i am building a pc for my brother with the fx 6300. he wants a blue and black color scheme, but the board i was going to get him is a little too expensive at $135. it is the asus m5a99fx pro r2.0. i found a much cheaper board that looks almost identical to this one. however, it is 970 and not 990fx. is this board still compatible with the 6300? and what are the pros/cons of 970? thanks.
Yes it's still compatible. The main difference is chipset features as the 990fx allows for quad crossfire setups the 970 only dual. There are some other differences like usually the 990fx boards have better VRM, but thats only really important for the 8 cores.
its still compatible indeed as long as you grab a R2.0 board.
The only major diffrence between the 970 board and 990fx is that the 970, have only 20 pci-e lanes, x16 X4 not realy ideal, for CF, Sli does not even work, on 970 boards
Further the 990FX chipset boards have better power delivery, then most 970 boards, but this is not realy that interessting if you go with a FX6300. Offcourse the overclockability will be less. im asuming you look at the Asus M5A97 R2.0 with 4+2 powerphase and digi vrm.