The Breakdown:

This will be a straight comparison between these two above cards. It is unbiased with no agenda or “BS” whatsoever! There are people out there who believe that some sites get paid off by big companies to present their product in a good light, well not us. We will bring you honest results which we stand behind and would not be ashamed to show anyone at anytime. You will be able to find correct figures for the system and settings we used. All systems will be a little different, so keep this in mind.  Don’t go off on a tangent because a game is a few FPS different than yours.

Test System:

Overclocked:

*Red = ATI, Green =Nvidia*

3dMark:

Bad Company 2:

World in Conflict:

Synthetic Benchmarks:

3dMark:

FurMark:

Unigine – Heaven v2.1

Unigine – Tropics v1.3

Unigine – Sanctuary v2.3

Game Benchmarks:

*All tests ran at the applications highest allowable detailed settings*

Battlefield – Bad Company 2:

Call of Juarez:

Champions Online:

Company of Heroes:

Warhammer – Dawn of War II:

Dirt 2:

Far Cry 2:

Final Fantasy XIV:

Fuel:

Tom Clancy’s – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:

Just Cause 2:

Mass Effect 2:

Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2:

Operation Flashpoint 2 – Dragon Rising:

Risen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

1920×1200

1920×1080:

1680×1050:

1600×1200:

Street Fighter IV:

Team Fortress 2:

Wings of Prey:

World in Conflict:

Temperatures:

Computer Case

Tech Station

Temperatures were pretty even until we moved into the overclocked settings. Running at stock speeds, the two cards run at about the same temperature, with Nvidia taking the slight lead in load temperature. However, the 5870 does have a commanding lead in the idle/web surfing tasks with a 14-16C difference. I think this probably comes as a shock to most people, seeing everyone talks about how hot the Nvidia cards are in every aspect. The GTX480 was very respectable at stock speeds, but where the 5870 shines is in the overclocking. You can run this card fully overclocked and not turn your room into a sauna, the same cannot be said for the 480, with it hitting 99-100C during testing!

Power Consumption:

Notice in the test below that this is total system power consumption. We tried our best to push the load as much as possible on the video card and nothing else. We ran FurMark at the highest settings our system would allow and we feel this gives the most reliable readings on GPU load and on how much wattage the cards put out without stressing other components in the system too much. (Total consumption measured at outlet.)

As you can see from the chart above, the 5870 wins the power consumption tests hands down. With the 5870 overclocked, it is still under max load wattage of the stock GTX480. With the 480 overclocked, it raises some eyebrows with the amount of watts that the card eats up. This could be a problem for someone who is not expecting that much load and does not have an adequate power supply. Just be aware of this before buying.

Fan Noise:

We would have to say this is pretty much a tie between the two cards. They are both quiet during basic use, and then, they both get extremely annoying once the fan kicks in and you hit a higher percentage of fan use. So knowing how both fans sound, we could not give the edge to either of the cards. You could always water cool both cards and then you would no longer have to worry!

Conclusion:

As you saw from all of the gaming and synthetic benchmark tests we ran on the two cards, the GTX480 seemed to be in the lead for the majority of them. We thought the HD5870 would put up more of a fight than it did and we were wrong! The 5870 got “beaten up” for the most part and we almost felt bad. It was like putting a college freshman up against a well-seasoned senior in football. With that said, though, the 5870 is still an fantastic card. Yes, it did get beat, but if you look at the numbers it was cranking out, they were still very impressive, and it will easily run any game on the market without a problem. For the most part, the 480 will be able to boast of a few extra FPS while running the same games. We are guessing that the extra boost in performance is why the GTX480 costs $499, while the HD5870 is a little cheaper at $429 (these are MSRP prices of course).

