How much does motherboard affect overall performance?

[mondrian]

Hello,

I just built a computer, which I will be using mostly to do design work (Illustrator, Photoshop, and some Maya). Everything runs pretty smooth overall. I have Windows 7 Ultimate installed on an SSD so it boots up really quick. However, I'm noticing lag on certain tasks in Adobe Illustrator, especially when it comes to complex vector files. For example, if I rotate a group of objects, I often get a loading bar. Also, a few general computer things such as copying files from one location to another takes some time. I mean, the computer is fast but the lag in Illustrator is really my main concern since waiting for things to finish loading can break the train of thought. Anyway, I was wondering if maybe the motherboard, and more specifically the front side bus is the problem? I'm not really sure how to calculate how much FSB I would need to avoid a bottleneck. I used a System Monitor with Illustrator open and the CPU doesn't really run above 5% and the memory usually runs at around 15% so I'm guessing it's not that. The only thing I could think of would be the motherboard. I have the Gigabyte 970A-UD3 which is supposed to be pretty good, but MOBO is the one thing I kind of went cheap on. I think I have only about 6 or 7 days left to replace the motherboard so I just thought I check with you guys before I'm stuck with it. Also, I would really like to figure this out before I install Maya which can be really resource demanding. Thanks for bearing with me, I'm still kind of new at building so any suggestion would be very appreciated.
Thanks!

Here are my system specs. I got these numbers off the Internet and I actually don't really know what they all mean.

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3
FSB: 2400MHz Hyper Transport (4800 MT/s)
Chipsets
North Bridge: AMD 970
South Bridge: AMD SB950

Memory:
Mushkin Enhanced 996988
8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Cas Latency 9, Timing 9-9-9-24 Voltage 1.35V

SSD:
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SATA III
Max Sequential Read/Write 550MBs/515MBs
4KB Random Write Up to 90,000 IOPS
Controller SandForce SF-2281

Processor:
AMD FX-8150 3.6GHz
HyperTransport up to 4000MT/s full duplex, or up to 16.0GB/s I/O Bandwidth
Processor Bus Speed: 3600
Processor L2 Cache Size: 1024
L2 Cache 8MB
L3 Cache 8MB

OS:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

 

[o1die]

Here's a couple of bulldozer updates that were released recently: http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/01/12/scheduler-updates-bulldozer-boost/1. They might help speed things up a bit. My link isn't working. Do a search for "bulldozer update".

 

[mondrian]

Thanks for the link, I appreciate it!

So you don't think it's the motherboard then, or my other hardware?
Thanks again.

 

[o1die]

Your board chipset isn't slowing you down, though a bios setting may need adjusting. Windows 7 is so bloated with updates and security features it's hard to say where the source of your slowness is. I switched to chrome and stopped using explorer 9.0, which improved my internet speed slightly. 64 bit windows explorer doesn't work very well with flash 11.0, but chrome has no issues with it.

 

[vrumor]

Arent some of those features accelerated by a GPU? I dont see a GPU listed.

 

[mondrian]

Your board chipset isn't slowing you down, though a bios setting may need adjusting. Windows 7 is so bloated with updates and security features it's hard to say where the source of your slowness is. I switched to chrome and stopped using explorer 9.0, which improved my internet speed slightly. 64 bit windows explorer doesn't work very well with flash 11.0, but chrome has no issues with it.

Thanks for the answer.
Do you know anything specific I should adjust in the bios?
I'm always weary of the updates, they seem to slow things down. Is it ok to turn them off? I like Chrome too. I also use Opera, because it's fast, but you do have to tweak it.