Overclocking, Power, And Heat
All of the motherboards in today’s comparison provide frequency ranges that exceed by far any realistic expectations of stability and most voltage ceilings are far beyond any realistic expectations of reliability. Experienced overclockers know not to shoot for the limit at first, but instead determine the maximum supported speed and required voltage by making small changes and retesting repeatedly.
| BIOS Frequency And Voltage Settings (For Overclocking) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asus | DFI LANParty DK | Gigabyte | MSI |
| CPU Ref Clock | 200-600 MHz (1 MHz) | 200-700 MHz (1 MHz) | 200-500 MHz (1 MHz) | 200-600 MHz (1 MHz) |
| CPU Multiplier | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DRAM Data Rates | 800/1066/1333/1600 | 800/1066/1333/1600 | 800/1066/1333/1600 | 800/1066/1333/1600 |
| PCIe Clock | 100-150 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-250 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-200 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-150 MHz (1 MHz) |
| CPU Vcore | 0.80-1.70V (0.0125V) | -800-+775mv (25mv) | +25-600mV (25mV) | 0.98-1.93V (0.01V) |
| IMC Voltage | 0.80-1.55V (0.0125V) | +3.57, 7.14, 10.71% | +25-600mV (25mV) | 0.85-1.83V (0.01V) |
| 790FX Core | 1.10-1.40V (0.02V) | 1.12-1.50V (0.04V) | +0.1, +0.2, +0.3 V | 0.75-1.83V (0.01V) |
| SB750 Core | 1.20-1.35V (0.15V) | 1.20-1.50V (0.20V) | +0.1, +0.2, +0.3 V | 0.85-1.83V (0.01V) |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.50-2.50V (0.02V) | 1.50-2.49V (0.22V) | +50-750mV (50mV) | 1.19-2.40V (0.01V) |
| CAS Latency | 4-12 Cycles | 4-11 Cycles | 4-12 Cycles | 4-12 Cycles |
| RAS To CAS Delay | 5-12 Cycles | 5-11 Cycles | 5-12 Cycles | 5-12 Cycles |
| Row Precharge | 5-12 Cycles | 5-11 Cycles | 5-12 Cycles | 5-12 Cycles |
| tRAS | 15-30 Cycles | 16-30 Cycles | 15-30 Cycles | 15-30 Cycles |
The two boards with the “smallest” CPU voltage regulators also have the most aggressive voltage levels, but we limited our CPU core to 1.45 V to assure longevity.
The two motherboards with 10-phase power regulation finished first and last, with Gigabyte providing the highest stable CPU clock at our chosen voltage levels.
MSI has the best reference clock stability. A combination of first place reference clock and second-place CPU stability could make the 790FX-GD70 a top overclocking choice for multiplier-locked processors.
Dropping timings all the way back to 9-9-9-28 at 2T wasn’t enough to get most configurations beyond DDR3-1600, though Asus did break that barrier with four modules installed.
The two five-phase power regulators placed first and last in thermal performance. MSI’s win is probably due to its enormous VRM sink.
All of today’s motherboards appear energy efficient, yet none stand apart. Chipset and CPU manufacturer AMD gets all the credit for an overall good showing.
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It would be interesting to see how much AM3 processors improve over AM2+ especially come the next gen of graphics cards. Is the jump to AM3 boards worth the extra upgrade from AM2+? Im currently using a X2 6000+ but im doubtful that jumping to AM3 processors is worth it atm especially for gaming. My next upgrade will probally be the processor to prevent bottlenecking since my 4870 manages 22" easily but Id preferably like to get a mobo with 2X 16XPCIe lanes.
It would be interesting to see how much AM3 processors improve over AM2+ especially come the next gen of graphics cards. Is the jump to AM3 boards worth the extra upgrade from AM2+? Im currently using a X2 6000+ but im doubtful that jumping to AM3 processors is worth it atm especially for gaming. My next upgrade will probally be the processor to prevent bottlenecking since my 4870 manages 22" easily but Id preferably like to get a mobo with 2X 16XPCIe lanes.
I am going to switch back to AMD even if they perform less than intel. Why? I am not going to buy a motherboard for every processor. Who knows how many pins the next processor of Intel has. Upgrading is a major reason to choose a platform. Besides I do not need the power of i7 to game on a 20"
LOL, I doubt even Intel knows. It used to be 1160, but then they removed 4 pins in October and now they're talking about LGA1156. Anyway, point taken, the i5 CPUs won't work in either LGA775 or LGA1366 boards.
That Gigabyte board sounds perfect for somebody who might want 9 hard drives and a burner, because it has 10 SATA ports. I was looking for such a thing. This paragraph:
We have no layout complaints, but builders should be aware that all four of the MA790FX-UD5P's add-in SATA ports (white) share a single PCIe pathway through the JMicron JMB363 controller, for a maximum combined throughput of 250 MB/s. That’s far short of the 1,200 MB/s combined bandwidth that four 3.0 Gb/s ports are theoretically capable of supporting.
is a bit scary, but in fact it's not a problem IMO. Even if you happen to copy a huge file from HDD 7 to HDD 8 (both on the JMicron controller), you still get over 100 MB/s bandwidth for each, and that's pretty much the average read/write rate of the WD Caviar Black 1TB. That is, there's no bottleneck after all.