Any AMD users out there?

[Bountyhunter50]

Any AMD processor users out there? I've never had an AMD on any of my rigs, but I was looking at the MOBO Snubs used on her home PC build this week, and it would be a perfect fit for my rig actually (Home File Server). I originally was going to use a Gigabyte LGA 775 board, but apparently that socket type is rare. SO: Having thrown that board out the window on the highway, I did look at the CPU integrated boards starting with Intel. Those... suck. Atom processor at best.

Now I'm looking at AMD, but I know jack squat about them.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E45M1M_PRO/

That's the mobo in question. Any thoughts? Much appreciated!

[linkstojustice]

I have an Asus m5a99x that looks similar to that board.. It was the easiest board ive ever set up, the UEFI bios is a little weird, you can control everything with a mouse and its really graphical, but still lets you do everything you need to do. The only problem i've ran into with my board is that it only supports 1600 mhz ram, without overclocking.

[digip]

AM2+/AM3+ boards can use the same socket chips but not always support the same CPU based on BIOS. Mine, has served me well as a combo AM2+/AM3 capable board, where I was able to keep the same mobo for past few years now, and saved some money on the upgrade path. Can take a low level dual core processor, up through quad and right now I'm rocking a Hexacore AMD Phenom™ II X6 1090T 3.2Ghz CPU, all on the same board, that originally cost something like $120 for the mobo back in 2008/2009.

Check NewEgg.com if building your own rig, and compare prices with some of the other stores. NewEgg usually has them cheaper, just make sure you spec out all your compatible hardware needs, case size, clearance for GPU's, etc. Some of the AMD boards come with really decent built in GPU's that are even gaming capable for things like BF3 without the need to buy an extra GPU to stick in a slot, so built in micro boards that have a lot of perks for way less than the Intel stuff, and the noticeable difference in performance is usually negligible to the average user unless doing benchmarks for specific stuff.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ is a great place to compare them as well.

Edited December 20, 2012 by digip

[Bountyhunter50]

The only thing i need to do is match my ram: 4gb ddr3. Unsure of the speeds (recently moved, havent moved that tower yet

[linkstojustice]

The only thing i need to do is match my ram: 4gb ddr3. Unsure of the speeds (recently moved, havent moved that tower yet

I have some corsair vengeance 1866 mhz ... the board will only recognize it as 1600 without overclocking (I have yet to try this)

Edited December 20, 2012 by linkstojustice

[Bountyhunter50]

now I've seen the speeds and the bench marks between Intel and AMD , and seen the fanboy arguments (Personally, I'm from the Neutral planet....Futurama fans?) But the bench marks show that after continued heavy computing, it kind of plateaus off (AMD) but Intel starts working it's way to a plateau. Again, a file server, maybe the occasional video streaming to the 360 and what not. Is that something I should ultimately be REALLY concerned with? I found a decent (for my work flow) graphics card (2GB on board) that I can easily hurl in and just dish out an extra gig for processing.

[digip]

Thing to understand is price cost of CPU's with respect to benchmarks, some of these benchmarks show great things for Intel I7 processors, but for the cost, does it matter to you? Because for me, my 6 core CPU, does all the same things an i7 does, at a fraction the cost, even if it takes 30 seconds to a minute longer to do it for specific things, I can live with that. I;ve got 16GB of RAM, can run several virtual machines at the same time, including AERO effects in Vista, 7 and windows 8 all at the same time with no issues.

For me, the trade offs are also some other issues, like upgrade paths with the sockets on the mobo unlike on most Intel boards, I was able to keep the same setup without building a new rig in my upgrade path for a fraction of the cost it would have been to go Intel. Not to mention, all Intel's I've ever owned, I've had issues with stability and other problems over the years. All my AMD boxes seem to have been rock solid, no blue screens of death, and very stable, quiet, and cool.

With my current AMD board, worst issues I ever ran into, was my graphics card was so big it covers one of my internal SATA slots. Quick fix was angled sata cable, but its actually being held in by the GPU due to the size of my GPU, which honestly, is a bit of a design flaw on Gigabytes part since the made the board a bit too small and components close together. Thats something I can live with though.

