Best value AMD setup?

[Sgt_Strider]

What is the best value AMD CPU and motherboard setup at the moment? I intend to add a Radeon 6950 to it and play Battlefield 3, but most of the time this computer will be used for office related work and media encoding.

I heard that Battlefield 3 isn't CPU intensive so I don't need the best CPU as the GPU will handle it. I do intend to overclock it though.

I already have the Corsair Vengeance Blue 16GB 4X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 RAM. The motherboard needs to be able to not only accept 4 modules of RAM, but also be able to give me a decent overclock with it. I don't need the top of the line motherboard, but one that offers good value and decent overclocking potential.

Thanks!

[eXa]

For a steady 60fps in BF3 6950 can play at a mix of high and ultra, i do that.
And i would recomend to just get a 955 and clock it to 4ghz together with Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
And dont expect much of an overclock on that ram no matter what motherboard/cpu you choose...

FX4100 cost more than 955 and dont really give you anything over a 955. FX6100 cost as much as an 1090T, FX8120 cost as much as 2500k, i would rather have an 2500k than 8120.
If newer revisions of BD finally starts to perform without needing a dedicated powerplant you can upgrade with that moterboard.

[Olivon]

The 960T (Zosma) is a good option and can be unlocked with luck to 6 core for 10€ more than 955 here in France.

[EniGmA1987]

I second the X4 955. I picked up one for fun and immediately overclocked it to 4.2GHz core speed and 3GHz NB speed on air cooling like it was nothing

[MacClipper]

The 960T (Zosma) is a good option and can be unlocked with luck to 6 core for 10€ more than 955 here in France.

Definitely this!

[Oats]

At Microcenter you can get an 840 for $60, maybe even $50 (there was a $10 facebook coupon, not sure if it is still running). Yes, it has a locked multi and no L3. However, you can still overclock by raising the HTT/FSB, mine easily clocked to 3.9ghz without effort on a budget 760g motherboard (didn't try higher because it made no difference in BF3). As for the L3 if you look at benchmarks it doesn't make that big of a difference, especially not for double the price. The 960T might be worth it if it unlocks as the extra two cores should help your encoding. It won't help BF3/office tasks at all. I think it is a pretty big risk for the extra cost if you are on a budget.

As for the motherboard if you aren't going to crossfire just get a good 970 board like the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. It still has all the OC features of the GA-990FXA-UD3, it just doesn't have the 16x/16x PCI-e for crossfire. Although currently on newegg the GA-970A-UD3 is overpriced at $123, it is usually around $100 and I've seen it as low as $85.

[eXa]

Yeah, good point about the 970. 990X is an option too, GA-990XA-UD3. They all have cooling on the wrm so its good for some oc

[imamage]

Phenom II X4 960T probably a nice one to grab
It run BF3 with HD6950 nicely

Of course if you don't mind shell out more $$$ , grab an 1090T , better performance than similar priced FX-8120

[imamage]

Phenom II X4 960T probably a nice one to grab
It run BF3 with HD6950 nicely

Of course if you don't mind shell out more $$$ , grab an 1090T , better performance than similar priced FX-8120

[RussC]

What motherboard with that 955?

Thanks,
RussC

I second the X4 955. I picked up one for fun and immediately overclocked it to 4.2GHz core speed and 3GHz NB speed on air cooling like it was nothing

[EniGmA1987]

What motherboard with that 955?

Thanks,
RussC

I put it on the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX I already had sitting around. This board is really nice but a little bit pricey. I dont know if I got lucky or if it is just the newer batches of 955's overclock just as easily as the newest Thuban's do. Probably the latter. Im not even using top of the line air cooling either, just an Archon with the stock fan on one side (it comes with a fan right? maybe I bought both fans...) and a Scythe 1600rpm fan on the back side.

[eXa]

The archon is among of the best air coolers out there

[crazydiamond]

955be or 960t & 990fx mobo for upgradability would be best bang for your buck for what you need at the moment IMO

[Sgt_Strider]

I'm leaning on the X4 955 at the moment. What's a good AMD motherboard that will also support a bulldozer processor, plays well with 4 DIMMs, USB 3.0, and overclock decently? I don't need multi-GPU feature nor do I need onboard GPU.

Can someone also explain all of the chipset differences for me? I think there is like 990FX, 890, 880, and 870. They're all very confusing and I have no idea which chipset is the latest.

