothering other people about it haha.

EDIT: Also, do you know why Windows Aero is disabled when I tried OCing with my current setup?

 

[ave200]

Best answer selected by ave200.

 

[stickmansam]

Haha its all good, we're here to help

 

[ave200]

Haha its all good, we're here to help

I've read the Gigabyte board overclocking guide and on "Step 5: Test your settings" part it says:

Don't forget to monitor temperatures and clocks! Tools like CoreTemp, HardwareMonitor, EasyTune and CPU-Z are the most common ones for this purpose. CoreTemp and HardwareMonitor seem to have some issues with the Trinity temperature though. Therefor I use EasyTune from GIGABYTE to check the temperature.

I've used HWMonitor to check my temps with my current setup and back when it was still using the stock CPU cooler HWMonitor would give a reading of 90 degrees C and the maximum that I've seen was past 100 degrees C. I was pretty much panicking at that point and that made me buy the Corsair H60 and now I get around 68 C minimum but still a maximum of around 95 C. On the same guide it says:

It's essential to check your temperatures during the overclocking all the time. The official maximum for the AMD A10-5800K is 74°C. I recommend to stay away from this temperature by about 10°.

The HWMonitor Readings are WAAAY past that

Is the issue with HWMonitor reading Trinity APU temps been fixed by now? I can't remember which version I used because my desktop is back in my home province(I didn't bring my desktop with me in my college dorm). If the issue is fixed and those are correct temperature readings by HWMonitor then I might have a problem when I'm gonna OC my system. When I have the chance to go back home I'll try other software to read the temps.

 

[stickmansam]

The temps are still messed for most monitoring tools

With an H60 your temps should be lower though, my i5 3570k is only 60c at prime95 load with an h60

 

[ave200]

The temps are still messed for most monitoring tools

With an H60 your temps should be lower though, my i5 3570k is only 60c at prime95 load with an h60

I'll try that Prime95 test as soon as I get home. My case is already well ventilated and I have set the H60's fan as an intake and I don't use the Dual Graphics feature. What's weird though is that while playing ArmA 2, which is said to be more CPU than GPU intensive, HWMonitor reads around 95 C or so. I touch the right part of the case on the outside(right where the CPU and the backplate would be) and it wasn't hot, though I don't think that's a good way to check the temperature.

Thanks again, man. Hopefully I'll get this fixed before I get the new board.

EDIT: I searched a bit

This thread has people saying idle temps are irrelevant compared to the load temps, to which I agree, however the OP has a point whether the load temps are accurate or not. Others say it is.
http://www.amdzone.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=532&t=139480

A review of the A10-5800k paired with the same Gigabyte MB that I'll be buying. The reviewer noticed the erroneous temperature reading both on Gigabyte's EasyTune 6 and AIDA64 and other 3rd party utilities.
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-trinity-a10-5800k-apu-review

Same as the first thread.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=719821