Low power AM3, 6xSATA 90°, undervolting in BIOS = impossible ?

[faugusztin]

Hi,

because i got a request from my family to build a PC and i could select better motherboard for my fileserver, i was looking at AM3 motherboard selection. And to be honest, the offerings are crap .
My current board in fileserver is Gigabyte GA-M85M-US2H.

What would be my requirements be ?

• AM3 (with DDR3 if possible)
• ATX is preferred
• 5 SATA ports is a must, 6 is better, SATA ports pointing to motherboard side are a plus - the reason is that i already have 5 hard drives in that fileserver.
• need to have good undervolting options (right now my Sempron 140 runs on 1.05V Vcore)
• darker colors or at least not extreme color combination would be cool (in other words, i don't like things like this)
• need low power graphics to be able to boot, nothing more is needed

Now what i come up :

• Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H - ATX; 6 SATA ports and front USB connectors are not really in good position
• MSI 770-G45 - ATX, black = fits my preference, 6 SATA (4 of them in my preferred direction), seems like it has the options for CPU voltage control; but no integrated graphics
• MSI 785G-E53 - ATX, 5 SATA ports (4 in preferred direction), seems like it has options for CPU voltage control
• MSI 785GM-E65 - same as previous board, except it is mATX
• MSI 785GTM-E45 - only mATX, 6 SATA ports are OK, but it has one major flaw - no CPU Voltage control in BIOS.
• Asus boards - all of 760G/785G boards have 5-6 SATA ports, pointed upwards (unfortunately), most of them are mATX, if not then they still have their SATA ports in middle of the board...

Wondering if i should try 770-G45 + some very cheap low power dedicated graphics, or 785G-E53 / 785GM-E65 ? Or screw it and choose the Gigabyte ? Any other options ?

 

[The Pharaoh]

Based on a scan through NewEgg of what's out there it looks like you've already found the best choice: GA-MA785GT-UD3H

Since you don't have discrete graphics already I tried to eliminate the 770, 790X and other boards that didn't have onboard graphics. When you also take MATX boards out of the running and disqualify all of the ECS and JetWay boards that clutter up the results then the Gigabyte is the one that really stands out to me as well. Unless there's some other requirement or preference you've overlooked I'd say you are on the right track.

I'm confused by the end of your post though because you seem to be leaning towards boards that don't meet your stated requirements:
The MSI 785G-E53 / 785GM-E65 don't meet your requirements stated - the only have 5xSATA ports and only 4 of those are on 90° connectors.
The MSI 770-C45 has 6xSATA but they are all the standard vertical connector type. Seems to fail your test as well.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

you do realize that cool 'n quiet undervolt's the cpu when its idle correct? it should automatically undervolt it to .8 or .9v even if the bios has no voltage control.. and you should be able to use AMD OverDrive to undervolt it further..

 

[faugusztin]

@sirmonkey1985: yes, but you must also realize i use linux, so no AMD OverDrive for me. Without undervolting, the undervolting in idle from C&Q was not enough, it took more watts from wall than with CPU Voltage set in BIOS. I do have C&Q enabled even with manualy set CPU Voltage, but i'm not 100% sure if it lowers voltage as well in this case.

@THe Pharaoh: as you can read, 5 SATA is a must, 6 is better, but not a requirement. And i wrote about 770-G45, not 770-C45. The 770-G45 is a yet to be released board (announced 10 days ago) with diferent color scheme :
770-G45 vs 770-C45, a pretty big difference no ?

Right now i'm leaning towards MSI 785G-E53, because got nearly everything right except 1 missing SATA ("promoted" to be a eSATA) and 1 non-90° SATA connector, and maybe a bit too high 24-pin power connector.
Gigabyte on other side have a worse color scheme, crazy connector layout - USB at 2nd PCI-E, front panel audio at back panel, CPU fan connector between mosfets between CPU and back panel...

Right now i'm waiting for confirmation from MSI that the board can change CPU Voltage, as they have one 785G board which didn't even had the option in BIOS, and when they put it here MSI realised that they don't have the electronic part of the regulator, so you can set it in BIOS, but that's all you got - CPU Voltage doesn't reflect the setting in BIOS.