When we reviewed the 890GX platform, we called it the most versatile and bang for the buck platform from AMD yet. However, with the launch of the new Phenom II “Thuban” X6 CPUs, AMD needed more than just a chipset with an integrated GPU solution to please all those hardcore enthusiasts out there. So with the launch of the X6, they launched the new 890FX chipset.
We took a brief look at GIGABYTE’s GA-890FXA-UD7 in the Phenom II X6 1090T CPU review, but now it’s time to go a little more in depth with AMD’s flagship platform. We get a chance to poke and prod it just a little more today to see if GIGABYTE’s top AM3 board is worth your adoration.
Features and Specifications
We’ve already gone through many of the features in our Phenom II X6 1090T review. However, if you need more details specs, you can check out GIGABYTE’s product page. What we’re going to here is pick out some of the more interesting features to go a little more in depth as we continue on with the review.
Form Factor – At 32.5cm x 24.4cm in size, GIGABYTE calls this their ATX-XL form factor. This is one enormous board, larger than even E-ATX. It is so XL that it doesn’t even fit on my standard HighTechPC XL Top Deck Tech station, which I found out in the CPU review. While it should still fit in some mid-sized towers, it is clear this board is made to live in a full sized ATX enclosure.
USB On/Off Charge – GIGABYTE’s 333 onboard acceleration not only specifies USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0, but also 3 times the USB current which allows it to do something called USB On/Off Charge. Regular USB ports don’t supply enough power to give your smartphone a quick charge, so GIGABYTE has written a driver to allow the board to push out enough juice to give even a demanding iPad a proper charge. The board also continues to use the Japanese made NEC USB 3.0 chip which seems to be the standard, except for in the case of the ASUS 890GX board that we encountered in our round up article.
Smart Dual LAN – Unlike traditional dual ethernet ports on desktop boards, the GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 uses a server spec that specifies that in the case of a malfunction on one of the ports, the working chip will simply takeover without needing to reconnect the cable. The dual Gigabit ethernet ports also support teaming through the Realtek Ethernet utility, giving you double the bandwidth, which is helpful if you’re using the board for a file server.
UltraDurable 3 – Back on the 890FX is GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable 3 technology. This technology is standard on many of GIGABYTE’s board’s and gives the product lower overall operating temperatures and better overclocking. It also helps to increase power efficiency, decrease the chance of electrostatic discharge damage, while lowering impedance and EMI interference. This technology is made up of a standard 2oz PCB, solid Japanese made capacitors and ferrite core chokes. In the case of the GA-890FXA-UD7, the ferrite chokes are fully covered and resist extremely high temperatures.
Hybrid-Silent Pipe 2 – This massive northbridge heatsink system is said to increase cooling performance by up to 30%. Though this isn’t new to GIGABYTE motherboards as we’ve seen this same system on previous X58 boards, it does possibly give the board an overclocking advantage when pushing higher voltages.
Precision OV – GIGABYTE has implemented hardware over voltage control ICs that allow more control options over CPU, NB and Memory. Because it is a hardware solution, it provides real time voltage control without delay and finer stepping controls starting at 20 mV increments. This should help with difficult overclocks that would traditionally fall between wider ranges.
Auto Unlock – Finally, GIGABYTE provides a hardware microprocessor that allows for Core-Unlocking. This feature allows you to automatically unlock the disabled cores on some AMD CPUs, typically X2 or X3 based Phenom II processors. This should also allow the board to unlock future 4 core CPUs to 6 cores once more processors based on the new Thuban core start showing up in various core configurations.
Since this board is definitely built to overclock and unlock, we’ll definitely be checking to see if these features will have any impact on performance when we start pushing up some voltages. We didn’t really push it hard in our initial X6 processor review, so we’ll try to take it a bit farther in this review to see where we can take our 6-Core CPU this time.
GIGABYTE has launched this board into the market and is available now for a premium price of $249 US. It also has a little brother called the GA-890FXA-UD5 which should hit the $179 US price point. The main difference between the two is that the UD5 will lose the quad CrossFireX support and take on a standard ATX form factor versus the XL-ATX size of the UD7.
