New 890FX Board - Asus or Gigabyte?

[brandoncatz]

Looking in to a solid 890 board and was thinking either the Asus M4A89TD or the Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5... both are well-reviewed boards and are matched in price. Any preferences out there to one over the other? The Formula board is out of my price range, FYI.

Also, will I see any real performance benefits of going with an FX board over one with integrated graphics (which would be much cheaper), since I have an nVidia 460 card and no hope of doing SLI on either of these boards (not sure if I'd really care to, anyway)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[rolli59]

For a single card setup save your money and go with 890GX board. Between Asus and Gigabyte is basically personal preference if price the same then flipping a coin will work just as well.

 

[jaquith]

Given the (2) choices I prefer the ASUS M4A89TD PRO/USB3 and have recommended it several times. However, if you are looking to SLI then ASUS M4N98TD EVO is the best choice; CONS lack of SATA3 and USB3 - but this is only a problem if you have a FAST SATA3 SSD, and very few people 'use' USB3 they just want it {add a USB 3 cheap PCI card later}.

No, I do not recommend onboard VGA MOBOs when using discrete GPU: Shared Bandwidth, Shared Physical RAM {used or not}, Slower performance, and Oddball' Problems in some cases, etc. There's no up-side.

 

[brandoncatz]

I ended up going with the M4A89GTD after weighing the pros (mainly the lower price, backup VGA) and cons (potential performance hit).

Thanks for the suggestions from both. I really wanted a board with SATA3 since I'm looking to get a Crucial C300 in the near future. I have 15 days to check out the new board and see if I want to return it for an FX board, or keep this GX model.

The one issue I have had so far is that my new RAM that I got from Newegg a few days before getting the board need to be RMA'ed. Less than 24 hours after installing the new Asus board the system blue-screened and had numerous problems to the point that I could not even get the machine to POST. Memtest confirmed that the RAM was bad (tested on both motherboards)... hundreds of errors. Is there a chance that the board caused this memory corruption??? I ran Memtest for 4+ hours after first installing the new RAM with my old board and it gave me 0 issues.

 

[brandoncatz]

Thanks for the heads up! I think I'm going for a return and replace with the same RAM, but if it goes bad again I'll let you know so you can tell me "I told you so". There are similar Corsair modules on the QVL, so I'm not too concerned about compatibility. More thinking that perhaps a defect in the motherboard socket might have caused the problems I am having with the RAM. Any thoughts on that?

 

[jaquith]

^It's not the RAM, it's the compatibility of Corsair Vengeance with AMD http://www.corsair.com/memory-3/amd-memory-solutions/phenom-ii.html only (4) 2X4GB are compatible with the AMD in 2X4GB. Further, VERY rarely does QVL list 2X4GB sets, and in 'good practice' contact Corsair or any RAM Mfg before purchasing 4GB 'sets' unless they are specifically list with your MOBO on their site. Therefore, I doubt an RMA of the RAM will resolve the issue. Memtest doesn't necessarily mean a 'bad stick' it does mean the BIOS/CPU/Chipset + RAM are causing errors.

(CMX8GX3M2A1333C9)
(CMP8GX3M2A1600C9)
(CMX8GX3M2A1600C9)
(CMX8GX3M2A2000C9)

Full list of Tested Corsair DDR3 for the M4A89GTD Pro http://www2.corsair.com/configurator/product_results.aspx?id=1449449

 

[brandoncatz]

Swapped out the Asus for the GA-890FXA-UD5. Solid performance so far. No BSOD's with my old RAM in there, so I think I'll just get a refund on the 8GB kit and see how well my old 2x2 modules do. Thanks for everyone's help!

 

[brandoncatz]

Best answer selected by brandoncatz.