Motherboard hunting.

[Toothless]

Is your GTX 660 the 2 GB VRAM? If so then there may be games in the long run (like Watch Dogs) that will limit how high you can crank up the settings even though your SLI GTX 660 OC might have the grunt to handle it.

http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N660_TF_2GD5OC.html

 

[Vario]

Did it die from the OC?
I'd get a high end 990FX if I were you.
Keep the 660 and wait for the 860 series. Don't bother with SLI.

How about this?
ASRock 990FX Extreme9 AM3+ AMD 990FX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157358
review:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASRock-990FX-Extreme9-Motherboard/1731/1

or
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD7 AM3+ AMD 990FX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128508

or
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131877

 

[Toothless]

Did it die from the OC?
I'd get a high end 990FX if I were you.
Keep the 660 and wait for the 860 series. Don't bother with SLI.

Like I said. All temps were pretty good. The only thing that was OC'd is the GPU.

 

[suraswami]

If the board is still under warranty why not check with Asus and get an RMA? If you get a new board back from Asus, you saved that money, sell your 660 and get a 770. That should hold you for another 2 yrs (may be). You probably won't need to change the PSU.

 

[Toothless]

If the board is still under warranty why not check with Asus and get an RMA? If you get a new board back from Asus, you saved that money, sell your 660 and get a 770. That should hold you for another 2 yrs (may be). You probably won't need to change the PSU.

I did a dumb and lost the receipt. Unless I can print it out from Newegg, I'm kinda out of luck. It's also over two months ago when I got it so eh..

 

[Vario]

I did a dumb and lost the receipt. Unless I can print it out from Newegg, I'm kinda out of luck. It's also over two months ago when I got it so eh..

Newegg you can go back quite a ways. I bet you can get the receipt off of the Egg easily.
However I'd still buy a new board, (use Amazon, they are easier to return too if you get a DOA out of box) and then RMA old board, when you get your replacement, sell it.

 

[Toothless]

Newegg you can go back quite a ways. I bet you can get the receipt off of the Egg easily.
However I'd still buy a new board, (use Amazon, they are easier to return too if you get a DOA out of box) and then RMA old board, when you get your replacement, sell it.

Yeah, the M5A97 R2.0 was good but I'm still not going to run with it again.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Did it die from the OC?
I'd get a high end 990FX if I were you.
Keep the 660 and wait for the 860 series. Don't bother with SLI.

How about this?
ASRock 990FX Extreme9 AM3+ AMD 990FX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157358
review:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/ASRock-990FX-Extreme9-Motherboard/1731/1

or
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD7 AM3+ AMD 990FX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128508

or
ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131877

He said $125 max for the board. Those definitely don't fall under that.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

The UD3 is a good board for the price.

 

[suraswami]

I have the UD3, its a good board, but bit tricky with OCing and S3 sleep.

 

[Toothless]

I have the UD3, its a good board, but bit tricky with OCing and S3 sleep.

I'm not a big overclocker, so that helps.

 

[64K]

http://us.msi.com/product/vga/N660_TF_2GD5OC.html

I can't know for sure where PC gaming requirements are going to be a few years from now but I do expect that there will be some games that will be limited by 2 GB VRAM even at 1080p. Maxing out all games isn't important to everyone. If that is important to you then it's something to consider. Honestly my opinion is that you should just wait on GTX 860 or GTX 870 if budget will allow after saving some more $$$. We're nearing the end of the Kepler cycle. Depending on what Nvidia sets the retail prices at will determine if they're a good value though.

 

[Vario]

He said $125 max for the board. Those definitely don't fall under that.

Not buying a second 660 for sli would give him the cash for a better mobo.

 

[Toothless]

Not buying a second 660 for sli would give him the cash for a better mobo.

I don't care for godly-grade things. I just want something that works and will work for a good amount of time. Had I been wanting something big in the first place, I would've went with a Sabertooth or so.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

I'd say get an intel, upgrade GPU to a maxwell or R9 300 series, and be happy.

