Episode: 722
Title: HPR0722: How I Upgraded My PC - Motherboard
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0722/hpr0722.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 01:29:12

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Let's go.
Hey everybody, this is Claudio Miranda from Linux Basement, and on this second episode
in my series, how I upgraded my PC, I wanted to cover the motherboard that I finally decided
to go with.
Now if you recall, on my first episode, we covered the processor that I purchased, and that
one was the AND Phenom II X4 965 black edition.
So this one has four cores overall, and the black edition means that it's tailor-made
for overclocking.
Now personally I won't be overclocking this processor at all, I don't have a need for
that right now, given the fact that I'm upgrading from an old AND Athlinux P2400.
So I think the stock speed will be just fine for me, but I wanted to get a board that would
support this processor.
Now around the time I started doing the research for this, I heard rumblings of a new motherboard
chipset for the AND processors called the AM3+.
The ones that are out now are the AM3.
So that plus signifies that the plus on the AM3+, signifies that on top of supporting
these current processors and the one that I have, they will also be supporting the upcoming
bulldozer processors from AMD.
Now this was, I would say about a month ago that I started hearing about this.
There was some trade show around that time, I don't remember the name, so please don't
ask me.
But anyway, the motherboard manufacturers were announcing AM3+, motherboards.
As for the release date, it seemed that they were pushed up as far as the release date.
So the final word was around middle of summer or late summer.
And about a month ago, I was not about to wait up until July or August.
So I said, I'm going to have to buy what's out now.
And given the fact that it's probably by the time when they come out, they're going
to be more expensive than I can afford.
So I can afford these AM3 boards, so I'm going to go and stick with those.
So I decided to hit up the same anantech article that I did last time for the processor,
which was that holiday, the 2010 holiday guide.
And at the time they did have the board listed, but it seems to have changed because the way
I had my notes set up, I was going to lead on to how this was supported under Linux.
So it's not listed there anymore, but you can still use that guide to just kind of give
you a guide of what to look for in your upgrades.
So at the time, like I said, they were listing the one that caught my eye was the ASROC that's
ASROCK, 890 FX Deluxe 3 Motherboard.
And they said that they pretty much talked about Astroc a little bit, they were saying
that the company is looking to enter the enthusiast market and has actually done a pretty
good job and their boards were actually a good bang for the buck.
So I said, okay, I'm going to go with this one.
I didn't want anything with a discreet, I mean, with an integrated video card.
So I wanted to look into a discreet video card down a road and I have one that I can
use in the meantime.
So I said, this is going to be the one for me.
The price was right.
It's about 150, I believe.
And that actually that price is mentioned in the article.
So like I said, I was looking to see if this board was well supported under Linux.
So I came across the Veronica's article where they review the 890 FX Deluxe 3 along with
another Astroc motherboard that does have an integrated video chipset.
And they pretty much gave them a good review.
The support for Linux was pretty good, but now this article was from August 10 of 2010.
At the time, the only version they were using Ubuntu for the test, the only version of
Ubuntu that was stable was 10.04 long-term, the LTS version.
And that one had the 2.6.32 kernel.
And unfortunately, no matter what they tried, they could not get Linux to run on this board
or Ubuntu 10.04 on this board.
However, they did manage to get a, at the time, unreleased version of 10.10 running on it,
which has the 2.6.35 kernel.
So and I do believe it's pretty obvious that that kernel does have the support for the
AM3 chipset.
So once they did get that pre-release of 10.10 running on there, they were able to do
some benchmarks there.
And you can check all the benchmarks on the website.
But they did say good things about the board.
They say at the end, they say the ASROK 890FX selects 3, and it granted this was back
then, can be found for about $150 US at New Egg, and which they say, let's see here,
they say that from New Egg, does make it one of the cheapest AMD 890FX motherboards
available while boasting not a bad set of features at all.
And I have to agree, the features on this board were pretty good.
And as far as the details on that, you can check out the review on the Fronux website.
Now I did eventually come across the follow-up to this board.
It was the next revision of it, and it was the same name.
It was the ASROK 890FX that looks for.
And I found a review, well two detailed reviews.
One is on the Anantec website again, and then another one was on the Hardware Secrets website.
And they pretty much cover the details to a T on this one.
They're very detailed in these articles, some of them run for a lot of pages, because
I'm sure they cover various aspects of it.
And they both, but just to make it short and sweet, they do say that they're pretty
much identical.
The deluxe screen and the deluxe four are identical to one another.
The only difference being the USB ports, the configuration of those USB ports, and then
the sound chipset.
So just to give a brief overview of the deluxe four, it actually has three PCI Express X16
slots.
It has eight SATA 600 ports.
It has four USB 3.0 ports, and then a few other features, like a core unlocking utility
for those AMD processors that only have four of the six cores unlocked, or something like
that.
I know that there's one out there, and then this utility just makes it very easy, and
things like flipping a switch, or changing the BIOS, and you've unlocked the two cores.
So anyways, what they mention here is that while the deluxe three has all four USB 3.0 ports
SATA are on the motherboard, rear panel, which means everything is on the back of the board.
On the deluxe four, two of them are available through a three and a half inch external adapter
that you can put on the front panel of your case.
