am3+ 970 mobo recommended for new build

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redbeard75

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Finally building a new system after too long...been out of the loop for awhile..anyway, I'm struggling with which board to get. I'm limited budget so Intel is no go, the rig will be primarily used for media server, video encoding/transcoding, very light gaming. will be buying from microcenter for the combo discount. Looking at 970 boards as I don't really see paying for features the 990 has but won't use, sli for example.

So far I'm seeing as potential...
asrock 970 performance (8+2 phase , nice sound chip, ?quality?)
Gigabyte ga 970a ud3p (8+2, known quality as I've have 3 gigabytes no issues.)


I will be getting a fx 8320e with evo 212 cooler w/ hopefully an OC to 4-4.2ghz
I've always used gigabyte and had no problems but the asrock looks to have some great features but haven't seen much commented/reviewed about it. So I'm not sure if asrock makes a good board, never owned one.

would like to see what you would recommend, thanks!
 
I would vote for that Gigabyte. It's fairly cheap yet has solid specs and performance.
 
That's my thinking, to go we it the gigabyte, but I'm hoping some chimes in about the asrock, as it's sparked my interest with the better sound, but I've read a lot of negatives about asrock boards running hot (vrms, northbidge)
 
gigabyte's rma support has never failed me. in fact i recently used it for a z77 board for a client's build. the asrock fatal1ty boards looks pretty solid, too but i've not had to deal with their rma. i've mostly used asrock for non overclocked builds. you might be taking a chance with them. that said, my next build will probably be with their 970 fatal1ty board
 
Ill be buying from microcenter so if anything goes wrong i can take advantage of the return policy...this may make me take a chance on the asrock, looks like a solid board. I guess it may just come down to whats in stock at the time. seems like the asrock boards are selling out quick. stock showed 10 on tuesday and as of today they are down to 3.
 
I have the same CPU/mobo combo you mentioned and they work great together. I bought them from Microcenter as well.
 
its not an immediate failure that you need to worry about. its the failure that may happen a few years down the line. that gigabyte z77 board was used in a build from the summer of 2012. when i submitted the rma request in april 2014, i held no doubts that gigabyte would do me a solid. for me, if the asrock board goes feet up; no problem; i have other computers so my down time is zero. if this is your only computer i would go with a manufacturer known to provide hassle free rma support.
 
I just built a 8320e and ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 board from Microcenter. The board is only 5$ AR and After combo, so like 105$ for both. The board has been pretty rock solid for me in the last couple of weeks. Only problem I had was no usb 3 header on the board, but the case had a 3 to 2 internal adapter so no real worries for me. As far as on stock the dinky hs that comes with the chip isn't awful but I would think no room for overclocking ;). Actually surprised at the chip as I was considering an i3 combo as opposed to this but I am very happy.
 
I have a gigabyte 760g usb 3 mobo now with a x6 1055t, not a bad board for $55! Similar to your Asus. I've been mildly oc'ed to 3.2 for two years now. I'm just looking to do another budget build for 2nd PC, as my wife and kids took over mine. And the wifey is always complaining about my "tinkering and changing" stuff on it! Those $50-60 budget boards are great for an everyday use PC. I'm looking at the 970 for more data and faster sata, more oc potential too.
 
Still haven't decided. But I think I am leaning heavily towards the 970a-ud3p. Seems like a quality board but the 990fx-ud3 is on sale for only 15$ more so I may step up to that, don't really need the sli/xfire support but the vrm/nb sinks are bigger and heatpiped. The store was sold out of the asrock 970 so I'm gonna wait to see it in hand so I can compare...
Still haven't seen any reviews done on the asrock unfortunately...

Stay tuned...
 
I'd vote gigabyte. Been happy with mine that started out with a PhenomII 955 and now has a 8350.
 
yeah, go for the gigabyte, i have a 970 ud3 and it's solid as fuck. my phenom II 965 is rock solid stable at 4.1.. i need to drop an 83xx in at some point for the end of life upgrade, but really, it's been a GREAT board. the boards are nearly identical, with the ud3p supporting crossfire and sli, btw
 
as someone who's built quite a few fx 8 systems recently, dropping a quad core into 970 chipset board doesn't mean squat in terms of its long term vrm stability. by design the 990fx vrm is better equipped to handle an fx 8. the gigabyte 970 ud3p and 990fx ud3 use the same vrm design so the only real differences between the two are multi gpu support and maximum overclocking capability. if you think you're going to use multi gpu or want to achieve the highest overclock possible with your 8 core, then spend the extra cash. if all you're looking for is a 4.2ghz oc then the cheaper board will do just fine.
 
the msi gaming 970 board utilizes a 6+2 phase vrm design. its not an ideal setup for pushing an 8 core, but the reviews that exist out there show the board capable of 4.6-4.7ghz overclocks. the real issue; and this is pointed directly at that power design; is whether the board can sustain that overclock for the days and months ahead. this board is often the most expensive 970 board on the market. there are simply better featured 970 boards that retail for less.
 