The Unboxing Experience Enhanced
I’ve watched Taiwanese motherboard makers for a long time and in the last while, companies like GIGABYTE have really taken the unboxing experience to the next level in their top end products. The GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 definitely provides a unique unboxing experience, from the descriptive outer box to the inside presentation of the contents. This is probably in response to all those unboxing videos that keep showing up on YouTube.
Once you pull off the very descriptive white outer box, the board itself along with the silent pipe northbridge cooler was presented to us proudly behind a plastic cover that pulled off easily. The Hybrid Silent-Pipe2 includes its own mounting screws and some standard white heatsink paste to get you started. This replaces the water cooling block that currently sits on the board. This is definitely a huge improvement over the run of the mill anti-static bag that most boards seem to be packed in. Definitely a higher end experience for GIGABYTE’s flagship AMD board.
Once you pull the board out, you’ll find another box that houses the manuals to the left, and all of the motherboard accessories to the right. All of these steps definitely make you feel like you’ve bought something special. When everyone is coming out with a board based on the same 890FX chipsets and performance only varies so slightly, it is very important to put your spin on as much of the product as possible and this is one way to do it and done well.
Speaking of the manual, GIGABYTE, like many other companies, have come to realize that “Engrish” simply ruins the experience. GIGABYTE offers two manuals in the box: a quick setup guide and a more in depth manual. Most experienced users will find everything you need in the quick setup guide, but the in depth manual does contain more detail in case you get stuck on something. Both should be very useful and are well translated for the most part.
In addition to the manuals and the DVD Driver Disk, you’ll see an IDE cable, four SATA cables that match the trademark blue color scheme of the GA-890FXA-UD7, an eSATA kit, an IO Shield, and an extra pair of CrossFire bridges. While most video cards include a single bridge, these extra ones are required for when you fill up the four PCI-E slots which GPU goodness for that CrossFireX punch. While I realize that the SATA cables are freebies, the unique color of the cables will make it difficult to get more of them in the same color. Since there are six blue SATA 3.0 ports on the board, it’d be nice if we at least got six blue SATA cables.
Speaking of CrossFireX
The GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 is fully equipped to handle all the way up to quad CrossFireX support. From left to right, the first and fourth slot are PCI-E x16 slots, but get downgraded to x8 when the third and last slot are populated for quad CrossFireX. The second and fourth slots are PCI-E x4 slots, but retain the full sized slot configuration even though the locking mechanisms probably will never work on a PCI-E x4 card since they don’t tend to stick out that far.
The expansion slots are finished off by a lowly PCI slot. Perfect for hooking up that old Soundblaster X-Fi audio card or WiFi adapter.
Laying It All Out
The GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 has the benefit of feedback from some of the most hardcore enthusiasts in the world. Their GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship program has brought the best together to provide first hand feedback on their boards, and to give the community the opportunity to show GIGABYTE in person what they should or shouldn’t do when they build a board. I guess they mostly listened since they still included a floppy and IDE port on a state of the art motherboard. It’s seriously time to let go of these legacy components.
In addition to the much improved color scheme of GIGABYTE’s boards, the GA-890FXA-UD7 has some other nice layout niceties.
With the length of video cards these days, vertical SATA ports become useless. GIGABYTE was very smart to simply adopt fully horizontal SATA ports. This highly useful tweak allows you full access to both the SB850 powered blue ports and the GIGABYTE SATA2 white ports without interference from overhanging expansion cards.
The GA-890FXA-UD7 also has a fairly aggressive heatpipe based cooling system which connects all the toasty hot components for optimal heat dispersion. It is taken up a notch with the inclusion of a waterblock for placing into your water cooling loop. There is also plenty of room for heatsinks of any size until you do this…
The Hybrid Silent-Pipe2 cooling system replaces the waterblock with a passive cooling system that is touted to reduce temperatures by another 30%. I’m a little skeptical about it’s effectiveness since so little of the mounting piece actually makes contact with the northbridge when installed with four small philips screws.
