Thanks, can you explain why? Really wanted to go ITX, but the cost unless i go FM2 is just too much atm was looking at this: http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LMUSB3/#specifications
You could go FM2, the 760k isn't too bad when paired with a dedicated gpu for instance. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7229/gigabyte-f2a85xnwifi-review-fm2-and-richland-in-miniitx/7 You can see in games the AMD cpus might be a little behind, but it's not much
Its down to power requirements of the FX chips and the limited space on small form factors I believe. There are no itx boards and the few matx boards there are have poor power circuitry that cant really cope with fx processors, so they throttle under full load. The Fx stuff is very underrated and if you get one in the right motherboard with a nice psu they are really decent chips but sadly that means a atx build.
It's not down to power requirements. 8+2 is easily fitted to loads of Intel boards. Take the Maximus Gene for example. It's, very regrettably, down to demand. They haven't been selling well. Now granted the reasons for that are complicated, but it's mostly down to people rimming Intel's stuff and saying how pathetic and bad AMD's is. Up until around three months ago if you dared to recommend an AMD rig (other than an APU based system) you would be pounced on by the single threaded brigade. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with Bulldozer, other than non existent software support for its architecture. Hilariously both things have come at once... Better software support (finally) and better single threaded peformance (though still nowhere near as good as Intel's but as we are seeing now that doesn't matter when you throw brute force cores at the problem). Sadly it all seems a little too late for AMD, who are making noises to suggest that they won't be making anything but APUs now.. BTW FWIW I base the above on a conversation I have with a friend at Asrock. There are no ITX simply because the FX have no onboard GPU. MATX? no demand.
well thanks for the info guys- found a useful post over on overclock.net details out all the VRM etc details for Mobo's http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database
Listen man don't worry too much about the VRMs. Even with my board (4+1) I was able to get my CPU from the 3.5/3.7ghz base clocks (4ghz on the 8320 is one core only ) to 4.2ghz. After many hours of digging I came to find that at 4.5ghz the 8320 was barely any faster. I would personally aim for 4ghz (the VRMs will be the least of your worries*) as it'll rip through pretty much anything at that speed. * the biggest issue you will have will be the CPU temps on an overclock. It took a H100 to tame my 8320 even at just 4.2ghz. I had a H60 and it would throttle to 1.6ghz in Prime95 and games that used all of my cores. And there were a surprising amount tbh.
Chit sorry mate. I didn't even realise I had posted that.. That's what you get trying to multi task ! Any way. http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A78LMUSB3/#support_CPU http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-M5A78L...qid=1379095871&sr=8-1&keywords=am3++micro+atx Is about as good as it gets on AM3+ MATX. It is listed as supporting all of the FX CPUs so if you go 6 core you should have no issues getting a decent OC out of it, given it has a lower TDP than an 8 core and thus should clock to 4.5ghz or there abouts Edit. I would ask about for some old heatsinks to stick on the VRMs. It will definitely help as the throttle is heat related.
I disagree with you on one thing Andy, the CPU at 4.5GHz will really improve things in certain games. That seems to be the point where you get diminishing returns after, since power use goes up and it gets harder to have it stable without high end cooling. That said, I've seen loads of people running recently bought 8350s at 4.8GHz, and I think AMD's improved the manufacturing process since the 9590 came out (i.e. higher clocks at lower voltages). I saw one guy go from 4.3GHz to 4.8GHz and said it made a world of difference in BF3 multiplayer, where minor stuttering at times disappeared completely. He said it felt like a brand new CPU.
Thanks for the input guys, keeping my options open atm, looking into 3570k and 4670k the price point is within £2 if each other make more sense to go for the newer chip? As I now plan on not upgrading for at least a year or two after purchase I'm thinking that paying the extra now would still return some of the investment, henceforth original 2500k, lost £50 over the time of ownership, where as my old phenom was nearly worthless after 6 months..
