New Motherboard

[RawrBeef]

Looking for a new mobo as my current one is getting a bit outdated.

First of all I'm running an AMD Phenom II, so AM3(+) is pretty obvious.
Secondly, I'm mostly looking to upgrade because of the lack of SATA 3 to get my SSD to optimal speeds.

Would be glad if anyone's got some relatively cheap ones as I'm pretty low on cash right now.

Oh, and PCI-e 3.0 would be a plus in order to prepare for the new generation of GPU's.

(won't be running CF or SLI in the near future)

[vesseblah]

Would rather get SATA3 PCIe controller if you really insist than spend money on whole motherboard as AM3 is dead technology. Also not even the upcoming Nvidia cards (bar maybe dual gpu GTX690) will be anywhere close to capping PCI-express 2.0 so there's no need for 3.0. Your montherboard and processor have been sitting on a landfill long before PCIe3.0 is required for a new graphics card.

[FlawlessSoul]

Would rather get SATA3 PCIe controller if you really insist than spend money on whole motherboard as AM3 is dead technology. Also not even the upcoming Nvidia cards (bar maybe dual gpu GTX690) will be anywhere close to capping PCI-express 2.0 so there's no need for 3.0. Your montherboard and processor have been sitting on a landfill long before PCIe3.0 is required for a new graphics card.

Also, when going with a SATA3 capable board/add-in card, do be sure and check the SATA3 controller chip is a decent one. Admittedly when I bought my X58A-UD3R, I wasn't after SATA3 compatability but I've just had a SATA2 SSD replaced (RMA) with a SATA3 version and my motherboard is using a poor Marvell controller which doesn't cut the mustard compared to Intel's controller.

[RawrBeef]

Would rather get SATA3 PCIe controller if you really insist than spend money on whole motherboard as AM3 is dead technology. Also not even the upcoming Nvidia cards (bar maybe dual gpu GTX690) will be anywhere close to capping PCI-express 2.0 so there's no need for 3.0. Your montherboard and processor have been sitting on a landfill long before PCIe3.0 is required for a new graphics card.

You wouldn't know if the M4A77T is capable of booting from PCI-e?

Forgot to tell you aswell, my one and only x1 slot is occupied by my sound card, and I take it there aren't any SATA3 controllers using PCI (durr). :s

[Deleted]

PCI (32bit anyway, which the OP has) is slower than SATA 2 so it would be pointless making/getting a PCI SATA 6gbps card.

Edit:

Also, just to add, a single lane PCI Express 2.x SATA 6gbps won't be fast enough for some of the better SSDs than can read/write at over 500MB/s as this is the limit per lane for PCI Express 2.x

You wouldn't know if the M4A77T is capable of booting from PCI-e?

Forgot to tell you aswell, my one and only x1 slot is occupied by my sound card, and I take it there aren't any SATA3 controllers using PCI (durr). :s

[Nellah]

Your SATA-3Gbps controller can handle the SSDs random read/write speeds just fine. That's where the perception of speed comes from, not from large single file transfers. PCI-E 3.0 is also not going to solve any bottleneck, because PCI-E 2.0 is not a bottleneck as it is, especially since you won't be running SLI/Crossfire.

If you're strapped for cash, those items are NOT worth upgrading for.

[RawrBeef]

Your SATA-3Gbps controller can handle the SSDs random read/write speeds just fine. That's where the perception of speed comes from, not from large single file transfers. PCI-E 3.0 is also not going to solve any bottleneck, because PCI-E 2.0 is not a bottleneck as it is, especially since you won't be running SLI/Crossfire.

If you're strapped for cash, those items are NOT worth upgrading for.

So I take it the difference between 3gbps and 6gbps isn't that big when comparing loading times, eg. bootup?

[Nellah]

Hardly any difference at all, as the stuff you really notice a difference with the SSD (random read/write ops) are both perfectly well handled by a 3Gbps controller and are the most common workloads. Booting is a heavy random read operation, as is loading most stuff in games.

[RawrBeef]

Hardly any difference at all, as the stuff you really notice a difference with the SSD (random read/write ops) are both perfectly well handled by a 3Gbps controller and are the most common workloads. Booting is a heavy random read operation, as is loading most stuff in games.

Guess I'll start thinking about a new mobo when this one becomes weary along with the CPU then.

Thanks for answers.