Hi all,

Motherboard
===========
ASUS M5A97 Pro seems out. Now "ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AMD 970,DDR3,USB3.0,SATA3 6Gb/s,ATX M/B" is on the market. What will be the difference in performance for working with;

CPU - AMD 8-Core FX-8150 3.6GHz/16M
RAM - Corsair Vengeance CMZ32GX3M4X1600C10 DDR3 1600MHz 32GB Kit (4x8GB)

TIA

B.R.
satimis

Both use AMD's 970 chipset, so the expected performance difference should be about 0%. The real difference for them realeasing the R2.0 was to add the "Windows 8 Ready" to it.

+1 to TobiSGD, no real difference. To be a hardware nut....not quite.

M5A97 is the original version of the M5A97 R2.0. The R 2.0 version has more USB 3.0 ports (an extra header for x 2 ports), updated LAN from Rtk 8111E to F, and it got 'Network iControl' which I havent read up on (but sounds like something I wouldnt care less about).

The M5A97 Pro has a different, better sound chip (Rtk ALC892) and jmicron JMB362 eSATA ports that the M5A97 doesnt have. IIRC its also got better voltage controls (wont matter to normal users).

Hi all,

Thanks for your advice.

What is the difference in performance between;
ASUS M5A99X EVO AMD 990X,DDR3,USB3.0,SATA3 6Gb/s,ATX M/B

and;
M5A97 R2.0
M5A97 Pro

M5A99X EVO
is approx 50% more expensive

satimis

M5A99X Evo is a990X chipset, M5A97* are 970 chipset.

The 990X has more PCIe x16 slots (1 x16 or 2 x8, 1 x4). Support for nVidia SLI (multipule GPUs running together). JMicron JMB362 with 2 x eSATA ports and 2 x SATA-II internal ports. IEEE 1394 (firewire) controller. Rtk ALC892 sound chip.

990X chipset boards sometimes overclock a little better. If you arent going to be doign major overclocks, or running video cards in SLI/Crossfire, theres no real difference between 970 and 990X chipsets.

I'm not prepared overclocking nor running video cards.

I'll go back to PRO, if not available then R.20. My only worry on R.20 is sound. Whether I can find driver for Linux.

What is "jmicron JMB362 eSATA ports" and its use? Thanks

satimis

You'll be running one video card though, unless you want a 'headless' system.

Realteck has drivers up, but you shouldnt need them with recent linux distros. Support for the ALC892 is in alsa 1.0.22 and newer.

There is a few 'R2.0' versions, M5A97 EVO R2.0, M5A97 LE R2.0 and M5A97 R2.0.

'e'xternal SATA. jmicron controllers are junk, even with windows. Linux support is from jmicron is fairly bad.

BTW, the newer FX-83XX CPUs are out. A little faster, a little more power efficent, probably worth getting over a FX-81XX.

Yes, one VGA card and one display.

AMD FX-8300 Vishera (x86 Piledriver) 8 Core CPU
http://wccftech.com/amd-fx8300-vishe...d-benchmarked/
clock of 3.3-3.9GHz

NOT much increase compared to;
AMD 8-Core FX-8150 3.6GHz/16M CPU [AM3+]

Other advice noted. Thanks

satimis

Dont just compare MHz.

In general the FX-83XX and other 'piledriver' FX CPUs run faster, and use less power than the older 'bulldozer' FX CPUs-

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/t...-fx4300-tested

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...d-fx-8350.html

FX-8300 is the bottom of the 4 module FX-83XX CPUs. FX-8320 is the closest to the FX-8150 in pricing. I'd get a FX-8320 over the FX-8150 any day.