First post, by 133MHz
- Rank
- Oldbie
My current main PC started as a budget build back in 2010, I had an Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPU, 2x1GB DDR2 sticks, 400GB SATA HDD and an EVGA 7800GTX lying around so I bought a cheap motherboard (Asrock N68-S) to put it all together into something usable. Fast forward to 2013 and through a combination of bargain hunting and luck I now have the following components:
- Phenom II X2 555 BE (unlocks successfully to quad)
- Zotac GTX 650 Ti 1GB DDR5
- Kingston SSDNow! 200 V+ 60GB
Now the cheap motherboard has become a bottleneck so I want to replace it. I'm aiming for a low to mid range motherboard focused on reliability (solid capacitors, 140W capable heatsinked VRM, hopefully a bit of headroom for overclocking) rather than features I'll rarely use, without breaking the bank.
These are the main features I'm looking for:
- 140W TDP, heatsink on VRM
- Core Unlocking
- Full ATX form factor (don't like cramped expansion slots)
- Four DDR3 slots (I'm planning on 2x4GB for a start, more to come in the future)
- No IGP I won't use (taking up space that could be used for USB ports etc)
- Separate PS/2 ports for keyboard and mouse
I don't see myself upgrading the CPU or running a dual-GPU config on this machine in the near future so I'm not too concerned about FX CPU or Crossfire/SLI support, I'd rather have a no-bells-and-whistles board with a solid VRM I can push a bit without worries.
When I looked around my local PC parts stores I was in for a surprise. It's either crap low end or expensive high end, the middle of the road boards I'm looking for are pretty much gone. Guess I'm a year late 😢.
Going by the limited options I had at my disposal I settled on the Asus M5A97 R2.0 which seemed to match all of my criteria, I was about to buy it when I noticed no mention of core unlocking even though the plain M5A97 and the EVO version do mention it, so I looked it up and apparently the R2.0 versions of Asus boards don't feature core unlocking even though they're essentially the same board! I still can't wrap my head around that. Unfortunately the plain M5A97 is sold out everywhere so I'm out of luck. 😢
If I make a compromise and drop my two last requirements from the list two other options open up:
Both are over my initial budget and there's only one of each in stock (at two different stores) so I better make up my mind and get one before they're gone, and that's where I'm struggling. My shallow analysis follows:
Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
- Cheaper
- 8+2 Phase VRM
- Legacy BIOS
- Max. 16GB of RAM
- IGP (and less USB ports)
Asus M5A97 EVO
- More expensive
- 6+2 Phase Digi+ VRM
- UEFI BIOS
- Max. 32GB of RAM
- No IGP (and more USB ports)
The points in black I'm not sure about. 8+2 Phase VRM sounds better than 6+2 but I'm not familiar with the Digi+ technology, neither I know if UEFI is really worth the cost, and frankly I don't think I'll go beyond 16GB of RAM in the following years.
I'd say that the M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 has a nicer VRM but the M5A97 EVO sounds better overall, and since I'm way over my budget I might as well get the more expensive one while I'm at it, but still I can't really make up my mind, the pressure of the remaining stock vanishing at any minute now doesn't really help either.
Any thoughts or suggestions you may have will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! 😉
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Why Asus only? Mostly because of the limited options I have. Asus seems the most reliable, I don't feel like going with Asrock again, only 4+1 phase and no VRM cooling on the similar Gigabyte boards I could find, and I'm certainly not going with MSI if I want reliable.