There were a few bright spots for the HD5870, such as when we ran the power consumption and temperature tests. The 5870 was definitely the big winner in both of these tests. The idle power consumption of the overclocked GTX480 is actually superior to the overclocked 5870. This was a big surprise to us once we saw the final numbers on power usage. Just keep in mind how much power the GTX480 uses while overclocked under load as this could cause a potential system failure if your PSU is not up to snuff. Temperatures were also a big plus for the 5870. The stock idle temperatures were very low, but where it really shines is once we overclocked it. The max temperature we saw was only 84C, however, when we overclocked the GTX480 we saw a massive jump in temperatures with a max temperature of 100C! That is just a bit too high for us to feel comfortable while gaming for extended periods of time.

Overall, both cards were extremely impressive! You cannot go wrong with either choice, however, there are a few give-and-takes with both cards when considering the temperatures, power consumption, and price versus the game performance. It may also depend on how you feel about the cards and your brand loyalty, which personally we feel shouldn’t come in to play, but some can be more passionate in this regard. We can safely say that both cards will have no problem playing any game on the market. We are hoping this review will help you in your decision on which card or brand may be best for you. The results above were 100% legitimate and without biased opinions or personal agendas presented in the article. Take it for what it is; the truth between the two graphics cards.

Long story short. Today I got pretty bored. I’ve been wanting to put my 1090T under dry ice for quite some time now. However, my bench partner has been busy with work so I could not obtain the dry ice pot.

So I was thinking of ways I could cool down my processor, in order to play around with my new 6 core. Since I own a Corsair H50 AIO Watercooling kit, I decided to have some fun.

I hung the radiator in an old lunch cooler and filled it to the brim with ice. I also threw a bit of water in for more cooling surface area. I figured this could get my processor 5°C or below. I was right. Yes, the slushbox idea is not a brand new innovative one, but I wanted to try my chip under something else then regular cooling for now.

So I pushed my processor to frequencies I only previously thought could be attained on dry ice (at least with my deneb’s). It seems these new Thuban chips pack quite the punch when it comes to running up the frequency.

Anyways. Enough with the chit chat. I threw together another youtube short just like the good old days when I played with my denebs. So here you are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwb1K3_G7Mg

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwb1K3_G7Mg]

Here are all the screenshot results and validations:

4250MHz Prime 95 Stable 1 Hour

I wanted to see how the slushbox worked under a real stress and if the chip would stay stable. The slushbox doesn’t deal with loads too well, but is still kept below 32C at all times. I believe if I had a good enough water setup, I could attain this stable speed no problem without any slushbox at all.

SuperPi 1m @ 4662MHz

I ramped up SuperPi to see what this chip can do. On my previous deneb chips, SuperPi 1m was my bread and butter, my favourite benchmark to run. Since SuperPi is a single threaded application, I imagine if I disabled some cores or ramped up only one core I could get better results.

SuperPi 32m @ 4500MHz                                                        SuperPi 32m @ 4571MHz

My first run was kind of on the safe side. To avoid a crash. However for second run I ramped up the processor a bit. This was the max I could go while still using all 6 cores. Once again, being single threaded, disabling cores might be able to help my clocking.

wPrime 32m @ 4500MHz

wPrime 1024m @ 4250MHz                                    wPrime  1024M @ 4409MHz

PiFast @ 4500MHz PiFast @ 4553MHz

Cinebench 11.5 @ 4250MHz Cinebench 11.5 @ 4427MHz

3DMark Vantage @ 4427MHz

SiSoft Sandra @ 4427MHz

CPUZ SS @ 4730MHz – Validation

In the video I attained a speed of 4.75GHz, however it was not stable for validation nor screenshot. It was only a taken as a video clip. The cpu did not last very long at 4.75GHz and crashed soon after.

Packaging:

The ASUS EAH5870:

Specifications and Features:

Specifications:

• Bus Standard: PCI Express 2.1
• Video Memory: GDDR5 1G
• Engine Clock: 850 MHz
• Memory Clock: 4.8 GHz ( 1.2 GHz DDR5 )
• Memory Interface: 256-bit
• D-Sub Max Resolution: 2048 x 1536
• DVI Max Resolution: 2560 x 1600
• D-Sub Output: Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor x 1 )
• DVI Output: Yes x 2 (via HDMI to DVI adaptor x 1 )
• HDMI Output: Yes x 1
• DisplayPort: Yes
• HDCP Support: Yes
• Adapter/Cable Bundled: 1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
• 1 x CrossFire cable
• 2 x Power cable
• 1 x HDMI to DVI adaptor
• Software Bundled ASUS Utilities & Driver
• Note the Card Size is 10.25 inches x 5 inches.

Features:

Overclocking Software and Results:

ASUS SmartDoctor is included as one of the utilities on your ASUS driver CD. Once installed and running, you will be greeted with the above screen. This is where you can tweak the voltage on the card. You will also be able to change your core speed and memory from this area as well. Our one complaint with the software, as mentioned in our ENGTX480 review, is the GUI. It looks so 90’s compared to other software on the market that does the same thing. We think the GUI could use a nice revamping to give it a better and more up-to-date look.

In the ‘Settings’ area of SmartDoctor, you can see two different sections, one for fan control and another for temperature alarm. The Fan Control section is very easy to customize and will let you set how fast you want your fan running at specific temperatures. This is a very simple way to tweak the fan settings in order to get the most out of your card. The other screen shot (right) let’s you put alarm settings on your video card’s temperatures. This may help keep your mind at ease during long gaming sessions.

Overclocking Results:

We started overclocking with no voltage tweak, just to see what we could get out of the card, for people who do not like to mess with voltages. We finally ended up with an overclock of 950/1335, a 9.4% gain on core speeds and 11.2% increase on memory speeds. Next, we upped the voltage to 1.39 on the 5870 and ended up with a nice overclock of 1008/1351, a 16.1% increase on core speeds and 12.5% increase on memory speeds. Overall, these are very nice overclocks, as no overclocking is guaranteed by manufacturers.

Overclocked Benchmarks:

All Settings At Stock:

CPU stock GPU OC @ 950/1335

CPU stock GPU OC @ 1008/1351 @ 1.39v

CPU @ 4GHz GPU OC @ 1008/1351 @ 1.39v

3dMark – All Settings

We will not add much to the charts above as they do a great job of speaking for themselves. You can clearly see what each setting used on the video card will get you in terms of gaming performance. Now you can make a more informed decision on what settings you will need to run your game of choice, whether it is overclocked or not.

Synthetic Benchmarks:

3dMark:

FurMark v1.7:

Unigine – Heaven v2.1

Unigine – Tropics v1.3

Unigine: Sanctuary v2.3

Game Benchmarks:

*All tests ran at the applications highest allowable detailed settings*

Alien Breed Evolution:

Battlefield – Bad Company 2:

Call of Juarez:

Champions Online:

Company of Heroes:

Warhammer – Dawn of War II:

Devil May Cry 4:

Dirt 2:

Far Cry 2:

Final Fantasy XIV:

Fuel:

Tom Clancy’s – Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:

Just Cause 2:

Mass Effect 2:

Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 2:

Risen:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:

1920×1200

1920×1080:

1680×1050:

1600×1200:

Street Fighter IV:

Team Fortress 2:

Wings of Prey:

World in Conflict:

Temperatures:

Computer Case

Tech Station

With the temperature chart above, you can see how good the temperatures really are with this card. Idle temperatures, under all three clock settings, are very low and acceptable for any air-cooled card. The ASUS EAH5870 does a great job at keeping load temperatures in check, even when we raised the voltage on the card, the load temperature only reached 84C with FurMark running. This is a great accomplishment to have a card with this much horsepower not melt everything in sight while running Furmark on the stock cooler. We were quite impressed with just how well the ASUS EAH5870 did in our temperature test.

Power Consumption:

Notice in the test below that this is total system power consumption. We tried our best to push the load as much as possible on the video card and nothing else. We ran FurMark at the highest settings our system would allow. We feel FurMark gives the most reliable readings on GPU load and on how much wattage it puts out without stressing other components in the system too much. (Total consumption measured at outlet.)

With the tests above, you can see just how much wattage you can expect to use during gaming/benchmarking. This should assist you with your PSU shopping and the uncertainties that it always brings. You can now refer to the chart above, and make a better decision on how many watts your PSU will need to be able to deliver. The chart will also give you an idea of what to expect from the much loved energy bill you will get every month. The power consumption of this card is definitely not as much as we were thinking it would be. The 5870 had a very friendly 419w usage, fully loaded and overclocked, with extra voltage added to it. Idle wattage is also quite low, which is nice because we can’t always be gaming, as unfortunate as that may be. Overall, very respective numbers in terms of power consumption for such a powerful card. ATI worked hard on this aspect and it shows.

Fan Noise:

We did not have a decibel meter handy at the time of testing. However, you really don’t need one because there is a definite point where you will start to notice the fan. We have found this line to be at just about the 55% mark.  You will notice, without a doubt, that the fan is working when you crank up the fan to 100%.  There is no way a normal person can sit in the same room for an extended period of time at this speed. It drove us crazy while we ran it for a few tests, and that was only for about 10 minutes. Maybe some people like the sound of a jet engine coming from their case, however, we could certainly do without it. Suffice it to say that you will not want to leave the fan running at 100% for extended periods of time, but for short benching runs it should be tolerable. The good thing about this card is that with the overall cool temperatures that the card produces, you will rarely, if ever, have to hear the fan noise much over 60%. For this, we are grateful to ASUS/ATI and the cooling solution they have provided.

Conclusion:

Overall, the ASUS EAH5870 did a great job with everything we tested it with. It took graphically demanding games and pulled up a lawn chair, sat back, laughed at them, and asked for more. The 5870 kept all the minimum FPS at a playable level at all times. We feel the minimum FPS is one statistic overlooked in gaming and other benchmarks and this is why we provide minimum, maximum, and average FPS for all to see. Average FPS alone can be very misleading, so we make the extra effort to show you everything we can. Overclocking the card was easy, as we have come to expect from ASUS and their great bundled tweaking software. Once they update the interface of the software, we will be sure to shut up about the Windows 95 look of it.

Temperatures of the 5870 were better than expected. We were thinking a card with this much power/performance would crank out a lot of heat. The 82C max temperature we saw with Furmark was a pleasant surprise. As most people will not ever see this temperature, unless possibly while benchmarking, this is great news. The fan, however, is still loud once the card gets hot and the fan gets above 60% speed. This is not a big concern, as explained above, as it would only get to that point during benching.

Our final thought? We would not think twice about recommending this card to any of our friends. The ASUS EAH5870 is a great performing card! For the price, you cannot go wrong and we would be hard pressed to find any competition for it in this range. ASUS has a winner on their hands with the EAH5870, and it will definitely be a card to reckon with for a long time to come.

The ASUS EAH5870 V2 has earned the TechREACTION.net Gold Silicon Award!







You can find the ASUS EAH5870 V2 currently on sale at NewEgg for $389.99 (after MIR).

Thank you to ASUS for the review sample.

The winner of the June Blogger Giveaway is…

Archer!

Thank you for all of the time you put into this website and this community!  Enjoy your new processor!

Thanks to AMD for sponsoring the giveaway.

ATI 5870+5850 CrossFireX

I’ve been playing around with two mismatched GPU’s in CrossFireX. Namely a reference model HD5870 from Asus and a custom PCB HD5850 from XFX. Perhaps not the most common setup, as most would much rather go for two identical cards. But if you happen to stumble upon the odd card, then why not give it a try, right?

Hardware & Software

Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II x6 1090T BE
Kingston HyperX LoVo 1866 MHz 2×2Gb
Asus ATI Radeon HD5870 1Gb and XFX ATI Radeon HD5850 1Gb
Chieftec 1200G-DF

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
Catalyst 10.6 + 10.6 CFX profiles

System settings remained the same for all runs.

