New Build Motherboard Recommendations

Ok, i m gonna try to entice you to abbandon the evil Intel and support the underdog.

Alternative to your i3.

Motherboard (i have it and i can vouch for its stability):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157280

Or,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128521

Which is cheaper and comes with 3 years warranty i see, contrary to Asrock's 1.


And for CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286

You can compare CPUS here. For example FX-6300 vs i3 3220

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/677?vs=699


AMDs in general give better bang for buck for heavily multithreaded applications. There is a rising trend, to use more cores, in games too. If this trend continues, the FX-6300 will give you even more value in the future, because it beats hands down the i3 in heavily multithreaded applications. Later on, you can throw an 8 core FX CPU and also when Steamroller comes out, it will still use AM3+ socket from what we know now.

Just a thought. The FX-6300 is pretty powerful all-around CPU. If you do heavy multitasking, i 'd go for the FX eyes closed against the i3.

P.S: The FX-6300 is unlocked. Basically you can overclock it just by raising multiplier and voltage in BIOS. You should be able to hit 4.2-4.3Ghz even with cheap motherboard. Normally you should expect 4.5 Ghz or more. That's like a free upgrade you can give yourself in the future. If you hit 4.5ghz, that's a 1000 mhz gain per integer core, so you basically get like 6000mhz gain for 6 integer cores, which equals to 1 1/2 cores let's say. So you end up with a 7 and a half core CPU for integer calculation. FPU is less gain.

 

looking at all your links right now.

seems like a good deal indeed.
looks like i got more options to look at.

tnx m8!

 

You 're welcome. I have the 1090t, which is basically the same performance as the FX-6300 and i can tell you that it won't budge whatever you throw at it. I can do gaming+video encoding+downloading from internet FTP+have the browser streaming live video and you don't even notice that the CPU is used 100%. It all feels very fluid.

And as i edited my post, you pay a 6 core unlocked CPU. If you overclock it, you get at least 1 more "core" for free.

 

the reviews at Newegg seems very positive for both that CPU and motherboard.

and i might not have to sell a kidney like i intended to for the Intel.

 

Exactly, i am on student's budget too, that's why i only buy AMD. Actually the ideal time to go AMD was 1 year ago. AMD usually doesn't change socket often, while Intel changes almost with every new CPU, forcing you to change motherboard. In the current AMD socket (AM3+), AMD put the previous generations (phenom II/athlon ii), the first generation FX (bulldozer core), the second generation FX (vishera/piledriver) and it is supposed to support at least initially the next generation (steamroller cores). After that, new CPUs will change socket too. But Intel is changing already this year with Haswell coming out. So if you buy Intel motherboard now, you won't be able to run Haswell on it.

I 've been lucky enough to have jumped to AM+3 before bulldozer was out.So, i am running a Phenom II right now and wait for the FX-8300 to come out, see how it fares price/performance/power draw wise against the FX-8320 that's already out, at which point i plan to upgrade with the same motherboard.

 

Performance wise, the 970 chipsets on AMD boards, are equal to their bigger brother, the 990FX chipset. The only difference, is that the 990 allows for higher performance Crossfire setups (with 2 video cards). The 970 boards usually also allow to put 2 video cards, but with lower bus speed. And the other difference is that usually the 990FX come with higher phase in their power, which allows easier and safer overclocking, but there are tons of people overclocking just fine with 4+1 phase 970 boards. Maybe you lose 200-400 mhz compared to the more expensive ones, but you can overclock quite a bit anyway.