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- Feb 9, 2009
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unusual for me to ask for help, but after hours of reading.... i'm still struggling to choose a mobo
i'm looking at an A88X based chipset, mATX most likely (ATX is 'fine' but i wont be using all those slots & the cost goes up? miniITX is a little cramped, do the screw holes fit in old ATX cases?)
-should i worry about power phases? not all brands & models list them though... half the boards on asrock's site comparison tool lacked the text
-should i worry about mosfet/vrm cooling? is blowing air without a heatsink on them enough? i can probably add little heatsinks manually, but where would i order them?
-it needs to support 2133mhz 9-11-11-31 1.65v ram, i have seen some that only specify 1800 max with newegg reviews of 2133 users, but most manuals dont tell you the limits you can input in the bios to know if it's doable
-from what i saw, every gigabyte mobo is made before kaveri launched, therefore i wont be able to boot to update bios, so avoid them all? or did i not look close enough? they do have 'revisions', but who knows what stock stores carry
-how loud is the AMD stock cooler? which aftermarket coolers can be used on FM2+? (FM2 has the same measurements, what about FM1 or other 'old' coolers that came out years ago?)
technically i could deal with the kaveri support by buying the cheapest FM2 cpu or finding someone on hardwarecanucks to borrow from in person just to update the bios... but that sucks (or are there methods of updating a bios without posting or having video output?)
here a few boards that caught my eye:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M-DG3+/index.us.asp?cat=CPU
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M+ BTC/index.us.asp?cat=CPU really like the colors, has power cooling, but not easy to find in stores for some reason!
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/A88XME35.html
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/A88XME45.html like the colors, has cooling, newegg reviews say you can post with kaveri enough to update the bios, except one person claimed it used 'older' power delivery components since the heatsink still got hot, this might be the best mATX choice so far
any sort of input would be useful, thanks for reading
i'm looking at an A88X based chipset, mATX most likely (ATX is 'fine' but i wont be using all those slots & the cost goes up? miniITX is a little cramped, do the screw holes fit in old ATX cases?)
-should i worry about power phases? not all brands & models list them though... half the boards on asrock's site comparison tool lacked the text
-should i worry about mosfet/vrm cooling? is blowing air without a heatsink on them enough? i can probably add little heatsinks manually, but where would i order them?
-it needs to support 2133mhz 9-11-11-31 1.65v ram, i have seen some that only specify 1800 max with newegg reviews of 2133 users, but most manuals dont tell you the limits you can input in the bios to know if it's doable
-from what i saw, every gigabyte mobo is made before kaveri launched, therefore i wont be able to boot to update bios, so avoid them all? or did i not look close enough? they do have 'revisions', but who knows what stock stores carry
-how loud is the AMD stock cooler? which aftermarket coolers can be used on FM2+? (FM2 has the same measurements, what about FM1 or other 'old' coolers that came out years ago?)
technically i could deal with the kaveri support by buying the cheapest FM2 cpu or finding someone on hardwarecanucks to borrow from in person just to update the bios... but that sucks (or are there methods of updating a bios without posting or having video output?)
here a few boards that caught my eye:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M-DG3+/index.us.asp?cat=CPU
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A88M+ BTC/index.us.asp?cat=CPU really like the colors, has power cooling, but not easy to find in stores for some reason!
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/A88XME35.html
http://us.msi.com/product/mb/A88XME45.html like the colors, has cooling, newegg reviews say you can post with kaveri enough to update the bios, except one person claimed it used 'older' power delivery components since the heatsink still got hot, this might be the best mATX choice so far
any sort of input would be useful, thanks for reading