Since many enthusiasts tend to use open test benches, GIGABYTE has included reset and power buttons (including a CLR CMOS button) to allow easy access to the most utilized switches when dabbling in overclocking.
Moving to the IO ports, you’ll see GIGABYTE’s unique yellow eSATA/USB ports. Basically, they work as USB 2.0 ports when not being used as eSATA ports and vice versa. This saves space and allows you to gain a few more USB ports in the process, where you otherwise wouldn’t have them at all. Both sizes of Firewire ports are included, though we’ll probably see these being phased out as the superior USB 3.0 takes over the world.
Audio ports are powered by the Realtek ALC889 while the dual Gigabit ethernet ports are run by a couple Realtek RTL8111D chips. USB 3.0 duties are of course powered by the Japanese NEC USB 3.0 solution. Moving right along…
A Quick Look At The BIOS
The GIGABYTE BIOS is logically laid out and very easy to use. Overclocking functions are all concentrated in a single menu item at the top of the list, while everything else is taken care of in a more standard and familiar fashion. Q-Flash is also accessible from this screen and allow easy BIOS upgrades without a floppy. Just plug in a USB flash drive with the file and go.
Although not as elaborate as efforts from other companies, everything is there to get your overclocking on. With GIGABYTE’s Precision OV offering providing easy fine tuning and control of every voltage control related to memory, CPU and Northbridge. Comparatively speaking, GIGABYTE’s BIOS is definitely more manual than some of the automatic options provided by other vendors. That’s not such a bad thing just as driving a stick shift is much more fun than driving an automatic.
Installation Notes
For the most part, if you have at least a bit of experience under your belt, you’ll be able to install this board properly with everything that’s included in the box. However, there are a few things worth knowing.
As mentioned, the XL-ATX form factor provided us with some interesting installation considerations. First off, it refused to mount the right way on our HighSpeedPC Top Deck Tech Station. The board was so wide that it refused to sit between the two posts so I had to flip it around backwards. Curious, I decided to test mount it inside a HAF 932 enclosure. As you can see above, it definitely won’t fit unless you flip the power supply to the alternate mounting position which is at the top top of the case. The board sits so low in the case that it is obscured by the PSU when mounted at the bottom.
If you have a mid-sized chassis in mind for a build, this board will definitely not work for you. If you have to be 100% sure about compatibility, you may want to keep an eye on GIGABYTE’s XL-ATX compatibility list.
The other thing that you might want to keep an eye on is how you mount the Hybrid Silent-Pipe2 cooler for the northbridge. The picture above shows just how closely the video card sits in proximity to the cooler. You can also see our Thermaltake V1 CPU cooler slightly grazing the back of the Hybrid Silent-Pipe2.
Test System Setup
Our test setup was identical to the system setup in our review of the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T review. To make things interesting, we pitted GIGABYTE’s 890FX board against its 890GX counterpart, the GA-890GPA-UD3H. This will help us figure out if the the step up from the GX to the FX is really worth it.
- CPU(s): AMD Phenom II X6 “Thuban” 1090T 3.2GHz Black Edition
- Motherboard One: GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 (F1 BIOS)
- Motherboard Two: GIGABYTE GA-890GPD-UD3H (F6 BIOS)
- Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR3 1333 MHz 8GB Quad Channel Memory Kit
- Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5570 1GB (Catalyst 10.3 Driver)
- Hard Drive: INTEL X25 80GB SATA2 SSD
- CPU Cooler: Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
- Power Supply: Ultra Products X4 750 Watt Modular ATX Power Supply
- Optical Drive: LG SATA DVD Writer
- Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
- Other: Two CoolerMaster 120mm Case Fans
All latest driver updates as of this writing were used including latest BIOS available for both motherboards. We also disabled the integrated graphics on the 890GX board and used the same video card to make it more of a fair fight. Our hypothesis will be with the integrated graphics disabled, we should see similar results between the two boards. We definitely expect the 890FX to do better in overclocking.
