When building a budget system for yourself or someone else that either does not need a powerful CPU or is better served with a powerful GPU then AMD is really the manufacturer you should be looking to. The ASUS A88X-Pro, for ~$125, could serve as a solid backbone for your system with a pair of PCIe 16x 3.0 ports along with a single 4x, a pair of 1x and even two legacy PCI slots for your older hardware. The storage system can support six SATA 6Gbps ports and an additional pair of eSATA along with a half dozen USB 3.0 ports and an impressive 10 USB 2.0 ports. As the board is intended for use with an APU it sports D-Sub, HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI-D out but for gaming you are best served picking up a discrete GPU. [H]ard|OCP found overclocking to be a bit challenging as not upping the voltage enough sometimes caused drive corruption but for those willing to put in the effort a speed of 4.5GHz @ 1.575v is certainly achievable. See the full performance review right here.
"It’s important to take a step back once in awhile and remember that not everyone can afford huge multi-GPU rigs and eight core CPUs. If you are in the market for a shiny new APU, you won’t want to miss our coverage of the ASUS A88X-Pro. This new FM2+ socket motherboard may not be the answer for you, but it could surely be a solution."
Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
- MSI A88X-G45 Gaming Motherboard Review @ Modders-Inc
- Gigabyte AM1M-S2H @ Phoronix
- Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X Review @ Bjorn3D
- MSI A88X-G45 Gaming Motherboard Review @HiTech Legion
- Biostar Hi-Fi A88W 3D (AMD FM2+) @ techPowerUp
- ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
- ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition @ [H]ard|OCP
- MSI Z87M-GAMING Motherboard Review @ Madshrimps
- ASUS Maximus VI Impact LGA 1150 @ [H]ard|OCP
- ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets