Five AMD 890FX-Based Motherboards Compared
Table of contents
- 1. Making The Competition Green With Envy
- 2. Features Comparison
- 3. ASRock 890FX Deluxe3
- 4. Asus Crosshair IV Formula
- 5. Biostar TA890FXE
- 6. Gigabyte 890FXA-UD7
- 7. MSI 890FXA-GD70
- 8. Test Settings
- 9. Benchmark Results: Modern Warfare 2 And Crysis
- 10. Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 Demo And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
- 11. Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- 12. Benchmark Results: Productivity
- 13. Benchmark Results: Synthetic
- 14. Overclocking
- 15. Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- 16. Conclusion
Adding SATA 6 Gb/s and two more USB 2.0 ports, AMD’s flagship northbridge has evolved into the 890FX. Just as important are the evolutionary steps several manufacturers have taken in motherboard design. Today we examine five examples.
AMD’s highest-performance chipset is as much an indictment of its competitor’s behavior as it is an example of how AMD serves the gaming community. With 42 lanes of PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 connectivity, the mainstream-priced AMD 890FX already bests Intel’s high-priced X58 (with 36 lanes), and that’s before we even think of adding the SB850 southbridge and its SATA 6Gb/s controller, a feature Intel doesn’t even offer. Comparisons to Intel’s 16-lane LGA 1156 platform are even more brutal.
It's a good thing Intel has CrossFire and SLI support on its side, otherwise we might question the company's dedication to gamers on a budget. AMD, on the other hand, is only able to extend CrossFire compatibility.
One might argue that AMD is using chipset features to win over CPU customers, but even that argument results in a win for gamers. Many of our tests have shown that AMD processors are “only” capable of matching Intel’s in certain applications—applications that include most games.
It appears that anyone who wants the best high-end gaming experience must look to AMD for platform value, but which firm makes the best high-end AMD platform? Let’s take a closer look.
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Because Crossfire and SLI are obviously utilised mainly by budget gamers.
It was time to make premium motherboards for the AMD platform. Asus, Gigabyte and MSI have done a great job.
It would have been nice to see the UD5 as well as the UD7. I am expecting that performance will be almost identical, making the UD5 a very interesting proposition
Is it me, or would it have been better to throw a 790FX board in there to show how much AMD have progressed?
These numbers basically say "Buy whatever is cheapest because you'll never notice a less than 1% performance difference." In this case, that makes the Biostar the clear winner because their prices are always lower. Gigabyte may have a 0.49% performance advantage but the BioStar TA890FX-E is only $140 at newegg.com while the Gigabyte 890FXA-UD7 is $246! Sorry Gigabyte, you lost badly here. Here is the price/performance ratio rankings among these boards (Which you know is exactly what AMD purchasers are looking for to begin with!):
Peformance vs. Price index = Performance number divided by newegg price multiplied by 100
Rank:
1. Biostar TA890FX-E $140 (p/p index of 71)
2. ASRock 890FX DELUXE3 $155 (p/p index of 64)
3. MSI 890FXA-GD70 $200 (p/p index of 50)
4. ASUS Crosshair IV $220 (p/p index of 45)
5. Gigabyte 890FXA-UD7 $246 (p/p index of 41)
Make mine Biostar! In the useful lifetimes of these motherboards, nobody is going to use more than 4 PCI-Express x16 slots anyway.
I forgot one thing, the ASRock wins if you take USB 3.0 into account because the Biostar has only USB 2.0. It's really a trivial difference regardless of the fanfare that USB 3.0 has gotten lately because high speed drives will take advantage of eSATA-6 before they take advantage of USB 3.0 because eSATA-6 is faster. For small devices like flash drives that are 16GB and smaller (95% of the market would be my guess) the differences would be maybe 30 seconds for the entire transfer. Mice, keyboards, webcams, internet dongles, magicjacks and bluetooth adapters only require USB v1.x so it makes USB 3.0 all the more irrelevant because those are the primary uses for USB ports to date. Couple that with the fact that many keyboards and mice use PS/2 ports or USB to PS/2 adapters and it makes spending more money on USB 3.0 at this stage of the game even more crazy. Having said that, $15 is easy to swallow but I'd rather wait until I see if I really need USB 3.0 for anything and if I do, just buy a USB 3.0 PCI or PCI-Express card. If you're like me, so many things have been put onto the motherboard that most of my expansion slots sit empty anyway.
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Avro, my Asus 890FX will outperform your Biostar choice any day of the week when it comes to performance choices, and it looks the part as well, I know what i got for the price difference!
Moricon, I don't own a Biostar motherboard and the numbers posted by the author don't lie. Believe what you want. The overall performance difference between the two is listed as less than 1% but hey, whatever makes you feel good. I'll take the word of the article author with numbers up from his own tests rather than someone who doesn't want to feel like he threw his money away.
Ha, my bad ,though you had Biostar, re-read post and feel bit stupid, but still stand by my theory, under extreme OC my asus will wipe the floor for certain against Biostar.
They did not get anywhere near the limits with any of the boards, I have had my 1055t at 4.6ghz and it is able to go further i am sure, just am not prepared to go beyond 1.55v until bulldozer arrives for mid life replacement! Then this little x6 chip is going to scream under torture before releasing it into the wild!
I bought the Asus for more than the performance differences at stock and small OC.. like sata6 and usb3 as well as the Xfire capabilities of the board (I can get 3x5850 with 16x16x8x to fit in my Scout Lan case), the ease of OC and how it looks, yup! Definately how it looks, this is V important to me, as well as all the fan headers being PWM and no crappy legacy ide or floppy cluttering the board. But by far the best thing is being able to swith off all I/O off for stability under extreme OC, 320+fsb is fully capable on this board, Asus 890FX holds the record for AMD fsb at the moment (till the next revision round makes its way)
So yup, I feel that I would have paid at least another £20 on top of the £159 I paid for the board before i believed I was getting short changed!