Good afternoon y’all. I recently was fortunate enough to come into possession of two new components for my gaming rig. I want to talk about the initial thoughts that I have had on these new components and the very cool things they can do.
The first is the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD AM3+ Motherboard
This is ASUS’s toughest motherboard. They even send a handy dandy certification card notifying you that the components on the motherboard have been tested to military specifications. I’ve been asked, “Why do you need a military grade motherboard?” My response has been the same, “By knowing that military grade components have gone into this motherboard, I have the peace of mind that my motherboard can handle a longer lifespan. The warranty on this motherboard is a whopping 5 years!”
ASUS hit the ball out of the park on this one. AMD AM3+ socket to handle the FX vishera chips, up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM, 3 PCI-e x16 (x16 & x16, or x16, x8, & x8) for triple CrossfireX or 3-way SLI, and 8 SATA 6 gb/s headers. This board runs the new UEFI BIOS and has a direct access button available on the motherboard. Sometimes fastboot makes you miss the key entry portion of the POST test and boots right up. Keep in mind my boot speeds are particularly quick as I am running a Crucial M4 SSD as my boot drive.
Not only have I upgraded my motherboard to support future upgrades to my system, hopefully the FX-8350 in the near future, but I have also done something about the cooling in my already cool Cooler Master HAF-X case. In the past I have built custom liquid cooling setups for customers, but never did splurge on myself.
I decided to pull the trigger on the Corsair H100i Liquid Cooling system.
Buy it on Amazon here
Having built custom solutions in the past, I wanted to see how a sealed loop would perform in the real world. While it does not have the all over cooling power of some of the custom setups (ie video card and RAM cooling), it does seem to have the capability to cool my system down and keep it chilly compared to my old Antec Freezer 64 that I have had for the last 3 or 4 motherboards. Even under load, the 2 120mm Corsair fans, in push configuration, stay nice and quiet. I can barely tell my system is on.
Corsair Link 2 is also a very cool tool. It gives the operator complete control over fan speed, pump speed, and the color of the LED on the waterblock. The last part isn’t a performance thing, but the cool factor certainly is there.
All in all I want to say these two improvements to my system have been the best I’ve ever made. I have increased the stability of my system, increased the performance, and given myself the tools to make my system even better in the future.
I would highly recommend the Corsair H100i to anyone looking to overclock their processor, and the Sabertooth for high performance reliability.
Current Specs future upgrades numbered in order in ().
mb: Sabertooth 990FX
cpu: (for now, 1) AMD Phenom II x4 925 Deneb
mem: (for now till I swap for the 32GB, 3) 12GB GSkill Ripjaw X
hdd: 128 GB Crucial M4 SSD, 5 1TB WD Black
video: (till the upgrade, 2) Radeon HD 6770 1GB
case: Cooler Master HAF X
cooling: Corsair H100i Liquid Cooling
Our tech question of the day: For AMD users, what is your motherboard of choice? Intel users, what is your motherboard of choice?
If I start seeing any flaming of flame baiting I will immediately close comments on this post. Please, let’s keep it civil.