Now because of this change, the manufacturer could add two USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel
of the new deluxe four board, making it to have 10 USB 2.0 ports instead of eight like
on the deluxe three.
So aside from having the two extra ports, you have the luxury of two of those of the USB
3.0 ports available on the front of the PC, and I think this is a major advantage, at least
for me.
Because for podcasting purposes, or just for charging my phone, or using my Sansa clip,
I don't have to reach to the back of the computer to plug everything in.
Everything is accessible right on the front, and I really have to go crazy plug-in stuff
in.
It's just plug-in, plug-out, and get on with my life.
So I thought that was a major advantage over the deluxe three.
As far as the sound chipset, the deluxe three has the Viya VT 2020, while the deluxe
four has the real tech ALC 892.
Now I looked on the ALSA website to see if they were either of these were supported, and
I didn't see anything saying otherwise, so I'm under the assumption that as of this
recording, it is supported.
Now I did find some forum threads when I did a Google search on these chipsets, and for
both, people seemed to have some issues with sound, but these threads were a bit dated
as I looked at the dates, and they did eventually have solutions to them in the end.
So I'm not too worried about the sound issue.
But if anything, if I come across any issues, I'll be sure to mention them on the third
episode.
But anyway, so those were the differences between the two boards, and what I believe
to be an advantage of the deluxe four over the deluxe three.
Now with both boards, they did, was that the enantiac article didn't mention that there
was an issue where the board had a tendency to overvolt what I believe they have it abbreviated
here as the CPU-NB.
I'm assuming that's CPU Northbridge, but don't quote me on that.
I'm sure it mentions in the article, but I'm not about to dig around through it.
You can go ahead and do that.
I'll put these in the show notes.
So anyway, that and the memory.
So there was an issue for instability with excessive voltages, but as they mentioned,
this seems to be an issue with overclocking.
And as I mentioned, I will not be overclocking, so I'm not too concerned with that.
But like I said, overall, they gave both a deluxe three and a deluxe four, which is the
one I finally decided upon.
They gave them an overall good review and a good bang for the buck.
Now like I said, at the time of the phoronics article, the deluxe three was selling for
about $150 on New Egg.
As of right now, as of this recording, the ASROC 890FX deluxe four is selling on New
Egg for $154.99 U.S.
And that's with $8.50 of shipping.
So I believe it was a little more expensive.
I believe when I looked at it, it was about $160.
It was about $159.
It may have been a little more expensive.
But I figured, well, let me wait and see if the price comes down, because as we get closer
to the release date for the AM3 plus boards, which is incidentally ASROC, the AM3 plus
motherboard from ASROC will be called the 890FX deluxe five.
So just keep that in mind if you decide to go with the ASROC brand name.
I figured as we get closer to the release of these newer boards, these AM3 boards will
come down and price significantly.
I didn't see that happen, but I did come across an open box, an open box item of this
same motherboard, and that one was selling for about $120, maybe a little more, but
it was around that range.
The only issue I had was with the fact that it wasn't an open box, and I wasn't sure
if it was going to be missing anything or what.
So I said, let me play it safe, I don't want to take a risk here, I'm going to go ahead
and wait.
And eventually I did manage to find a good time to buy.
The board, I believe, went down to, I want to say $150.
Let me check real quick here, I have the receipt.
I spent about $155, but it was close to about the price of the ASROC 890 FX Deluxe III,
and this is without shipping, so I didn't have to pay shipping where before the price
was listed with shipping and it made it more expensive.
So I figured this was the perfect time to buy this board, and I went ahead, put out
my card, and made the purchase.
So I have the board sitting here in a box, and I just have to put it all together, I still
need a few components.
I have a video card, like I said, that's a temporary one, but eventually I'd like to do
an episode about that one.
It won't be the third in the segment, it won't be the third segment.
Most likely for the third segment I'll be covering the RAM for this particular system.
This system will be using DDR3 RAM, so that's the particular memory I'll be sticking to,
but I know there's a good number of random names out there, and I want to make sure that
I cover that as well.
I have a few in mind that I've always stuck with, so I'm going to go ahead and cover that
on my third episode.
And of course, I have to look into a case as well, but that's later on.
So right now, be sure to check out the links that I provided in the show notes.
Read the reviews on this particular board.
If it interests you, check out the guide.
I know it doesn't list any of the abstract boards anymore, but, or at least the ones covered
in this episode, but you can still use it as a guide for building a system.
They always list some of the good motherboards, and like I said, it was edited, so that other
board they have listed there might be of interest, might even be better than the one I've picked.
But anyway, that's the board I picked, and for episode three, I hope to cover the RAM.
And so I look forward to you guys listening in, and I thank you for listening.
If you have any questions, any comments, any concerns, any gripes, whatever it may be,
you can reach me at ClaudioAtlinicsPacement.com, that's my email.
You can also reach me on Identica as Claudio M, or on Twitter as Claudio M72, and those
are the numbers.
Again, feel free to contact me.
You can also post comments once this episode is up on Hacker Public Radio.
And until next time, I hope you guys have fun in your upgrading adventures.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio.
HPR is sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to C-A-R-O dot N-E-C for all of her TV.