I think Im going with either the gigabyte 990fxa ud3 rev 4. or the 970 ud3p rev 2. Looks like theres a $25 difference. I dont need the multi gpu support of the 990 but the vrm/nb cooling looks to be more robust with the heatpipe. Ill be running an 8320e with an overclock to 4.0ghz hopefully. My CM 690 II advanced case has a rear and top 120mm exhaust, 140mm front intake and 120mm bottom intake. Will be air cooling with hyper 212+ or evo. If airflo is good enough maybe I dont need the 990fx board. Then i can apply the savings towards something else, seidon 120v or bigger ssd...decisions....

Ive read the gigbyte boards have a double boot issue if you overclock and have turbo disabled, some stated to leave turbo on but manually set the multiplier to the same as the overclock and its fine. others have said a bios update fixed the issue, but they didnt say which board revision they had. the ud3p rev 2 only has 1 bios avaiable...anyone confirm this has been fixed?
 
All of my latest fx8 builds have been with the 8320e. At only 4ghz you'll never have to touch any voltage setting except applying the recommended dimm voltage. Heck, if you were curious you might actually be able to use less voltage than the stock 1.35v.
 
That's good to know! I'm sorta a newbie at overclocking. Only over clocked my PII 1045t had it Stable at 3.5 for about two years now. That was with a 4+1 board. I'm sure others can get better but for first time and having to do via fsb, I was proud! Good chip but I'm doing more video rendering type stuff and the added two cores and little higher clock should speed up things. 4ghz on the 8320e is where I'd like to be, if it's easy to get there I may try for a little more!
 
any fx8 in a 970 or 990 board should be able to achieve 4.5ghz with little effort and a bit more vcore. the difference maker between mobos is whether they can sustain the overclock over time. if you need a new video content creation machine on the cheap, nothing on lga 1150 can compete with the $140 fx 8320. in addition to that, it also makes the a10 7850k a complete waste of money.
 
Well in that case I'm going to save the 25 bucks and get the 970 ud3p. since building my own computers I've always used amd. Not a fanboy by any means, just with 3 kids and moderate budget amd has always given me what I need at the right price. I'd love to build an Intel rig but my budget can't justify it! it's hard too pass up 8 cores and motherboard for almost the cost of an i5 by itself!
 
I have a couple cheap asrock 970extreme4 and they are some of the best motherboards I've ever owned
 
Finally went shopping and got the gigabyte 970 ud3p rev. 2 board. Was tempted to get the MSI gaming board but it was $5 more and the 6+2 and lack of LLC in bios made the decision easier. Gigabyte board seems to be very good quality, only had time to overclock the 8320e to 3.5 stock volts, but will try for more when time permits. Paired it with some 1600 crucial ballistix since they had a coupon.
 
thats great news. i'm pretty sure you'll find the board is pretty solid overall, and you should be able to squeeze alot more out of the processor. think about 4.4 - 4.6.. if i remember i had an issue with the memory in my board, but i think it had more to do with the processor and getting 1600 settings to stick. it worked out in the end when i figured it out and it's been great since. best of luck.
 
Ended up getting to 4.2ghz at 1.3v on my fx 8320e. temps after 6 hours of stability testing never rose above 53c using CM seidon 120v. May shoot for 4.4-4.5 but kinda burned out on overclocking and stability testing for now. And it seems wattage goes way up from 4.2 to 4.3 to 4.4 and so on. More than happy with this little $100 cpu! But I gotta say the Gigabyte Uefi bios on the 970-UD3P isnt to much better than the old style bios! And i really dont think the different LLC settings do too much...I tried most , auto,normal and standard all seem too be the same, high shot my volts up way too much to be useful... IDK, maybe i'm missing something...overall its an excellent combo for the $$$, lots of bang for the buck.
 
its a little different for each board but load line calibration will essentially help the cpu maintain a consistent voltage. its pretty taxing on the voltage regulators hence the need for robust power design. this feature is necessary to explore the upper extreme of a cpu's max overclock. with high end cooling and a bunch more cpu voltage, you'll begin to find the usefulness of load line calibration control.
 