Next we’ll run you through all those graphs with the pretty numbers. Finally, we’ll go over some of the unique features of the board in a bit more detail including the overclocking potential of this flagship chipset from AMD.
Synthetic Benchmarks
In order to see what differences exist from a performance standpoint, we run a whole bunch of synthetic benchmarks. We’ll create a bunch of pretty graphs to show you if if any performance differences exist between these two sibling chipsets.
3DMarkVantage
While we’ve technically beaten this one to death in both previous articles, we wanted to get both boards on equal footing with the same parts and same software updates. This is to see if there are any 3D performance differences between the two boards. Here’s what we found out.
Not surprisingly, the two boards perform very similarly with only a few points difference. This is not surprising considering that the 890GX and 890FX share a lot of similarities except for the integrated graphics.
PCMark Vantage x64
Moving right along, we check in on the productivity side to see if any differences exist between the 890GX and 890FX.
Areas of note include benchmarks for hard drive (or rather SSD) performance, communication, and music. These variances are reflected in the overall PCMark Vantage score which gives up the lead to the 890FX. While these benchmarks give a general direction of performance, we’ll confirm some of the areas of greatest variance with some alternate benchmarks.
SiSoftware SANDRA
This benchmark gives us a good snapshot of overall performance at the CPU and memory level. Let’s see if any major variances exist between the 890GX and 890FX.
For the most part, memory and CPU performance metrics between the two motherboards and chipsets are pretty much identical and the differences are too small to be significant. Again, not unexpected considering how much similarity there is between the two chipsets.
Cinebench 11.5
Taking the CPU, memory, and to a lesser extent, GPU performance into account, Cinebench gives us a good look at overall bandwidth and performance of these two areas. We compare the two chipsets once again to see just how close they are.
Our benchmarks show very minor differences between the two platforms in this benchmark. Any variances are pretty much a wash in this case, but could explain the minor differences in the 3DMark Vantage benchmarks. But overall, there’s nothing to write home about.
Hardware Benchmarks
Next up, we’ll benchmark the hardware differences between the two sibling chipsets. We’ll check network performance, audio performance and IO performance to see if any other differences exist between these two chipset siblings.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – USB 3.0
Starting with USB 3.0, we check in to see if any differences exist in the implementation of the Japanese made NEC chip used to power the USB 3.0 on both boards. Since we found out in our 890GX article that there can be a difference in performance even when using the same chip, we thought we’d double check.
As we can see, the differences are very minor as shown by the benchmarks. There’s basically no difference between the implementation of the NEC chips in both boards. Let’s see if that holds true with the SATA 3.0 benchmarks.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – SATA 3.0
Since both of our boards use the same SB850 southbridge, we expect differences to relatively minor, if any. Let’s see if we’re right.
Based on the benchmarks, we can see that the SB850 on both boards perform nearly identically even when mated to two different chipsets. This isn’t hard to believe considering both boards use the exact same southbridge.
SiSoftware SANDRA Networking Benchmark
We ran the standard networking benchmark in SiSoftware SANDRA to see if any differences exist in the single port networking performance of the two boards.
In single port networking performance between the two boards, we see that performance does not vary significantly. This is not surprising considering that both boards use the same Realtek RL8111D Gigabit ethernet solution. Keep in mind though that GIGABYTE’s 890FX implementation specifies two of these chips and dual Gigabit ethernet ports which not only gives it the ability to switch from a dead port to a good port, even with one cable plugged in (Dual SmartLAN) but you can also team them up to double your bandwidth.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6
Next, we check out the analog audio performance of these two motherboards. The GA-890FXA-UD7 sports an Realtek ALC889 chipset while the GA-890GPA-UD3H sports the Realtek ALC892. Let’s see which audio solution comes out on top.
The GA-890GPA-UD3H (top) manages to grab a “good” performance overall, but scores poor in the THD + Noise category with a lot of average scores. The GA-890FX-UD7 on the other hand gives us a “very good” overall performance with an excellent stereo crosstalk rating, with no poor areas. While the ALC892 is said to be the successor to the ALC889, due to its support for higher quality formats like DTS-HD, it clearly doesn’t show it in our benchmarks.
