Upgrading my mobo, help (AMD)

[Sindroms]

Sup. 

Needless to say, I've had a long and very bad streak of slowly upgrading what was first an office into a gaming rig with a very tight budget for parts. Now it is that one more situation, where my choice of going with a compromise in favor of cost has come back to bit me in the butt.

 

It turns out that my Asus m5a97 2.0 is not SLI compatible.

 

Which really sucks, because I just got a second GTX 960 from a friend, who is upgrading to the 980 Ti.

 

 

Guys, I really had a bad streak when it comes to mobos. Where do I even begin. I started off with some oldtier one when I was running my old Phenom II. I then decided to upgrade to an FX-6300 and, since I also wanted DDR3 memory, I went with the Asrock 980DE3/U3S3.

 

Turned out to be a disaster. Huge stuttering, thermal throttle and whatnot. I saved up, the next month I got myself an ASUS M5A97 R2.0. Everything ran fine. Now I upgraded to an FX-8350, and here we go again....

 

If I am running stock voltages, everything is fine. The moment I try to overclock the thing (Because lol singlecore performance worse than my Phenom), I ended up having to glue, no joke, my stock cooler fan over the heatsinks.

 

And now here I am, looking for a new mobo again.

This time I will ask your suggestions instead.

 

 

 

I want to run SLI. I want to OC my FX-8350. I want my rig not to sound like a jet engine. What do?

[Majestic]

Going from Phenom II to 6300 wasn't an upgrade, more like the same (or worse in IPC-heavy games). 8350 isn't much better either, since games don't even scale past 4 cores.

 

Your problem is that you're betting on the wrong horse (AMD). To get a motherboard capable of overclocking the 8350 to any significant degree to saturate those cards and not sound like a jet engine, will require a 990FX board and atleast an H100i.

 

And tbh, that's way too much to invest in a dead platform, especially since you wasted so much already. Cut your losses and buy something decent.

[Tedster]

I'm not too sure about overclocking your 8350 but a cheap cooler would be a Hyper 212 Evo.

If I were you, I'd sell the board and 8350 and get a locked i5 and a H97 board.

[harrynowl]

990FX-UD3 probably the best bet. Some 970 boards have SLI compatibility with a PLX chip but the VRMs on the MSI one are a bit meh due to the cheap capacitors. 

 

Although if I were you I'd have taken a hint from the bad history and moved to the platform most people use for gaming these days (because it's just better right now).

[harrynowl]

I'm not too sure about overclocking your 8350 but a cheap cooler would be a Hyper 212 Evo.

If I were you, I'd sell the board and 8350 and get a locked i5 and a H97 board.

Or a Z97 board as IIRC there aren't H97 boards with SLI compatibility floating around.

[Nena Trinity]

For very high OC with FX-8350 then you need a 990FX and a water cooler... Decent OC a good cooler and MSI 970 Gaming should be fine.

[Sindroms]

My current budget is around 150Eur to spare on this part. I am looking into a ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 or a Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 if I catch the later off at a discount.

Unless there are better options. 

[Majestic]

150 for a board and cooler to OC the 8350 isn't going to happen. In the Netherlands you're looking at atleast 200-250 euro, depending on how high you're aiming.

 

And even then, at 1080p the saturation of the second card will be pretty terrible, and at 1440p+ the 960's VRAM and memory bandwidth will be insufficient.

[Sindroms]

150 for a board and cooler to OC the 8350 isn't going to happen.

I will worry about the cooler next month. Right now I want to SLI those 960s, even if I have to go at stock speeds on the CPU.

[Majestic]

I will worry about the cooler next month. Right now I want to SLI those 960s, even if I have to go at stock speeds on the CPU.

 

Just dont.. read the edit.

[Sindroms]

Just dont.. read the edit.

I am running a 1400x900 monitor though. That and I got the other card (almost) for free, so..

[Majestic]

I am running a 1400x900 monitor though. That and I got the other card (almost) for free, so..

 

That makes things even worse, the lower the resolution the more emphasis gets placed on the CPU. Also, pretty sure the 960 can play any game at that resolution without problems. The fact you have a second 960, doesn't mean you need it.

 

My advice; sell a 960, plus the 8350 and buy a H81/B85 + 4460. And put any disposable income you might aquire in the future towards a better panel. Your monitor is the most important part in visual aesthetics. The graphics are only as pretty as the monitor can display them.