[Daveburt714]

Honestly Sarg, the 960T would probably be the best bang for the buck considering what your looking for...
It's based on the Thuban core (not Deneb) and should offer higher clocks, as well as better IMC/Mem clocking (and might unlock to an X6).

As far as the mobo goes, thats where the 960T may be a draw back...
I don't have one, so I can't really comment on bios compatability, but that seems to be a problem with the 960T on some boards.

I can tell you that the Asus Sabertooth is a really nice mid/upper level board that's reasonably priced.
You'll have to do your own research to find out how well it handles the 960T, I just can't comment on that.

If someone can confirm that the 960T plays well with the Sabertooth thats the combo I'd go for...

I'm sure the newer 955's are fine chips, but the price difference isn't that much, and I personally think you'd be happier with the 960T.

[uOpt]

What is the best value AMD CPU and motherboard setup at the moment? I intend to add a Radeon 6950 to it and play Battlefield 3, but most of the time this computer will be used for office related work and media encoding.

I heard that Battlefield 3 isn't CPU intensive so I don't need the best CPU as the GPU will handle it. I do intend to overclock it though.

I already have the Corsair Vengeance Blue 16GB 4X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24 RAM. The motherboard needs to be able to not only accept 4 modules of RAM, but also be able to give me a decent overclock with it. I don't need the top of the line motherboard, but one that offers good value and decent overclocking potential.

Thanks!

I just built a new workstation with:
- 1100T
- Asus M4A89something
- 4x 4GB ECC Unreg from Ewiz

The board needed a BIOS flash before it would run memtest without errors on all modules and all slots no matter what combination. WTF? Asus...

Anyway, running very fine now.

I had a M5A77 board as a first attempt in this build and it was completely useless because of BIOS problems.

I don't overclock memory (no real world improvement). The clocks I got for week-stability with 3x mprime and 6x mprime are 3.7 GHz base and 4.1 GHz Turbo.

Overall a great success but a bumpy road. I hope Asus doesn't lose it entirely with their BIOS problems. Close call.

[uOpt]

I'm leaning on the X4 955 at the moment. What's a good AMD motherboard that will also support a bulldozer processor, plays well with 4 DIMMs, USB 3.0, and overclock decently? I don't need multi-GPU feature nor do I need onboard GPU.

Can someone also explain all of the chipset differences for me? I think there is like 990FX, 890, 880, and 870. They're all very confusing and I have no idea which chipset is the latest.

If you get a X4 you don't get Turbo. Unless you permanently run highly multithreaded applications that's a bad idea IMHO.

As counter-intuitive as it is, the X6 processors are much better if you ever run anything single threaded, because they have Turbo.

I never noticed a real difference in those minor variants of the AMD chipsets. They run fine. They don't contain GbE anyway which is a pain since you often end up with some Realtek piece on the board. Nothing you can do about it.

As I mentioned in the previous post I had to give up on building something prepared for Bulldozer because the BIOS for Asus' AM3+ board was just too much of a mess. In particular it wouldn't run 4x memory modules in any kind of predictable manner and always report random amount of memory to the OS (usually half of what I had but other amounts, too). Wasn't stable and according to the onboard sensors it overvolted the CPU even if you didn't set any voltage. I didn't measure with a voltmeter before it went back so I don't know whether that's for real. PXE boot was broken for half my OSes, too.

I would advise to:
- get a cheap board. No real advantage out of the expensive stuff, except you feel more sad when it screws up
- get one board today for your CPU today. Future planning is getting you more into a mess right now

[Blacklash]

I love my 960T. Got it for 115usd off of Newegg. I can almost do 4.5GHz and I'm unwilling to use more voltage.


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2079884

I'm settled on 4.3GHz right now and I may go up to 4.4GHz for a while and see how things go. I'm on air so I need to be careful.




http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2078376

I had intended to use this mobo for BD and I changed my mind. The chip I did try would freeze and crash to desktop with half the games I played. Yes, even with flat stock settings. This OCed 960T is fine for general use and gaming. If I were running something like MGPU on Eyefinity, I'd definitely build up a 2500K rig. This CPU is fine for a single 1920x1200 LCD and a single GPU. I'm only running an HD 6870 @ 960|1150.

[gOtVoltage]

960T from newegg and with and with a 990fxa UD3 its bios is one of the few good unlocking bioses that really does unlock, youll have two free cores and it will be better than 955 anyday.

[Sgt_Strider]

Ok guys, thanks for the input.