Asus HD5870 to the left and XFX HD5850 to the right.

Below you’ll find a few game runs together with 3DM06 and Heaven Benchmark. For the game benchmarks I used Fraps to record 30 seconds worth of data (MIN, MAX and AVG FPS) while navigating a set route in-game. The average values where then calculated from multiple runs, which is shown in the charts. I included the results from a single HD5870 as well, for reference.

Battlefield Bad Company 2
Single player level Upriver
1920×1200 / DX11 / Max quality / 4x MSAA / 16x AF / HBAO

Half Life 2
Single player level Water Hazard
1920×1200 / DX9 / Max quality / 8x MSAA / 16x AF

Left 4 Dead 2
Single player campaign The Passing, chapter 3: Port
1920×1200 / DX9 / Max quality / 8x MSAA / 16x AF

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Single player campaign, indoor and outdoor environments in Pripyat.
1920×1200 / DX11 / Max quality / 4x MSAA / 16x AF

3D Mark 06
Default settings
ATI HD5870

ATI HD5870 + HD5850 CrossFireX

Heaven Benchmark 2.0
1920×1200 / DX11 / High Shaders / Normal Tessellation / 4x AF
ATI HD5870

ATI HD5870 + HD5850 CrossFireX

Final Thoughts?

Visible gains in all tested games and benchmarks, so no doubt its a viable option running mixed cards. But would have been interesting to see how this setup would stack up against two 5850’s. I’d still recommend running matched cards where possible. But as mentioned at the top, if you happen to have an extra card just lying there collecting dust or get the chance to get one real cheap, then go for it!

That’s right! FREE HARDWARE! Just for being a registered and active blogger of TechREACTION.net.

How do I sign up? Simple, first register at this page to become a TR blogger. Once you receive your account information, half the job is done.

Second, go to the TechREACTION forums and register there as well. You must be registered in both places to be eligible.

Bloggers are given special access to a private forum where they can discuss content and blogs, as well as be notified of available review samples and other perks.

What about the giveaway? It’s easy. All you have to do is be yourself; a technology enthusiast. To qualify you must follow these simple rules:

- One blog post equals one submission to the contest.
- Two blog posts equals two submissions, and so on, and so forth.
- In cases where there are multiple prizes, a single blogger will only be able to win one. Prizes are drawn at random.

I have never blogged before, what’s the deal? Don’t think of it as something only for the elite. Blogging is really no different from posting on a forum, such as this. The difference being that it’s more organized, looks more professional to the reader, and puts the information on the front page rather than just buried deep in some thread somewhere.

Many average Joe’s who simply starting out with some basic blogging are now writing doing full fledged reviews and making a solid name for themselves, and you can too.

I’m interested, but what can I blog about? Everything, as long as it’s technology related. Here are some examples:

Just did some benching with a few buddies or by yourself? Blog it.
Bought a new smart phone or mobile device that you can review? Blog it.
Testing out the new version of an operating system? Blog it.
Seeing what better cooling does for your CPU overclock? Blog it.

The list goes on and virtually anything can be blogged as long as it’s related to the main subject: Technology.

Giveaways occur once a month, so by registered for this months giveaway you are in fact registering for every giveaway from here on to infinity. Sounds easy enough no?

Previous Contest Prizes & Winners:

May Prize: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
Winning Blogger: Krab

April Prize: Thermalright Heatsink Pack (TRUE & 2xTRAD2 GTX’s)
Winning Blogger: Burn

March Prize: EVGA P55 Motherboard
Winning Blogger: carpo93

February Prize: Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 Kit & OCZ Gladiator CPU Cooler
Winning Bloggers: 0Ro!, The Duke

December Prize: Corsair HX750W & Razer Lachesis Gaming Mouse
Winning Bloggers: The Duke, Archer

November Prize: Gigabyte P55-UD4P Core i5/i7 Motherboard
Winning Blogger: thebanik

October Prize: 2x AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
Winning Bloggers: mav2000, Neuromancer

Congratulations to you!

