FX 4300 or FX 6300

You can easily overclock by a few hundred Mhz on the stock AMD cooler, so I would personally go with the FX-6300   More performance for only $10 more

^ My thoughts exactly   If the FX-6300 performs worse in games over the 4300, just disable a Module and you're good to go!

I figured I could OC the 6300, but as I've never done any overclocking in the past I wasn't sure if it would be easy or possible with this rig. Thanks for the help guys.

Did the rest of the build look good?

Yeah, it looks fine. I'm generally not a fan of Thermaltake PSU's, but that one seems to be better than most of the others (which are complete junk).

I might suggest a 990X or 990FX board, though.

Best answer selected by zeki692.

Whats the major differences with chip sets anyway?

I'm honestly not completely sure about every single detail, but I've just been seeing people recommend 990 boards above all others for the the PD chips.

I know that the 990 boards are the only ones capable of SLI, but that's not really an issue for you.

Hey there, I believe the purpose of a chipset is mostly for stability and peripheral connections. Modern chipsets allow Sata and stuff like that. Some chipsets allow crossfire and others do not. DjDeCiBeL has recommended the 990FX since it's chipset allows the motherboard to accept the FX series processors without a bios update. There are other chipsets that can support the FX series but need a bios update, and if you don't have another CPU to update it with well...you have a problem.

Ah, thanks for clarifying socialfox and DJDeCiBel. I decided to go for the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

That GIGABYTE looks like a very good board indeed. Should serve very well.

Normally I would argue towards an Intel build for gaming ... but AMD (the company's finances specifically) is going so poorly at the moment that we have to take a bit of a performance hit just to support competition in the x86 market. (So yes, I would build with AMD if I needed a new computer too!)

I must question whether you need such a big power supply. Are you planning to crossfire in the future?? A good 650 Watt Like this Seasonic: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088 Will be able to handle crossfired 7850s, and the closer you are to power limit of the PSU, the more efficient your system will be while idling.

I'll keep that in mind in the future about the PSU efficiency. I have already ordered the Thermaltake PSU as I got a good deal on it. I do plan to crossfire in the future, and I wanted to have overhead for upgrades in the future.

4300 is better than 6300 in games ? hmmm thats surprising but i get it since its clocked higher. but what about BF3 and skyrim ? it would perform on 6300 than 4300 i guess

Do you just make this stuff up?

The main difference is the number of PCIe lanes. It is utterly false that 990fx accept PD out the box it is as BIOS dependent as any 9xx series board (990fx has been out since way before PD). Stability is also nothing to do with 990 or 970 if you want stability on OC's look for boards that have good VRM sets and other stability features (i.e Gbyte UD3 series which is available as 970 or 990). The reason to buy a 990 series board is if you want to SLi, if you don't then get a very good quality 970.

And clearly ask the seller if the board has the BIOS for Vishera otherwise you will have a pain in the ass of a time updating it unless you have an older am3+/am3 CPU lying around.

Actually I did write this from the top of my head. Anyways you could argue stability for motherboards, look at the old Nvidia 680i, it had many bugs in the chipset which gave out many problems. That board had numerous bios updates to fix all those issues, you can say it was an unstable board at release. In addition you are right about the FX thing, I assumed that since it said fx it would support it right away but from looking at the CPU support list there does seem to be a bios but isn't the OP just buying the motherboard now? Wouldn't it come from a new batch that probably does have the FX Bios requirement?

You shouldn't write from the top of your head as people look these threads up read what they say and take it for fact.

As for BIOS being current when bought now, I wouldn't assume that those boards may have been made months and months ago, the BIOS revisions for Vishera are weeks old I wouldn't assume all boards sold having the latest for a couple of months yet (There were still BIOS threads relating to bulldozer appearing here in April).

The FX in 990FX simply denotes the highest "enthusiast" chipset. They have used that since the 790FX chipset. With 9xx chipsets we have

970 - can allow Xfire with 2nd slot at X4

990x - Allows PCIe slots at X8 and X8 for SLi (or a single slot runs at X16)

990FX - Allows up to 4 way SLI at 4 lanes at X8
or 3 lanes at X16, X8 and X8
or 2 lanes at X16 and X16

Any of those could use any of these Southbridges (which can alter the features of the board)
SB710
SB750
SB810
SB850
SB920
SB950

*Edit*

As a practical example the ONLY difference in these boards is the PCIe lanes (and PCB colour on the FX)

http://www.cclonline.com/product/63466/GA-970A-UD3/Moth...

http://www.cclonline.com/product/60859/GA-990XA-UD3/Mot...

http://www.cclonline.com/product/62749/GA-990FXA-UD3/Mo...

They use the same Phases, VRM heatsinks etc literally the only reason to buy 990FX from those 3 is if you plan multi card SLi, 990x if you plan to maybe SLi or Xfire a 2nd and 970 if you don't need SLi. As far as overclocking goes they should all be equal the myth of 970 being a worse board is due to people who buy 970 often buy a cheaper model (say a Gbyte 970-DS3) they then compare it to a better model from the higher chipset (say a 990xa-UD3) it comparing an apple and an orange to make it fair the comparison would need to be both on UD3 boards.

Okay, point proven.   Thanks for writing up the detailed differences, I'll keep it in mind from now on with similar topics.

Much appreciated,

Socialfox  

just FYI 970 can support Sli as my board does this.