In the event that I can't get a X4 960T, which one would you guys go with? Either X4 955BE or X6 1055T. Please also name a good value board with the features that I mentioned earlier in your comments. I'm going to analyse every single suggestion to determine the best bang for the buck combination. Please don't forget that I also intend to put in 16GB of RAM!

[Sgt_Strider]

If you get a X4 you don't get Turbo. Unless you permanently run highly multithreaded applications that's a bad idea IMHO.

As counter-intuitive as it is, the X6 processors are much better if you ever run anything single threaded, because they have Turbo.

I never noticed a real difference in those minor variants of the AMD chipsets. They run fine. They don't contain GbE anyway which is a pain since you often end up with some Realtek piece on the board. Nothing you can do about it.

As I mentioned in the previous post I had to give up on building something prepared for Bulldozer because the BIOS for Asus' AM3+ board was just too much of a mess. In particular it wouldn't run 4x memory modules in any kind of predictable manner and always report random amount of memory to the OS (usually half of what I had but other amounts, too). Wasn't stable and according to the onboard sensors it overvolted the CPU even if you didn't set any voltage. I didn't measure with a voltmeter before it went back so I don't know whether that's for real. PXE boot was broken for half my OSes, too.

I would advise to:
- get a cheap board. No real advantage out of the expensive stuff, except you feel more sad when it screws up
- get one board today for your CPU today. Future planning is getting you more into a mess right now

The X6 1055T is at least $40 more than a X4 955 BE at least that's where I live. Now, will the X6 1055T be much better than the X4 955BE? When you mentioned X6, are you referring to the X6 1055T?

What's GbE? Gigabit Ethernet? If so, I do need it because I have a gigabit network at home!

Ok, I guess giving up on AM3+ isn't so bad but I figure I would get a board that supports it so that when I pass down this build to my youngest brother, he'll at least have an option to go with an FX processor in the future.

What's the best value board for either the X4 or X6 that have the features that I requested?

[Oats]

The X6 1055T is at least $40 more than a X4 955 BE at least that's where I live. Now, will the X6 1055T be much better than the X4 955BE? When you mentioned X6, are you referring to the X6 1055T?

What's GbE? Gigabit Ethernet? If so, I do need it because I have a gigabit network at home!

Ok, I guess giving up on AM3+ isn't so bad but I figure I would get a board that supports it so that when I pass down this build to my youngest brother, he'll at least have an option to go with an FX processor in the future.

What's the best value board for either the X4 or X6 that have the features that I requested?

For office and BF3 there is no difference in x6, x4, or even x2. Video transcoding/encoding will see better performance with more cores and/or higher clocks. For x6 money though you could get an i5 2500k that would be faster or you could spend that money on a better video card to get better gaming performance.

Yes, it is gigabit nic. What he means is the chipset doesn't have it integrated, but every board has a separate chip for it.

Almost all boards meet your requirements, 900 series boards are all supposed to support bulldozer (although some might not support it well at the moment since BD is new). The main things to watch out for:
Some boards with 800 series chipsets have SB750/710 southbridge which doesn't have sata 6gbs
Check this list to make sure you get a board with good VRM for overclocking.

[eXa]

BF3 likes more cores than 2....

[Sgt_Strider]

For office and BF3 there is no difference in x6, x4, or even x2. Video transcoding/encoding will see better performance with more cores and/or higher clocks. For x6 money though you could get an i5 2500k that would be faster or you could spend that money on a better video card to get better gaming performance.

Yes, it is gigabit nic. What he means is the chipset doesn't have it integrated, but every board has a separate chip for it.

Almost all boards meet your requirements, 900 series boards are all supposed to support bulldozer (although some might not support it well at the moment since BD is new). The main things to watch out for:
Some boards with 800 series chipsets have SB750/710 southbridge which doesn't have sata 6gbs
Check this list to make sure you get a board with good VRM for overclocking.

That's not true because an 2500K is at least $50 more than a X6 1055T. I rather not spend more than that, but I think I might just go with an X4 955 BE.

[Oats]

BF3 likes more cores than 2....

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...e,3063-13.html

That's not true because an 2500K is at least $50 more than a X6 1055T. I rather not spend more than that, but I think I might just go with an X4 955 BE.

Microcenter has 2500k for $180 and if purchased with a z68 board you get $60 off. The cheapest combo costs around $220, Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 combo is $260. You have to have a microcenter nearby or know somebody who does. You will also have to pay sales tax. It would still be cheaper than an x6 and equivalent 990x motherboard.