However, both solutions did pass the headphone test when hooked up to my head and a pair of SONY MDR-7506 Studio Monitors. It was difficult to impossible to distinguish between the two solutions in listening tests. Clearly, implementation is just as important as the chip used and the allegedly lower end chip was implemented just a little better on the higher end 890FX board.
Now that all the benchmarks are out of the way, let’s look at things like power consumption, overclocking and all that other extra fun stuff.
Power Consumption
Using its integrated graphics, the 890GX platform was clearly a winner in power consumption in the 890GX article. Even amongst 890GX boards, there is variance in the power consumption. So what happens when you add in an HD 5570 GPU and shut off the internal graphics on an 890GX? Let’s find out!
While the 890GX platform is the power consumption superstar without discrete graphics attached to it, power consumption spikes when asked to support an external graphics solution. I found this very strange, but maybe it’s a remnant from the integrated graphics solution onboard (despite being disabled in the BIOS). We didn’t notice any advantage with the Easy Energy Saver software installed in either scenario, but to its credit, the software does work on a long term cumulative basis.
Between the two boards, the 890GX based GA-890GPA-UD3H used an additional 19 Watts when under load over the 890FX based GA-890FXA-UD7. Idle numbers were more in favour of the 890GX, sucking in 7 watts less than the 890FX. I thought this was really odd so maybe there is some room to optimize disabling the integrated graphics fully.
USB On/Off Charge
To be honest, I never actually thought I’d find this feature useful. I have chargers for all my gadgets so having this extra charging…thingy…didn’t really appeal to me until I started using it.
The feature is enabled by installing GIGABYTE’s own proprietary USB driver. Once that’s done, you can have your gadgets plugged into the many USB ports available and charge away. Often I’m in front of my computer, and when my phone runs low on juice, I want to plug it in right then and there for a quick charge, and the On/Off Charge feature provides this perfectly. Leaving it plugged in after syncing is also an option and GIGABYTE claims a 40% faster charge with their technology over a standard USB port.
The best part is that it isn’t limited to the iPhone as Blackberry and other smartphone users also benefit from this technology. And of course, the demanding power requirements of Apple’s magical iPad are also addressed with the power boost provided by GIGABYTE’s technology. It really works and I did notice my phone charging up faster than it normally does.
Overall, this is a useful feature that sets GIGABYTE’s solutions apart from others out on the market.
Auto Unlock
Unlike GIGABYTE’s current 890GX board, the GA-890FXA-UD7 supports a micro processor controlled unlock function that increases your chance of success in unlocking disabled cores on some AMD CPUs. All you need to do is turn it on in the BIOS and the feature will immediately unlock any available cores on your AMD CPU. This mainly works with AMD’s triple and dual core Phenom IIs, but should work on future Phenom II X6s (posing as Phenom II X4s) as soon as Thuban core based chips start hitting the market with two of the six cores disabled.
Keep in mind that these cores are disabled for a reason and your success is not guaranteed. In fact, like our Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition, it used to unlock properly, but no longer does, possibly degrading to the point where it can no longer operate with all four cores active. While GIGABYTE’s Auto Unlocok did recognize the dormant cores on our X2 550, it would not allow the system to boot into Windows 7, crashing immediately upon entering the desktop. Extra voltage didn’t work and lowering the clock speed didn’t work either. This was the same experience we had with the similar micro processor controlled ASUS’ unlocking function on their M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 and the software based unlock of the MSI 890GXM-G65.
Keep in mind that when you enable this feature, you will disable CPU temp monitoring. If you’re not unlocking anything, you should switch it off so you can continue to monitor CPU temperature through AMD Overdrive or your favourite CPU monitoring program of choice.
Now that we’ve taken a look at all the other things, let’s see if GIGABYTE’s flagship AMD 890FX solution has a greater overclocking groove than its 890GX little brother.
