Asrock 970M Pro 3. Best mATX for AM3+
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Media&User's Review
Forum Name: AMD Motherboards
Forum Description: ASRock AMD Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=933
Printed Date: 26 Apr 2024 at 11:10pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Asrock 970M Pro 3. Best mATX for AM3+
Posted By: Piddeman
Subject: Asrock 970M Pro 3. Best mATX for AM3+
Date Posted: 02 Oct 2015 at 4:29pm
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Well I give this a try! Thanks AMD and Asrock! I got an Asrock 970M Pro 3! http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970M%20Pro3/ EDIT: Post updated with new pictures. I used 2 diffrent kind of cameras. One are HTC one X and the other Pentax M85. Alot of pictures! And a wall of text. My PC           Close up on the VRM cooling and the Northbridge heatsink.   I really like this motherboard! + Stable + mATX + Easy to OC with + All black +Easy BIOS +Support FX83XX-serie +Very good onboard sound! My experince so far with this motherboard: It has fully support for the AMD FX83XX-serie and below that ofc. The overclocking part is easy...Just regulate the multiplikator if you got a ''black edition'' CPU..Or you will be forced to overclock with the FSB..Little harder but still do-able. And! It has support for CrossFire! 16X and one 4X PCI-E. Overclocking: I manage to overclock my AMD FX8350 up to 4700MHZ@1,45V! Still the motherboad was okey with it, temps was under the ''danger zone'' I tested to overclock my RAM, and that worked out great! I manage to OC my G.Skill 1600MHZ 9-9-9-24 RAM to 1866MHZ with 10-9-10-27 Timings with T1 ofc :). The automatic OC'er overclocks by FSB not multiplier, just a ''heads up'' So I prefer to overclock manually, so I can adjust the multiplier without touching the FSB. BIOS: The bios is easy to learn, but! the mouse got a strange input lag...I got the latest BIOS VER yet I got mouse lag in the BIOS, I hope this will be fixed later on. When it comes to updating the motherboards BIOS, the Windows Flash BIOS are really easy to use, all you has to do is to download the latest BIOS for the motherboard, and the unzip then dubbel click on the BIOS file and the PC starts to work with it, for me it took around 2 minuts to finish. You can update via USB to, just download the BIOS and send it into your USB, reboot and enter BIOS, then go on to flash BIOS from there, done. Drivers: The drivers are stable and easy to install! Not much to it, ''Plug n play'' mostly.. This Asrock motherboard got fully driver support for Windows 7, 8 and 10. I had no problems at all installing my Asrock drivers for the motherboard. I use Windows 10. Other fun stuff: I manage to undervolt my CPU to 1,250V at stock speed! Still stable! The CPU temp never peaked over 52c. The boot up time is fast, I got a Samsung 840 EVO, and my PC cold starts in ~10sec The 970M pro 3 got really nice quality to it, it feels heavy yet it is tiny, good heatsinks on the VRM and NB/SB Onboard sound: I really love the onboard sound! What a clear and sharp sound, the bass reacts quickly and tweeters are crisp but still soft, the sound device gets full putt! I have 2.1 speaker system, I like stereo pure sound without any extra backgroud programs, only the power of the soundcard+ my speaker set. That gives the best sound. Negatives: -The Sata ports should be angled to make it look better in the case, cable management would be easier of they where angled. And the input lag/Delay in BIOS. The reason: Why I choosed Asrock as my motherboard was that i looked after a mATX AM3+ mobo with fully support for FX-series and SATA3! And this Pro3 got all of that! And beside, it looks really nice. This are my first Asrock mobo and I will continue to use Asrock in my future builds. I hope Asrock will make motherboards for ZEN systems later on :-) Overall I recommend you to buy this motherboard if you are searching after an AM3+ mATX FX-ready motherboard! Total I give this motherboard 9/10 stars in its class! My PC specs: MOBO: Asrock 970M Pro 3 CPU: AMD FX8350 RAM: G.SKill 8GB PSU: CoolerMaster V700 Chassi: H440 SSD: Samsung 840, 250GB HDD: Seagate 1000GB VGA: Gigabyte GTX970 G1 I wanted to build a silent gaming PC as possible..H440+ 2 case fans, really quiet :) Sorry for my bad english, I'm Swedish. If you got some questions just ask, I will try to answer them. Thanks again!
