24 replies to this topic

[idk]

Depending on what he's going to do with it, I'd go with an i5 instead.
And modular power supplies are really nice, like emo said.



Do any am3+ boards support usb3 without 3rd party stuff?

I have an am3+ MSI gaming motherboard with USB 3.0 right on the body, so I know they will work that way, now adding USB 3.0 to the plugs? I'm not sure. I know USB 3.0 VIA PCIe will work, as for the USB port plugs on the board, I don't know, as my board for whatever reason won't run the 3.0 ports on the front of my case ( I may have to take ahour or two with the guide book, and dig around at it. when I remember where I put the book.)

as for the rest of the setup, if he's gaming, Realistically a phenom series Processor (still am3+ compatible) will run about as well, (or as is the case with the Phenom II x6 1100T) will run better in some cases, than any fx chip, for less. Another good route to look at is any i5 xxxxK series chip. if he's gaming, you could go down to phenom (saving a few bucks) and upgrade the videocard to a 7870, or even pick up an SSD for the OS, and a 750GB HDD for games/programs/storage.

[SpleenBeGone]

The problem with Phenoms is that they're hard to get now. The new piledrivers make up the difference of bulldozer, if he goes that route, and it's my understanding that the Trinity cpus are actually really good for gaming. Personally though, I'd go with an intel for any kind of gaming stuff.

[idk]

The problem with Phenoms is that they're hard to get now. The new piledrivers make up the difference of bulldozer, if he goes that route, and it's my understanding that the Trinity cpus are actually really good for gaming. Personally though, I'd go with an intel for any kind of gaming stuff.

yeah, phenoms are hard to come by, However I know newegg carries mine (x4 955 BE) for just under $100.
The newest FX rebuild isn't much better though, only 3-5% improvement across most benchmarks, and even in windows 8, they behave the same (distinctly remember everyone claiming they will runn better in windows 8)

The reality is with the FX series, they tried to play with a horribly designed architecture, and it naturally, didn't go well.
It's pretty bad when two generations of your newest processor are still beaten out by pre-2011 hardware.

[SpleenBeGone]

Yeah, everyone was talking about how much better they'd be in windows 8, and there was less than a percent difference I think. Also, the benchmarks I saw were close to 10% increase over bulldozer.

[idk]

Yeah, everyone was talking about how much better they'd be in windows 8, and there was less than a percent difference I think. Also, the benchmarks I saw were close to 10% increase over bulldozer.

ah right, I mis-remembered the numbers, my bad. I remember them saying windows 8 will be able to use the CPU's better as an official responce because "windows 7 doens't have the proper architecture implementation to support these chips properly." When windows 8 rolled around, it had the function for it, but it didn't change the fact that the FX series where still built on garbage architecture.