The winner of the May AMD Phenom II X6 Giveaway is…

Krab

Thank you for your participation and contribution to this community.  We hope you enjoy your new processor!

Thanks to AMD for sponsoring the giveaway.  Stay tuned tonight for the posting of this months giveaway!

]]> http://www.techreaction.net/2010/06/01/winner-announced-may-amd-phenom-ii-x6-giveaway/feed/ 1 http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/31/blog-kingston-hyperx-ddr3-%e2%80%98lovo%e2%80%99-oc-testing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=blog-kingston-hyperx-ddr3-%25e2%2580%2598lovo%25e2%2580%2599-oc-testing http://www.techreaction.net/2010/05/31/blog-kingston-hyperx-ddr3-%e2%80%98lovo%e2%80%99-oc-testing/#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 13:47:50 +0000 wez http://www.techreaction.net/?p=6889 Kingston HyperX DDR3 ‘LoVo’ OC testing

Just a quick look at a memory kit from Kingston, namely a set from their somewhat new ‘LoVo’ series. Judging by the name its a low voltage kit, so not a kit directly aimed at the enthusiast market. But word has it they might be worth a look after all!

According to their site, Kingston currently offers three versions of their ‘LoVo’ kits, 1333, 1600 and 1866 MHz. But there also seem to be an 1800 MHz kit listed at some shops, possible a replacement for the 1866 model? Either way, all share the same timings of 9-9-9-27 with recommended voltage ranging from 1.25 to 1.35v. And currently only available in 2×2 Gb dual channel kits.

The 1866 MHz kit is what I’ll mess around with today, part number is KHX1866C9D3LK2/4GX
This kit comes with two preset XMP profiles:

- Low Voltage 1866 MHz 9-9-9-27 @ 1.35v
- Ultra-Low Voltage 1600 MHz 9-9-9-27 @ 1.25v

Although for some reason the 1600 MHz profile didn’t get recognized properly. Now this could very well be a software issue on my part, but thought I’d at least give it a mention.

The sticks come with Kingston’s standard HyperX heat spreader, commonly used in a lot of their kits. But one thing is new, and that is the color!

Hardware & Software

- Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (BIOS f8h)
- AMD Phenom II x6 1090T
- Kingston HyperX LoVo 1866 MHz 2×2Gb (KHX1866C9D3LK2/4GX)
- ATI Radeon HD5870 1Gb
- Chieftec 1200G-DF

- Windows 7 Ultimate x64
- Prime95, Memtest, SuperPi, CPUz and Easytune

Not the most optimal platform to test high speed memory on. And low voltage testing is also out of the question as 1.6v is the lowest this board allows me to set. But ignoring that, let’s see what they can do!

These settings will all run Prime95 and Memtest for a few hours without any hiccup, so I’d call them stable.

Starting at 1.60v, 1624MHz

1.65v, 1688MHz

1.70v, 1712MHz

1.75v, 1720MHz

Voltage scaling beyond ~1.70v is pretty limited, although small gains are still there. Also, relaxing timings didn’t allow for much higher clocks, so I left those screens out on purpose.
Either way I think it’s safe to say that these sticks are capable of much higher clocks, but simply put the motherboard is holding them back. Hopefully I get a chance to test them out on a 890FX board in the near future, and I’ll be sure to post an follow up when I do.

And just for the sake of it, this is the limit for passing a SuperPI 32M run.

Additional important specs include an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, air cooling on everything and a controlled room temp of 22c (72F).  The full timings were a tight 6-7-6-18-11 1T – Ganged.

These new AMD Phenom II x6 processors arrived with an improved Integrated Memory Controller which has allowed Brian and other top overclockers to really crank up the speeds on their memory over previous AMD platforms.

So you may be wondering, were these speeds at all stable with these timings and voltages?  The answer is, good enough for 32m. 

