Mobo A Waste? High End AM3+ vs AM4 Next Year With New Cpu

MarvinKMooney · July 4, 2015

Wait for zen next year to come out no point in tossing $ for a new MOBO just to have to toss even more for an entire new setup and a year is really not that long.

IateMApoo · July 4, 2015

Wait for Zen or Skylake.

Prysin · July 4, 2015

Take note that AMD has usually been nice and allowed users to use both old DDR and new DDR technology with their FIRST batch of motherboards for a new socket. They did so with Phenom during DDR 2 to DDR3 transition phase. And some rumors indicate that they will have 2-4 DDR3 sockets and 2-4 DDR4 sockets on their new chipset to allow people to transfer from old to new.

Nothing of this has been officially stated, but given their past history, it may not be too unlikely.

-rascal- · July 4, 2015

Well, back in May, when AMD had their "Financial Analyst Day" Live Stream / Presentation, they mentioned APUs coming onto the AM4 socket, as well as the new "Zen" FX CPU's on socket AM4.

If you are spending $230 now, in July of 2015, on a AM3+ motherboard, then it is absolutely not worth it. You are already ~2 years late my fellow Canadian.

If you are willing to spend that sum of money, might as well shift over to Intel. $230, I am assuming you are looking at motherboards in the range of...

Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5,
AsRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer or,
Possibly an ASUS 990FX Sabertooth

If you are set to get a new motherboard, I would recommend not going any higher than $120 ~ $150 before taxes. This puts you in the area of a

Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P (970 chipset)
MSi 970 Gaming (970 chipset)
ASUS M5A990X EVO R2.0 (990X chipset)
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev4.0 (990FX chipset)
ASUS M5A990FX Pro 2.0 (990FX chipset)

All these boards

Support high TDP CPUs (like your FX-8350)
Has the VRM count and adequate cooling to support overclocking your FX-8350 comfortably
Can support dual-GPU's in SLi or Crossfire (aside from the 970 based boards)
Packs most of the features a 990FX board will have

If you get a $230, I can almost certainly guarantee you, it's value will depreciated by 20%~30% within the first year.

When I bought my ASUS Crosshair V Formula used back in 2013, I was able to get it for $180 (the asking price was $200). The original owner had only used it for less than a year with one system build. This is board that goes for ~$250 before taxes brand-new.