STILL looking for suitable motherboard

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by doveman » Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:10 am

I thought I'd found my ideal board in the Asrock 890FX Deluxe5 until I realised the CMOS battery is in a really stupid (hot) place, under the VRM cooler.

What made it great for me is:

Suitable slot layout, allowing me to put my 3-slot 6950 with AXPII cooler in the PCI-E x8 slot (third from bottom), leaving a PCI slot above that for my TV tuner card, and 2 PCI-E x1 and 1 PCI-E x16. In future I could put another 3-slot card in the PCI-E x16 for Xfire and still have a free PCI-E x1 slot (I'd have to lose the PCI card for that, but I'd get a USB tuner in that case). If the PCI-E x8 and the PCI slot below it were swapped round, I could still use it as although the card would overhang the board, I'm building a custom case so could make it big enough to accommodate this, and this might actually be better, as it would leave a bigger gap between Xfire'd cards, so perhaps someone knows of a board with such a slot layout.

Realtek ALC892 audio, supporting multi-streaming.

8+2 phase power for overclocking

SATA3 and USB3 (including one front USB3 header)

Optical and Coaxial audio outputs (which I might never use, but it's nice to have both in case)

The only things I wasn't sure about is that my Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9) isn't on the QVL, and whether my True Rev.C CPU heatsink with 120mm fan will fit considering the heatsinks, or will fit but block some of the RAM slots. I think this is inevitable whatever board I get though, as the only board I've seen that looks like the RAM slots have been spaced further from the CPU to avoid this is another Asrock board, the 890GX Pro3 which I'd probably get if the second PCI-E x16 was x8 rather than x4. I also think that some Asrock boards use active (ie noisy little fans) cooling, which is a big no-no.

The only other board that came close is the Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 but unfortunately that has Realtek ALC889 audio and doesn't support multi-streaming, which rules it out.

I also considered the Asrock 990FX Extreme3, but that's only 4+1 and doesn't have a front USB3 header (not the end of the world), and the Asrock 990FX Extreme4 has the CMOS battery in the same stupid position as the 890FX Deluxe5 (as well as all the fan headers along the top of the board!).

Abula
Posts: 3662
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:22 pm
Location: Guatemala

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by Abula » Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:32 am

What about MSI 990FXA-GD80 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard, has very similar layout to your AsRock, and comes with Realtek ALC892

1337
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 6:47 am
Location: EU

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by 1337 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:57 am

doveman wrote:I thought I'd found my ideal board in the Asrock 890FX Deluxe5 until I realised the CMOS battery is in a really stupid (hot) place, under the VRM cooler.
Chances are, the board is going to be replaced sooner than the need for a new battery. I had a good laugh :D

doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by doveman » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:01 pm

Abula wrote:What about MSI 990FXA-GD80 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard, has very similar layout to your AsRock, and comes with Realtek ALC892
I think you might have just found me my perfect board :D

The slot layout is actually better than the Asrock, as PCI_E5 (2nd from bottom) runs at 16x when PCI_E4 is empty, so I can run two cards at 16x, my PCI card and still have a PCI-E x1 free.

It's got multi-streaming audio, fan connectors and the CMOS battery in sensible positions and my RAM's on the QVL. I just need to make sure that my TRUE Rev.C will fit and that it doesn't suffer from the same bug that my Biostar has, where it resets when resuming from standby if the FSB is overclocked.

It is quite expensive at £150, £40 more than the Asrock but I wouldn't pay them £114 for something with the CMOS battery in such a stupid place. I guess the Asrock 990FX Extreme3 (about £112) MIGHT still be a possibility depending on whether the 4+1 is likely to be a problem (assuming my RAM and TRUE are compatible). My current Biostar is also only 4+1 and works fine with my FSB overclocked to 250Mhz with my Athlon II X4 630 at 3.5Ghz, but I guess more powerful CPUs might need 8+2.

1337
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 6:47 am
Location: EU

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by 1337 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:22 pm

doveman wrote:
Abula wrote:My current Biostar is also only 4+1 and works fine with my FSB overclocked to 250Mhz with my Athlon II X4 630 at 3.5Ghz, but I guess more powerful CPUs might need 8+2.
8+2 requires less power to achieve the same clocks and also provides cleaner energy. A must, if you are eventually going to get a Bulldozer. No point to get it for low-power CPUs though.

4+1 is good enough for moderate clocks, if it's adequately cooled, though.

doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by doveman » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:13 pm

1337 wrote:Chances are, the board is going to be replaced sooner than the need for a new battery. I had a good laugh :D
The fact is, it's just stupid to take the risk of putting the battery somewhere it's going to have so much heat hitting it, rather than the usual location where it gets airflow from the front fan.

doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by doveman » Sat Nov 05, 2011 1:14 pm

1337 wrote:8+2 requires less power to achieve the same clocks and also provides cleaner energy. A must, if you are eventually going to get a Bulldozer. No point to get it for low-power CPUs though.

4+1 is good enough for moderate clocks, if it's adequately cooled, though.
Want to keep my options open, so I'll avoid 4+1.

Mr Spocko
Posts: 229
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:56 pm
Location: UK/Eire

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by Mr Spocko » Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:36 pm

I see a note about multi streaming and Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3.
If you're serious about sound you'll be using a dedicated sound card anyway.

doveman
Posts: 870
Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:30 am
Location: London

Re: STILL looking for suitable motherboard

Post by doveman » Sun Nov 06, 2011 1:49 am

Mr Spocko wrote:I see a note about multi streaming and Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3.
If you're serious about sound you'll be using a dedicated sound card anyway.
Guess I'm not serious about sound then :P

I use an Audiophile 2496 in my other PC which I use for writing music, but for gaming I'm happy enough with onboard Realtek.

Post Reply