Best Motherboard for my needs

[jeffinak]

between me and my girlfriend we have decided its time to do a bit of upgrading on our computers, as hers has quite a bit less demands put on it she is fine with my hand me down Asus m4a78-plus and just getting a new cpu which we have decided on a phenom 2x4 940 BE as its priced at a low 117.99 from new egg

which brings us to my upgrades which will honestly be just a mobo and new RAM9looking at6 ddr3 1600 and i have narrowed it down two just a couple boards and as the forums have been a great help up to this point thought I might ask for a bit of advice from those that know more than I. The minor price difference between the boards is a very minor concern when choosing, though if anybody has another suggestion this is about my limit

Asus http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603

MSI http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130278

Asus evo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402

MSI military grade components http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275

my computer will be used mainly for movies, music and games, though I'm not much into shooters so most of the better visual games get passed over, lately its been dragon age, neverewinter nights2, burnout paradise, and dirt2.

i have a phenom2x4 955 BE that will be going in as well as a XFX radeon HD 5770 so onboard graphics is not much of a concern, nor is a sedcond PciE 2.0 slot as i dont intend to crossfire. I do plan on eventually running 8 gigs of ddr3 1600 with win7x64 ultimate

 

[gkay09]

^ That MSI 870A-G54 board would be my pick...
Comes with the latest chipsets and not to forget the O/C genie, that would automatically overclock the CPU if you want to...
MSI have been doing very good these days and are keeping up with Gigabyte and ASUS in terms of quality and features...

 

[batuchka]

between me and my girlfriend we have decided its time to do a bit of upgrading on our computers, as hers has quite a bit less demands put on it she is fine with my hand me down Asus m4a78-plus and just getting a new cpu which we have decided on a phenom 2x4 940 BE as its priced at a low 117.99 from new egg

I'd rather get a socket AM3 chip which has it's Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) able to talk to both DDR2 and DDR3 so if your gal's needs not too intense the Rana 440 looks too juicy to ignore hehe

 

[jeffinak]

as i understand when the time comes she will be able to put the 940 in am AM3 board with ddr3 instead of the AM2+its going to go in now,, same as my 955 which is right now in the Am2+ board that I'll be giving her and going into an AM3 board were just trying to do this slowly as were on a budget, but she has her heart set on the BE cpu as she wants to attempt her hand at overclocking, just to do it

 

[batuchka]

Negative the IMC on an AM2+ Deneb like 940BE can only 'talk' strictly with DDR2 only making compatibility with AM3 mobos sporting DDR3 DIMM slots impossible There is also the now $90 AM3 socket 720BE OEM if you ok with non X4 ^^
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103652

 

[jeffinak]

so does that also mean my 955 BE (which is in the AM2+ board now) wont work with a new AM3 board and ddr3?

the tri-core was looking very sweet, now that the price dropped that most likely will be her chip when I looked last it was ten bucks more than the 940 bE oem

 

[batuchka]

955BE is a socket AM3 Deneb unlike the AM2+ socket 940BE so it will work in both AM2+ and AM3 mobos no worries ^^

 

[jeffinak]

*wipes brow* thank you for the clarification, was a bit worried it was all for naught

 

[batuchka]

You are welcomed ^^