Overclocking the GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7
Besides having an extra x16 PCI-E slot, AMD built the 890FX to be a much better overclocker than the 890GX. While the 890GX has been a fantastic bang for the buck value, it’s far less aggressively put together than our 890FX solution here. Also, with a chipset that is slaved to an integrated graphics solution, high voltages can’t be a good thing, which ended up being true.
While I was able to get the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H as high as 3.8GHz with the Phenom II X6 1090T with a small +0.5 volt bump and an increase in the multiplier, I wasn’t able to go any further due to a small accident. I decided to use AMD’s Overdrive software to do an auto tune just for fun, and to see what it could do. Instead of coming back with a stable overclock, it ended up frying a component on the board. While everything seemed to work, what stopped working was the integrated graphics. Basically, bye bye integrated HD 4290 graphics. I also noticed that the northbridge cooler was way too hot to touch during this process, which probably lead to the destruction of the onboard graphics on our poor 890GX board.
However, without the integrated graphics hobbling it, and a massive Hybrid Silent-Pipe2 cooler, I was able to take a few more liberties with the GA-890FXA-UD7 and the Phenom II X6 1090T.
Previously, in the original Phenom II X6 1090T review, I was only able to get the CPU stable up to 4.0GHz with a generous amount of voltage (1.6 Volts) and by using the unlocked multiplier of the black edition CPU. I think I could have used a whole lot less voltage, so I dropped the voltage down a tick and increased voltage across the board by a couple ticks. This got me right up to 4.2GHz with the CPU being mostly stable when it came to games,which aren’t very multi-threaded.
While it did make it through a Cinebench 11.5 bench, it could not make it through an OCCT burn in as temperatures rose rapidly all the way to 65C before failing. This is somewhat promising as it points to cooling being the only issue towards a stable overclock. Clearly the Thermaltake V1 Cooler was no match for a CPU producing this much heat and we’ll definitely be revisiting with some stronger measures in the very near future.
Final Thoughts
The GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD7 is definitely a premium, solid performing entry to the 890FX arena. For starters, the packaging and the unboxing experience is one of the things that many people love about opening up a brand new product. With all the unboxing videos popping up on YouTube these days, people really do love the unboxing experience and GIGABYTE has responded with a premium experience. To set their product apart from the other 890FX solutions, GIGABYTE capitalizes on their USB 3x power with their “On/Off Charge” feature. This unique feature provides quite a bit of utility, especially when you don’t want to be taking up extra outlets to charge gadgets and it even charges when the system is off, allowing your iPad or iPhone to be ready to go when you are.
The logical and well thought out layout of the motherboard ensures that every feature can be used properly. This includes everything from the SATA ports to the expansion slots. There is lots of room for an aggressive heat pipe cooling solution, while leaving enough room for the largest of the large CPU cooling solutions. Taking it up a notch, GIGABYTE also offers users both a water block and their Hybrid Silent-Pipe2 passive cooling solution to give you a bit more of an overclocking edge. Add in GIGABYTE’s eSATA/USB combo ports and the diagnostic LED, motherboard mounted power/reset and CLR CMOS switches plus the trademark Ultra Durable 3 technology, and you’ve definitely got a little race ready manual transmission race car.
While there is a lot to love about the GA-890FXA-UD7, the XL-ATX form factor limits the ability of this board to be installed in your case of choice. Also, for people that want all those automatic transmission features, the GIGABYTE just isn’t for you. You have to want to do it yourself with this board, but the BIOS is simple and a joy to work with.
The premium $249 US price tag puts it up at the top in terms of pricing, but it is backed with GIGABYTE’s 3 year warranty. If you have the right sized case for this ginormous board and know what you’re doing around a manual BIOS, it could be love at first overclock. It’s definitely no problem to give this a recommendation, but at a premium. Worth the price over their 890GX solution? Totally.
Pros
- Logical and well thought out board layout
- Premium unboxing experience
- Solid overall performance
- Two northbridge cooling options to help squeeze out every last MHz.
- Unique USB On/Off Charge feature is actually useful
Cons
- The most expensive 890FX board out there
- XL-ATX form factor may keep you from putting it in your favourite case
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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