cdem :
thanks for the info itserenity. the Gigabyte board recommended above runs an 870 chipset, you recommend an 890fx chipset - why? and what's the difference?
Depending on what usage, both boards are fast. Actually, I recommended the Asus Crosshair IV Formula with the 890FX. I have a Gigabyte MA790FX UD3 running XP Pro, and I have the Asus running Ubuntu Linux.
From Gigabyte I would recommend the GA-890FXA-UD7. I prefer every PCI-E slot to be full length. Greater flexibility when I want to shove some 1x, 2x or 4x raid cards onto the board.
The biggest differences the 890FX brings is the IOMMU. An MMU is a "Memort Management Unit". When AMD moved the MMU onto the CPU die and off the North Bridge, Nothing but the CPU could have access to memory. With an IOMMU in the North Bridge, now advanced Add-on cards can Map Address Space in your system memory. Think of the IOMMU like a friend to the CPU's MMU. The MMU lets the IOMMU cheat off his test papers in class. The next great advantage is that the PCI Express 2.0 lanes went from 22 lanes to 42. Intels new Sandy Bridge stopped at 40. AMD again beat Intel to the game and delivered more.
I will admit the I am an AMD fan and an Intel critic. I have not trusted WinTel for a long time. AMD natively supports SATA3 At 6GB. Intel does not. When it comes to chipsets, Intel just has not been in step with the technology of the day. The chipset is the most important component of any PC. A chipset determines what features can be on your mother board. Not all manufactures take the time or spend the resources to push a chipsets full potential. Some snot nosed bean counter determined through some lame market research what a Real PC hard core DIY geek would want, rather then trying to advance the technology and push it as far as possible.
So I focus on companies that really take the hardware as far as it can go. I am still disappointed today when I see a floppy connect, 9 D sub pin serial port, PATA connector. These are dead technologies. They have no place on a system being built today.
The last thing the 800 series brings is native USB 3.0.
And if you didn't know, memory is way more important than the CPU. I can take an Athlon II with 8GB ram and run circles around Intel's latest and greatest with only 512MB of RAM. the minimum and maximum for a 32bit system is 4GB. I always suggest, when you purchase memory, Max out the slots you are filling. Cause later on you will have to throw it away when you upgrade later.
And do not let some ill inform fool tell you that an SSD can make up for low amounts of RAM. I have actually heard someone telling this to another on the train one morning. I had to stop right there in my tracks and call the moron out. An SSD might let the OS Swap Faster, but that Thrashing will send the SSD to an early grave. SSD's have a finite life span. Each cell can be written to only so many times. As a cell can no longer be written to, it is mapped out of usage. This continues until there is no more space on the drive to write data.
Hope that sheds a little light on the subject for ya.
i was just curious as to what the benefits were of the 890fx Vs the price etc.
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