It’s always exciting seeing what the pros can do with new silicon and right now you don’t see too many people doing these speeds at these timings on AMD, even in ganged mode.  As usual, I’m sure there will be more where this came from.

The difference between the bottom two models in the 890 FX line up is the missing support for USB 3.0. The chipsets and all the other features remain the same. The board comes with a brown PCB with the various ports on the board being a mixture of black, dark blue and light blue. While the overall look is fine, the brown PCB kind of kills it for me.

The board has a pretty good layout with dual 16x PCIE slots in addition to four other expansion slots. The space between the two PCIE slots is more than enough to handle dual slot cards and will run them both with 16 lanes each. Now for most of us, two slots is more than enough, and three or more slots will normally be used only when benching. The memory slots are now alternating, which means that memory with larger heat sinks will fit comfortably, but it also means that one of the memory sticks is going to sit beneath most of the larger CPU heat sinks. There are three buttons on board for the Core Unlocker, Mem Ok and the Turbo Key, but the quality and finish of these switches leave a lot to be desired. I would rather have push button switches than these. The board boasts of a 6+2 phase design, and from our initial testing, the design seems to be doing a great job.

The various chipsets and VRM’s are cooled by aluminum heat sinks and Asus has done away with the heat pipe for this version. They have also followed MSI’s design idea of keeping the 890 chipset and the power phases under a single heat sink on the left of the CPU area. This allows them more space for expansion slots.

Coming to the bottom of the board, we see the IDE ports, which really don’t make sense any more unless you’re doing some hard core benching and still use an IDE hard drive, as well as 6 SATA III 6 Gbps ports. My only grouse with this is the upturned SATA ports, which tend to interfere with the second GPU slot when it is populated. A 90 degree port setup would be more convenient.

Overall, there are a few things that tend to be out of place on an 890FX board and I have listed them above.
Other than that, I am quite happy with the board on the whole, taking into consideration that this is the budget board of the line up and therefore some of the fancy specifications must take a back seat.

I will be testing the board with the following setup:

AMD 965 BE C3
Memory: Team Xtreem LV 2000 Mhz CL9 @ 1846 CL 8-8-7 1T
Thermal Paste: Arctic Cooling MX-3
Motherboard: Asus M4A89TD PRO
Thermalright Venomous X
Coolermaster Storm Sniper Case
Coolermaster Silent Power 700W

We will run through a couple of tests in this blog and I will add a few more if required or requested in the next part.

So let’s start off with some Super Pi runs, just to see the performance of the memory. None of these clocks are at the absolute limit of the board or the chip, but more of an indication on the memory being used and the potential of this board. I must add that the bios seems to be working well with my 965 BE and I did not have a single issue on this front after the initial tuning. Unlike the MSI that I use everyday, the Asus board also has a much better recovery feature that does not need the constant use of a clear CMOS button every time we load a rather heavy overclock. Much appreciated Asus.

Please keep in mind that all of these benches are on air, on a normal install of Windows 7 32bit, without any tweaks.

Super Pi 1 M:

Super Pi 32 M:

As you can see, the memory timings and speed is not bad for the money. The G.Skill’s can barely reach this speed and timing with their 1600 CL7 kit and the same board. For anyone looking for budget ram with decent clocks this is it. I was not able to go above 1800 with slightly lower timings on my MSI GD70, so this shows that the 890FX chipset does add a bit to the memory speeds and timings. With an X6, the speeds and timings could improve even further with their improved IMC.

Wprime:

Cinebench:

The Cinebench score is no surprise here and of course would improve under a 64 bit operating system.

Let’s move on to the max HTT clocks that we can get with this board. I started with 300 HTT, so let’s take it from there:

300 HTT:

330HTT:

340HTT:

Well, that was the maximum I could reach for now, but I will continue testing to see if there is a hole in the HTT clocking. I’ve been seeing people hitting speeds higher than these, so as I said I will continue to push the board and report back. This is it for now and please do let me know if you would like to see some more benches and of what type.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!