I'm looking for something super specific. I'm looking to finally upgrade my system that I built a few months ago. I currently am rocking an MSI 760GM-P23 and my God does it ever suck. No USB 3, no SATA 3 and it only supports memory up to 1333mHz.
With that said, I'm looking for something in a mATX size that will give me USB 3, SATA 3 as well as hopefully the ability to use "all" of my RAM (which is natively 1600mHz).
The other clincher that I would like (it's not absolutely necessary but it would be cool) is for the board to have a red and black theme. I have the Corsair Obsidian 350D and would like to look at something all nice and pretty on the inside (preferably red due to my K70 and M40).
I'll take any suggestions, and would like to keep the price of the board around $100. Thanks guys!
the reasons your msi mobo doesnt have those things is because the chipset doesnt support it as far as i know
the best/and only mobo i could find with am3+ and usb 3 is the gigabyte ga 78lmt
it doesnt have sata 3 or official support for 1600 mhz ram (you could overclock it if you want) but if you want full support for that al you need to go full atx or a completly new mobo and cpu (which is going over your budget for sure)
the atx option: gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P (its a solid mobo for a good price)
"the atx option: gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P (its a solid mobo for a good price)"
Ugh... with what CPU? Had it for two days with my FX 8320 and I returned it because it was an awful board. With the CPU undervolted to 1.4 GHz (kernel controlled via AMD's Cool'n'quiet) the VRMs were getting almost too hot to the touch with the fan from the CPU cooler blowing over it.
Look at Gigabyte's website, there's no support for the board, there's only one bios version from a year and a half ago. And that BIOS blows, there's very little customization options, AMD-Vi is broken, and you need to have IOMMU activated in the BIOS for your USB ports to work at all if you are using linux (they work under Windows).
Buy an ASUS M5A97 EVO R2.0, that's what I ended up with, the board is better built, the VRMs are barely getting hot, there are tons of extra features (debug LEDs, BIOS Flashback, MemOK!, etc), and the latest BIOS is top notch (version 2501). It was only $15 more expensive.