Thoughts on a new motherboard, please

My birthday is fast approaching, and Her Majesty has agreed to buy me a new motherboard as a present.

I currently have an AMD FX 8350 and an ASUS M5A97 R 2.0 motherboard. I'm not happy with my current motherboard as it doesn't fully support my CPU (HT link and NB at wrong speeds, memory issues, and overvolting the CPU). I don't have a problem buying another ASUS board, but I'm trying to decide on a new MB.

I'm looking at these three:

Newegg.ca - ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Newegg.ca - ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Newegg.ca - ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

The only drawback to the Asrock board is that it only has five SATA ports, and I need six, but I could live without the sixth one if need be. I don't really need the extra PCIe x16 ports either, but they come with the territory. I may Crossfire a second video card in the future. I'm also looking at going to water cooling, something like a Corsair H80i or H90 so I can push this thing a little bit.

I'm leaning toward the Sabertooth simply for the inductors and capacitors on the board being of good quality, but I'd really like some opinions, please. And if not one of those three, is there another MB that I should be looking at? My price range is about $200.

Thanks.

The sabertooth boards are very good. Everyone I know with one has very good opinions of them

Couple of Suggestions if you really want a quality board and want to Maximize your CPU potential

ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS - Newegg.com

ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS - Newegg.com

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com



These Boards are the best of the best ,I would not suggest a MSI board for my own personal reasons but this is The Cream of the Crop and will do well with Higher end ram as well

The Crosshair is a little out of my price range if I want to water cool as well. They're $260 to $280 here in Canada. Nice board, though.

I've never used a Gigabyte product. It's interesting about the BIOS options vs. ASUS. I'll have to keep that in mind. So far, I'm still leaning toward the Sabertooth.

Mellon Head said:

The Crosshair is a little out of my price range if I want to water cool as well. They're $260 to $280 here in Canada. Nice board, though.

I've never used a Gigabyte product. It's interesting about the BIOS options vs. ASUS. I'll have to keep that in mind. So far, I'm still leaning toward the Sabertooth.

Sabertooth will probably be the best choice and very easy to OC

madcratebuilder said:

As I recall there is a revision number of the Sabertooth you want to avoid.

Can you get a descent price on the GA990fxa-ud5? I've read they are very well made with better parts than the ud3 that I have. My ud3 has been a good board with one problem, it does not like to OC mnemory, other than that it's good and does OC the cpu just fine. Enough slots to run Crossfire/SLI, only one USB 3 header on the board. The main difference between the Sabertooth and GA is bios options and software. ASUS ships a lot of extras on the install cd, some are pretty good, some not.

REV 1.0-2.0 and 3.0

I have Rev 2.0

REV 2.0 and 3.0 come with PCI-E 3.0 Rev 1 is PCI-E 2.0 not sure of what features REV 3 has over REV 2 doubt it is that much of a difference unless they changed the power phase to match the FX9000 CPU

Hmmm. The only Sabertooth I'm able to get in Canada is the R2.0. I am able to get the Gigabyte UD5 and it's in my price range. I only have about three outlets to buy from that are big enough to have a return policy that doesn't stink, and that I trust to get undamaged goods.

when it comes to mobos im an ASUS slag.. so the sabertooth or M5A99FX get my vote