TR Forums

I knew it would not last forever, but as per this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=74930

My trusty Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P has started to fail due to age and heavy use I suspect. Some USB ports died a while back - I could deal with that, but recently the boards storage controller wont recognise drives properly. I tend to just make things "work" together with very little cost, so I am looking for ideas on what I should replace this board with. I have some issues by choosing to stay with the same board for so long - I was still using DDR2 Memory for a start.

Any upgrade to an AMD 890GX/F/FX board means I need to buy new RAM's also - but the boards are cheap. They are a lot cheaper than what must be the very last few AMD 790X based boards I have found at an online e-tailer, but a new 890GX board plus 4GB of DDR3 costs slightly more than buying a 790FX board that uses DDR2.

I dont know what to do. Part of me says get the new Phenom X6's I was talking about in another thread : viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74811, and get a new mobo to go with it.

My cost saving head says just buy a 790FX - It will be a drop-in replacement, but is old. If you guys think this may be a bad idea, please say so.

My performance craving inner child is saying migrate to the entry level i5 SandyBridge CPU. It's much faster than my Athlon II.


Somebody, please guide a lost gerbil. I could spend a little bit on upgrades - I had earmarked £200 for that new Phenom II I wanted - But having a working motherboard is even more important than wanting that, so the budget still stands and probably needs to be split between other parts for this months pay cheque

isn't that motherboard model less than 2 years old?
Do you have a real need to upgrade your processor right now? Your current athlon model should be great for daily usage.
if your current DDR2 is 1066 I would not bother upgrading your processor. the end of next spring/summer is the best time to upgrade.
it is fine to get an AM3 board with DDR3 if you want now, though. most likely the memory will be reusable but it is unclear if AM3 will support all the new chips so just consider it fact that it is not reusable right now.
The best thing to do is maybe look for a used or cheap AM2+ board.
you can upgrade to intel, it is a good processor, but I don't like the prices and they will definitely come down late spring.

EDIT;
this is the board i have
you live in the UK though so maybe this auction is not a good deal for you but check for similar deals in your area

You can still find the MSI 790XT-G45 on this side of the Atlantic.

You could look on this not as a computer problem, but as an opportunity to upgrade.