You are probably going to run into bottlenecks on your CPU if you run 2 660s...

 

[Toothless]

I'd say get an intel, upgrade GPU to a maxwell or R9 300 series, and be happy.

You are probably going to run into bottlenecks on your CPU if you run 2 660s...

So get the ASUS RMA, sell my FX and that board, and go for Intel? What on earth is a good combo that'll work around $400? And the only bottlenecks I've had in the games I've played are GPU.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

i5 4690k and a Z97-A?

Well under $400

I'd expect you will see quite a bit of bottlenecking on that 6300 (especially at stock) once you go SLI 660s or a single 870 or something like that.

 

[Toothless]

Could I get those two for $325?

 

[Vario]

So get the ASUS RMA, sell my FX and that board, and go for Intel? What on earth is a good combo that'll work around $400? And the only bottlenecks I've had in the games I've played are GPU.

Microcenter you can usually get an i5 and a decent motherboard for $300 with the combo.

If you did want to go Intel you can buy a used i7 2600k for around $180-200 and a 1155 z68/77 mobo for around $60-100. i5 2500k can be found for $140.

There is this
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/2600k-and-asus-p8p67-pro-b3.143914/

Up FS is a 2600K and ASUS P8P87 Pro (B3) Combo. Comes with the board and CPU only. Not sure what the max multi is on this thing or how it overclocks. I just confirmed it was working. This must go. Hopefully it is priced to sell...If not make me some offers.

$210 Shipped.
$180 CPU Only.

I don't care for godly-grade things. I just want something that works and will work for a good amount of time. Had I been wanting something big in the first place, I would've went with a Sabertooth or so.

A $180 990FX is not godly grade. It is adequate for long term use. A reliable mobo is money well spent, for the FX a good VRM section helps a lot.

 

[suraswami]

Without going to all those review sites, how do I check for 'bottleneck' with my current gaming system?

 

[Aquinus]

Without going to all those review sites, how do I check for 'bottleneck' with my current gaming system?

Is your GPU running at 100% usage in whatever game you're playing most of the time when v-sync is off? If it's not, something other than your GPU is slowing rendering down and it would probably be the CPU in most cases.

 

[Vario]

I've found that good steady minimum frame rate indicates your CPU is adequate.

 

[suraswami]

Is your GPU running at 100% usage in whatever game you're playing most of the time when v-sync is off? If it's not, something other than your GPU is slowing rendering down and it would probably be the CPU in most cases.

95% of time I play BF4 and sometimes go back to BF3 (both games of course multi-player). Video settings are set at Auto, which defaults to all High. Using Perfoverlay command I see the FPS ranging from 80 to 110 and occasional drop to 60's when lot of smoke, fog or too many players. If I set to all ULTRA, FPS drops to below 60 and sometimes painful. According to GPUZ my GPU is working hard around 90 to 98%. Task Manager shows all 8 cores loaded and load varies from 40 to 50%. I have enabled Mantle.

Is this a good sign?

 

[Vario]

95% of time I play BF4 and sometimes go back to BF3 (both games of course multi-player). Video settings are set at Auto, which defaults to all High. Using Perfoverlay command I see the FPS ranging from 80 to 110 and occasional drop to 60's when lot of smoke, fog or too many players. If I set to all ULTRA, FPS drops to below 60 and sometimes painful. According to GPUZ my GPU is working hard around 90 to 98%. Task Manager shows all 8 cores loaded and load varies from 40 to 50%. I have enabled Mantle.

Is this a good sign?

When you overclock the 8350, do you get a large bump in frame rate or is it miniscule?

 

[suraswami]

When you overclock the 8350, do you get a large bump in frame rate or is it miniscule?

from 4 to 4.2 I don't see any difference unless I run the built-in test, which shows I gained 1 to 2 FPS depending on which map I run it.

But OC my 7950 from stock clock 960 to 1150 gives me much better experience, smooth game play and no stuttering.