Budget upgrade

SacredTbag

I'm thinking about doing a quick and cheap upgrade while I still have a little money to throw around. I'm still rocking a Phenom II 965 x4 at 4ghz or more, sometimes I'll go up to 4.2, and it's been running this way since I got it (2+ years I think?). I'd like to keep this cpu for budget reasons. It still kicks ass and I see no reason to get rid of it yet. My video cards still do me fine, two 7770's, so I'm set there as well. What I'm looking for is a core upgrade, mobo and memory. I'm still on a 790FX chipset and ddr2 (mixed 4gb mushkin and 4gb G.skill). I'm looking at something in the 970 chipset area and 16gb of ddr3. Here's what I've come up with so far:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131872 I haven't used Asus in frackin forever.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820104333 Two sets of this, it's cheaper than buying a 16gb set flat out.

Whatcha think?

RcRon7

Those both look like a good deal. I like ASUS stuff as well, even if I have an MSI board right now. I would like to point out that you only have three audio out's in the back. Some speaker setups require more plugs. Just FYI if you didn't think about that. You will probably not be able to get to SATA plugs 5 and 6 if you run dual Vid's and they're long. May not be an issue if you don't need more than 4 SATA. When I look at motherboards I tend to look at the layout of everything. I had an XFX board where the single vid card I had blocked two of the 4 sata ports. So, ever since then I really pay attention to the layout. I also seems like the two PCI slots are to far. Could be just me.

I don't know about the RAM, never used Kengston ram. I have Corsair's Vengeance Ram, 4x4 for 16Gig. It's been running great but I had problems during install and had to RMA a Motherboard. Not sure what happend.

What you have listed looks like a good deal to me. I just recomend you look at that layout on the MB to be sure you're current hardware will not have any problems.

SacredTbag

No biggie, I have a 5.1 set that I'm only running as a 2.1 right now. I'm a pretty big Gigabyte fan, I just thought I'd use something different this time. I've used MSI before back in my P4 days and was very pleased with it.

This layout is better than my current one. I have to use all 90* plugs on my SATA's due to the location and my second gpu.

Same distance as my current board.

Me either, This is just the budget pick. I may go for something I'm more familiar with and pick up the second 8gb down the road.

Thanks for the input. Nothing in the layout is any worse than what I'm used to dealing with, and some of it is better.

What about this? This board addresses most of your concerns. Two SATA will still be blocked, but it has four forward-facing ones that will be fine (I'll only be using three anyway).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130637

This ram has some tighter timings as well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231402

cyclonite

Some folks may dissagree with this, but one of the best ways to breathe life into an older computer is add an SSD.

I have used ASUS boards every since Abit stopped making decent boards. Only one I ever had an issue with is the same one that millions of others had...was an nVidia chip 680 I think, anyhow any of the other boards were intel chipsets and never had an issue with any of them.

Kingston makes some reliable memory, however, I have been a corsair fanboi every since I RMA'd a set of memory that was discontinued, yet Corsair still had the memory on hand for the RMA. I just shipped that same memory to furball, so you will have to ask him how it works.

furball zen

^^^ Having done one and in the middle of the '2nd' 790FX with SSD's i can agree quite well.

However to comment on your 'upgrade' id like to throw in my .02.... both of those motherboards will not allow you to OC that chip at all, no VRM sinks.

Im getting ready to RMA my FX setup (details in UFO^3) and would be willing to sell it at a decent loss for a straight $200 (mobo, CPU and RAM) and prob ship for that price. It cost near $350 new.

SacredTbag

That's tempting, but as I said, this is a budget upgrade. I'd shoot you an offer for the mobo and ram, but I don't want to insult you. I can see on newegg how much that board and memory are still going for.

Why are you RMA'ing it? Board go out? I'm reading that it happens a lot for that one.

furball zen

It keeps dumping my RAID array, but never had an issue with single discs. I would RMA it so the person buying it would get a 'new' mobo.

Im not sure the 965 would work? Unless its AM3 then yea. Id do $125 maybe on the mobo/ram. If my 790FX was an FX-B MR2SH id take the 965 in trade but its not so i can only use a 955 max.

SacredTbag

My 965 is on the compatibility list on Gigabyte's site.

Let me get back to you on that price later today. That's actually lower than what I was going to offer.

Elite

Kingston RAM is value ram, cheap parts is all it is, I wouldn't recommend it for any kind of gaming setup, I used to run 4x1GB sticks and had nothing but issues with them.

furball zen

Make it $150, ill ship it and throw in 3 or 4 (how ever many your case can fit) Coolermaster R4 fans in blue LED, brand new.

Mind you i will need to finish Carbide before i do and its your option if i RMA it first or not.

SacredTbag

YGPM furball.

SacredTbag

Frack .

DaemonDraxx

Fuckin 970...I wish I had the patience. I've been out my AM3 board ever since the pump blew up last year and since the Koolance apparatus is like 10 years old(wow I feel old) I have to either look up aftermarket pumps that are $$$ or just go back to fans.

Asus REALLY dropped the ball on the M4A78T-E as I've had nothing but problems with it from start to bitter end and I'm a bit wary of giving them another chance with the M5A99 series. I have the components for it(AMD 955, 4GB DDR3-1600) but I don't know if I should be trying to build another all-in-one or rebuild and get a dedicated non-shared gpu.

I lost my job early last year and the jobs are NOT coming back so I know exactly what you're dealing with and it's like every $ counts. I'm just glad you're not dealing with the typical user idiocy like my friends.

I know this isn't like me at all but I've been looking into the AMD APU series. The cycles are very fast, very precision calculations(7x my Phenom) and they come with their own instruction sets for the onboard video system. I'm thinking of getting the AMD A4-5300 and setting it up on a cheap ASRock FM2A75M-DGS board. Benchmarks make it comparable to a mid-range Core i3 system. Not sure how I feel about that but it's better than wasting $140 on another piece of shit Asus board riddled with POST issues and then digging out more money I don't have on a video card.

furball zen

^^^Thats exactly what my ex-wife ended up with when i got Carbide back. With a stock cooler from a 955/965 it sits at like 1C and maybe 5-7C full load. I kid you not. Shit fast with two SSD's and a WD Black 2.5HDD. Didnt bother OCing it since its fast in stock form and she would never be able to tell the diff.

DaemonDraxx

I tried reviving this board again and I can get it to clean POST but a blank screen on D-Sub signal. Is it possible that only my D-Sub is fried? I don't have any HDMI equipment so that's out but I do have a DVI port.

furball zen

Possible, you can use a DVI adapter to try if you dont have a cable.

DaemonDraxx

Well, worst case scenario I'll be getting a new Biostar board. A lot of shit has changed since AM3. SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0, PCI-E 2.0(and 2.1, 3.0), something called UEFI BIOS...Shit! Every few years it's like a complete overhaul but the components retain compatibility. (ﾟдﾟ) I'm probably going to stick with AMD for another few years because Intel definitely doesn't do this anymore.