what chipset to choose for an am3+ motherboard?

Which chipset should i choose?

  • 970

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 990FX

    Votes: 1 100.0%

  • Total voters
    1

sammyssb

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Mar 1, 2013
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So i have an FX-6300 overclocked to 4.0 GHz on an MSI 970A-G46 motherboard. I don't really like my motherboard, i got it because it was pretty inexpensive and got overall good ratings, though when i looked into it more it got a lot of bad reviews. Well anyways apparently it has bad power phasing (4+1) and i want to get a new one in a few months so i can feel safer with my system and with overclocking more. So should i stay away from the 970 chipset and just go straight for a 990FX? any thoughts would be great. And as a side note, if anyone cares to explain power phasing to me i would appreciate it. Thanks guys!
 
It's not that the chipset determines the VRM's, but generally the higher chipset boards cost more and have better VRM's. The chipsets basically mostly determine the PCI-express lanes.

(this is rough, not exact)

970 - 16x and 4x, 4x/4x in CF
99FX -16x and 8x, 8x/8x in CF
990FX 16x and 16x, 16x/16x or 16x/8x in CF


I have the board in my sig, upgraded after a week from a 970 too and glad I did. I went from on the 970 to being able to just hit 4.1 Switched boards and nothing else and can hit 4.6
 

sammyssb

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Mar 1, 2013
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oh okay. well thank you! so i don't necessarily have to get a 990FX board for decent overclocking, as long as the board i get has good vrm's?
 
Correct. If you want to do full out crossfire at some point, the 990fx is the best, otherwise the 99fx will do if it has good VRM's. There is some google spreadsheets online if you google about AMD VRM's that should the number of the VRM's for all the boards.
 

sammyssb

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Mar 1, 2013
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Just looking on newegg the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P looks quite appealing. It's a bit cheaper than the 990FX equivalent and i probably won't be doing crossfire.