[Bountyhunter50]

That's the only thing I've noticed too, looking at the physical layout of some of the boards. My biggest goals for this project are I want to stay cheap, but I want the most bang for my buck. Looking at most boards VS. processors, It was at minimum 500 just for the two, which kinda is a little high in my budget. like you said though, you got more processing power for a fraction of the cost. That is pretty much what i'm looking to do: More power for a fraction of the cost.

I'm a total Freshman on AMD so I am a deer in the headlights, B)

[murder_face]

now I've seen the speeds and the bench marks between Intel and AMD , and seen the fanboy arguments (Personally, I'm from the Neutral planet....Futurama fans?) But the bench marks show that after continued heavy computing, it kind of plateaus off (AMD) but Intel starts working it's way to a plateau. Again, a file server, maybe the occasional video streaming to the 360 and what not. Is that something I should ultimately be REALLY concerned with? I found a decent (for my work flow) graphics card (2GB on board) that I can easily hurl in and just dish out an extra gig for processing.

My file server/media center is an old HP Pavilion 2.4Ghz 1GB ram and ATI Radeon 6500 running Ubuntu 10.10. I can stream via SMB and miniDLNA at the same time while my daughter plays on Disneyjunior.com with no problems. I think I paid $20 total...

[newbi3]

I recently got an Asus M5A 78L-M board. I can't remember the socket and I don't feel like getting out the book but it can support up to 8gb of DDR3 and I have an AMD athlon (or phenom) II in it, once again I can't remember exactly. Works great and I've never had a problem.

[Bountyhunter50]

So I'm a bit mad at myself. The Motherboard I originally put in what was to be my file server is an MSI G41M-E43 , and all it was doing was powering up. That's it. No beeps, no nothing. Powered by a CoolerMaster 460w unit (it squeezed into my coolermaster tower no problem) EXCEPT I failed to look at the power Compatibility chart on the mobo's site... Only coolermaster PSU compatible is a 430w (and totally different letters after).

Since it's getting to the end of 2012, can I get a nomination of "Idiot of the Year"? Well I guess live and learn, my 1600DDR3 Ram can at least go in a different board (which is why I was asking about AMD here :D )

[digip]

Well, my board is rated for something like that, but because I have all the stuff I threw in it, like the GPU that needs its own power(hope you know to put power to a GPU if not built into the board, depending on the GPU, PCIe16 boards require their own power) my initial PSU was a paltry 400watt. I now have in there a 1000watt, due to maxing all the HDD's and the GPU. Over powered PSU's usually don't cause an issue. Underpowered ones, can, but usually underpowered ones will boot, post, etc, its when you get to the OS and use them a bit, you end up with crazy shit like endless reboots for no reason or crashes at times for no reason, usually indicator of low power.

No post beeps, pull it down, re-seat everything, start over, retry. My mobo has an eSATA and I use an icy-dock externally. Cable on the back of the PC is tight, but the icy-dock, is a little less than disireable with the connector. Any slight bump, the drives go missing and causes errors. When rebooting the other night, I got a hardware error. it was because of the icy-dock, it coulnd't read the drive and wasn't sure if it was boot media, so never booted. Pulled the icy-dock cable, rebooted, no post, no monitor or bios screen. Nothing.

So I had to power it down by holding in the power button, pull the power chord, checked everything was seated properly inside since the GPU pushes against the one SATA cable and can also be an issue for me at times(but is rarely an issue, and still think it was the icy-dock at the root cause), cleaned it out while I was in there since it was collecting dust bunnies, and after putting it all back together and booting WITHOUT the icy-dock hooked to the eSATA port, it posted and booted fine. I then just added the icy-dock in while booted and it showed up, drive is fine, no problem.

If I wiggle the cable near the icy dock connector, it drops the disk, a design problem on icy-docks side, but if rebooting with that cable plugged in and no data at the other end, caused a hardware failure. I suspect similar in your case, bad connection, not all the power hooked up, something not seated properly, or even pins setup wrong on power/reset/pc bell. Its usually a simple run down of things and then retry.