I've got the CPU to 4.2ghz with voltage at 1.3 but under load it drops to 1.27 but stayed stable thru testing. I have LLC set to low. I believe there's auto, normal, standard, low, medium, high, extreme. I may try pushing for 4.4-4.5 if my cooler and voltage can take it. I think I'd like to stay under 1.4v. I think I have 17c of headroom left, as I've read the thermal limit is 70c on the 95w fx chips.
 
70'c is the thermal limit on all amd 8 cores including the fx 9 chips. the 9370 in my personal machine needs the load line set at high to achieve its 5ghz stable oc. at that speed, the vregs work very hard to make sure each core of the cpu is recieving the same amount of voltage for the length of the stability stress test. i have my voltage regulators cooled by its own water loop so i can run high load line without worrying about failure plus i'll have some cooling head room for when i try to explore an oc beyond 5ghz.
 
Well I'm at 4.3ghz with vcore at 1.32, LLC is set to low, but under load vcore drops to 1.285. However, it hasn't failed any stress tests such as 20 passes of IBT set to very high, prime 95 for over 4 hours. Should I try to minimize the vdroop by using medium LLC setting or is it fine since its stable even with the small vdroop? temps are I think are still good max was 54c. I think I still have enough headroom voltage and temp wise to reach 4.5 hopefully. I fear my CM seidon 120v may reach its limit before my chip! Good cooler for the price though!
 
the seidon 120v is really a great cooler for the price. i've used that cooler in a bunch of builds. you can probably leave load line at auto and just turn off vdroop to keep voltages from fluctuating. you won't have to use load line until you try for an oc past the 4.5ghz mark, though you'll probably need a dual fan radiator cooler for that attempt.
 
Ok. I'll try with LLC on auto, bumped it up to medium but that seems to over volt it a little. I'm going to try for 4.4 today, I'll set LLC to auto then. I do have a jetflo 120 coming to replace the fan on my rad. I think the higher static pressure should help cooling a bit over the stock fan on the 120v. Curious, but say I'm running at 4.4-4.5 of with around 1.37v, will this drastically shorten the life of the CPU over running stock?

Thanks for the help renny! Much appreciated!
 
i reckon anything under 1.4v is well within the tolerances of the chip. these days the board will fry faster than the chip. my 9370 eats close to 1.6v for its 5ghz so even under a big 360 radiator i'm under no illusions that this thing will last 10 yrs. i tend never to keep any build longer than 3 years anyway but whatever amd has in the pipeline will determine how long this build stays together. enjoy that new rig.
 
Well I settled on 4.2ghz at 1.31v for now. My Seidon 120v seems to reach its limit around 4.4-4.5. I may try reseating my block as it was my first try at installing an AIO cooler. I feel like i should get better temps with it as my PC is located in the basement which is only around 65F. Could be that Ihave to run 1.38-1.4v to reach 4.5, which gets my temps up to 63c. But even if I'm stuck at 4.2ghz I cant complain about basically getting an 8350 for 99$ Seems faster, especially when multitasking than my 1055t at 3.2ghz i had.
 
you can push/pull with the seidon. should net a drop of 2'c or better and it would be pretty effective with cooler master's high static jetflo but that thin 120mm radiator will only be able to absorb so much heat. the sensitive nature of amd's temp limit spells the difference between the chip happily ambling along at its set clock or dropping performance through the basement in panic mode.

if you're content with the clock you've arrived at then spend no more, save your duckets, and budget away for a 290 or 290x. they will be very affordable once the 390s drop.
 
I'm actually getting ready to swap in a jetflo as I type this. I'm going to see if it lowers temps by itself, then I may add the fan that came with the 120v as a pull fan. So far I am very happy with this chip. Plus I've read that the sweet spot for power/performance hovers around 4.2/4.3, after that the gains supposedly don't outweigh the power usage. True? Don't know, but i'm good for now...thanks for all the input you've given me, renny.
 
My pleasure redbeard. Yes, once you push beyond the low 4ghz clock speeds you'll need big voltage increases to achieve stability. That's where the energy-efficient intels pay dividends. You'll need increasingly expensive cooling solutions to get big overclocks out of amd 8s. If you get lucky with a golden chip you might not need anything more extravagant that a 240 radiator closed loop for an overclock close to 5ghz.

By the same token not every intel k chip is a monster overclocker either. From my own anecdotal experience, the amd 8s are at a 500mhz deficit to their intel quad core counterparts in gaming, so when you compare sensibly budgeted builds for amd and intel the former isn't very far behind the latter.
 
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