------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Replies:
Posted By: Phenomiinal
Date Posted: 12 Oct 2015 at 5:19pm
I love those fans, solid quality and really quiet but damn is the color ugly  Very nice clean build you have there :)
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Posted By: ASRock Expert
Date Posted: 12 Oct 2015 at 5:35pm
Yeah, Noctua fans are great, but the color is (f)ugly.  ------------- 990FX Extreme 9 MOD P1.70 AMD FX 8120 4GHz 1.25V Thermalright HR-02 Patriot Viper 2x4GB 2133MHz Samsung 850 EVO 250GB MSI R7970 TFIII 3GB CORSAIR VX550W LanCool K62 Dragonlord ASUS Xonar D2X |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 12 Oct 2015 at 11:05pm
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Thanks! Yeah, I agree. I wanted to buy those black Noctuas :P But sadly when I bought those brownish Noctua the full black Noctua's did not exist on the market. Maybe in the future I switch them out to black ones :)
------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: ASRock Expert
Date Posted: 12 Oct 2015 at 11:47pm
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You should just keep the fans, and re-color them. They are easy to disassemble, so "go for it"! ------------- 990FX Extreme 9 MOD P1.70 AMD FX 8120 4GHz 1.25V Thermalright HR-02 Patriot Viper 2x4GB 2133MHz Samsung 850 EVO 250GB MSI R7970 TFIII 3GB CORSAIR VX550W LanCool K62 Dragonlord ASUS Xonar D2X |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 13 Oct 2015 at 1:47am
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Doesn't it effekt the peformance? I can try on the Fans frame, not color the fan blades. //Sry for my gramar. ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 5:16pm
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love your case (I have the same but red and black) and its nice and clean setup ------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 6:07pm
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Thanks! I love it to :D, Best case in the price range. ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 7:01pm
it deff is a good case , good size inside ------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Piddeman wrote:Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 7:17pm
Agree, easy to make good cable management. I will paint the inside of the case soon to matt black, so it matches the outside :P And after that I will make some sleeved cables, those will be matt black to :P ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 7:39pm
not bad u must be good at modding I wood not do that (me rubbish lol) but if u got 2 min check my post thanks (asrock extreme 4)
------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2015 at 10:11pm
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Its my hobbie :P I love to do smaller mods on everything xD. ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 23 Oct 2015 at 12:22am
keep it up mate ------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 24 Oct 2015 at 5:10am
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Thanks :) ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 17 Nov 2015 at 4:46am
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Almost done repainting my H440! I will put up some new pictures of it tomorrow :D ------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 17 Nov 2015 at 5:30am
I would like to see
------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 18 Nov 2015 at 3:54am
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Here they come. The reason I didnt buy a whole black H440 is because when they release the case to the market there where only white color cases...If I wanted a black I should wait 1 month...And patience are not my strongest side :P   I'm not 100% done yet, I will put another layer matt black colour so it will be good :) And later on, I will paint the fans black too, and buy black and dark grey sleeved cables.
------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: tag75
Date Posted: 18 Nov 2015 at 5:23am
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good job mate ------------- treat people the way you want to be treated |
Posted By: PetrolHead
Date Posted: 24 Nov 2015 at 5:26am
Socket temps as well? What do you use for stability testing?
Stable doing what? Also, if that was the CPU package temp, where was your socket temp (listed under the motherboard sensors as "CPU") at? That's the one you should worry about, especially since you have the wrong type of CPU cooler for that CPU. ASRock instructs to use a top-down cooler when using certain FX-series processors in order to keep components surrounding the CPU cool enough.
But the motherboard only has a 4+1 power phase design, so it's not really designed for OC'ing FX-8xxx processors. ------------- Ryzen 5 1500X, ASRock AB350M Pro4, 2x8 GB G.Skill Trident Z 3466CL16, Sapphire Pulse RX Vega56 8G HBM2, Corsair RM550x, Samsung 960 EVO SSD (NVMe) 250GB, Samsung 850 EVO SSD 500 GB, Windows 10 64-bit |
Posted By: Piddeman
Date Posted: 16 Dec 2015 at 5:53am
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Hi! I was running AMD Overdrive to test my CPU stability :), I let it run through out the night. Its the sockel temp that peaked at 52c fans at 900RPM, (Max 1300RPM) In the Asrock bios you can set the temp at max 55c and the fans is working after that. Yes I know Asrock says about the CPU cooler, anyway...it seems like this U14S cooler does its job pretty well..blowing the heat out of the chassi.
------------- My PC. http://i.imgur.com/x6wZmmz.png |
Posted By: PetrolHead
Date Posted: 16 Dec 2015 at 9:16pm
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AMD Overdrive is not a very good stress test in the sense that it doesn't push your system very hard. Compared to Prime95, my CPU is running ~8C cooler (43C) and my socket is ~12C (56C) cooler when running all stability tests AMDOD has (as well as writing this post). And this is with all fans spinning at full rpm all the time, regardless of the temps. Based on your temps at stock speeds and stock voltages, I'd say your system is not 100% stable under heavy loads when using the OC settings you mentioned. But if AMDOD stable is good enough for your everyday use, then who am I to argue. Thanks for the clarification regarding the temps, now it makes sense. It seemed a bit odd that your CPU would be at 52C when undervolting, so I wasn't sure if that statement really was connected to the undervolting or if it was a general statement concerning all of your testing. Regarding undervolting, the same comment applies as above: If you're using AMDOD for stability testing, then your system can still be unstable under heavy use. Whether or not that matters depends on what you do with your PC. ------------- Ryzen 5 1500X, ASRock AB350M Pro4, 2x8 GB G.Skill Trident Z 3466CL16, Sapphire Pulse RX Vega56 8G HBM2, Corsair RM550x, Samsung 960 EVO SSD (NVMe) 250GB, Samsung 850 EVO SSD 500 GB, Windows 10 64-bit |