Hello everyone,
If you have not read Part I of the story please feel free to do so. Furthermore If you have any questions about anything regarding the Story, either ask on Facebook or here in our Forum.
The Search For a good AM3 Motherboard
On the search for a good AM3 motherboard I preferably was looking for a new board from the 8XX chipset series. So my first search did not focus on the criteria I mentioned in Part 1 because I did not really think about reinstalling Windows. So my first motherboard I had thrown an eye on was the ASUS M4A87TD/USB3, AM3, ATX. Blinded by the features and the name I ordered it, but after realizing that the board only has an optical audio exit, which is not the one I needed I canceled the order and continued searching for a motherboard which offers a coaxial audio. Of course there might be transformers etc. but I prefer having the right plug directly there. I also realizied that I might do a clean reinstallment of Windows 7 but currently i dont have any optical drive installed for my PC so another problem to solve. That was the reason to get a motherboard similar to the AsRock A770 Crossfire, it must have similar north/southbridge so the switch can be done without the need of a new Windows.
Still December 23rd, around 11PM I found a motherboard which seems to the one I choose as a new basement for my AM3 Setup. Looking at the name it seems to have a 8XX chip on it but looking at the board in detail you have a 770 northbridge, but a 710 southbridge. The board has Thuban support with the initial BIOS, has the ACC and Core Unlocker Feature, offers Crossfire but not like the AsRock board with 8/8 lanes, it Crossfires cards with 16/4 lanes. But that would not hurt your crossfire performance, since it is PCI-E 2.0 so basically the speed is at x8. The other features, pictures, names, and even more will be seen in Part III of the Story.
I hoped that it will make the reinstallation of Windows 7 needless due to the 97% similarities of the new board to the old one. Hopefully I am not proved wrong :-). Another hope was to have a faster performing Windows due to the 16GB of memory and that the motherboard will last till Christmas 2011 and more. The last hope I had was to have a better overclocking experience.
After ordering the board, I figured out that the color of the black PCB is really appealing to me.
So far this is Part II, I know it looks a bit boring but this time I chose not to leak any pictures, because that might lead to the identity of the motherboard I got.
Read the upcoming Part III which will give you the name of the motherboard, The real Switch. Part IV will be a conclusion of the switch and in theory if that could be done with an Intelsystem too.
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