Introduction

With release of 8xxer-chipset series, AMD end of April this year has replaced the elderly 7xxer series from November 2007. Time so, to take a broader look at the new series. After the last motherboard test four H55 Board we take four representatives of 890GX more closely scrutinized for this purpose. All together put on HD4290 as internal graphics chip. This added 700 MHz and provides connectivity via VGA, DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort.

But what has changed at all compared to the last series of chip record? On the whole, comply with the changes in boundaries. The obvious for buyers is the support of SATA 6 GB / s. Support for USB 3.0 is further up the Boardherstellern need for accessing external chips. The southbridge chip set provides “only” 14 USB 2.0 ports, it provides also support for Gigabit Ethernet. To connect to the Northbridge the “A-link Express 3.0″ provides the internal circuitry to communicate via HyperTransport 3.0.

The subjects

At the beginning of a small overview of the facilities of the four motherboards with new chipset. The data were taken from the manufacturer pages, some information may change depending on the revision of the Board or BIOS version.

Biostar at the TA890GXE omitted support for USB 3.0, not very forward-looking decision only manufacturer under the test candidates. Also the lack of FireWire is cause for criticism. The remaining candidates waive no interfaces belonging to good form in the facilities and all provide a similar picture.

ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3

Look at the beginning is the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO more precisely. The price is just under 120 euros higher than in the other representatives in this test.

• Scope of delivery
  • Drivers DVD
  • Manual
  • I/O-bracket
  • 4 x SATA cable (two each for 3 GB / s and 6-GB / s)
  • 1 x Ultra DMA cables
  • 1 x VGA-switch card to operate of a video card with full x 16 in the second slot
  • Connector

Layout

Blue cooler, Brown PCBs. This color scheme you are used currently by ASUS, and also the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 lives up to this image. Two connected via small heatpipe cooler in metallic blue decorate the area around the processor, provides a fairly of flat heat sink for cooling the southbridge. There is also sufficient potential for good cooling of the system available with four fan connectors.

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Total matches the layout of the Board of the typical distribution, the manufacturer is here no new ground. However, where of some element ensures some astonishment. Asus has the button for MemOK! as well as the switch for core Unlocker and Turbo key top right places – so in a rather inaccessible in most cases place. The arrangement near the USB or SATA ports at the bottom of would certainly more meaningful, fortunately not every day used these buttons.

The aforementioned buttons and switches with their functions are reflected on other ASUS Baords. The MemOK! button the status LED for incompatible memory must be pressed in the lighting up a few seconds, then tries the memory settings customize the motherboard, to boot. The core Unlocker to x 2-X 3 processors can again share disabled cores. A further switch called Turbo key II automatically overclocks the system.

Support for USB 3.0 is laudable at the Pro/USB3 M4A89GTD, comes the relatively high number of internal USB 2.0 connections, as those four are available. Pure taste at the port is always the Anwinkeln of various ports. So, Asus has bent two of six SATA ports and the IDE connector 90 °.

The Board for the RAM slots in order to take a minus point. Placing both bars in black or blue slots for dual channel Assembly, which in slightly larger CPU coolers one is like to face down each, what the use of dual-channel mode ‘ impossible.

Software

As usual opens after you have inserted the CD ASUS an Installation Manager named install, which entails the already known Übertaktungs-and power sparprogramme such as TurboV or EPU alongside drivers for the chipset, sound, LAN, USB 3.0, etc. also.

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Apart from ASUS with the Pro/USB3 M4A89GTD provides no surprises in the software. The GPU Boost Driver known by other mainboards with internal Board or processor graphics for clock adjustments when the graphics controller is available, such as the small Linux OS Express gate, which provides only simple application tasks (how mail write, Skype or surfing), not having to start the actual operating system.

Other standard applications how reader find the trial version of an antivirus program or the Adobe also on disk.

BIOS

To update the BIOS version is quite easy to use program ASUSUpdate available, it carried out the update without any problems in the test.

The BIOS itself leaves a solid impression and provides all necessary features. The levels are logically structured and all options can be found without long to search.

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Biostar TA890GXE

The second candidate listens to the name of TA890GXE and comes from the Taiwanese manufacturer Biostar. With over 90 euros, the Board is the most affordable in the bunch.

• Scope of delivery
  • Drivers DVD
  • Manual
  • I/O-bracket
  • 3 x SATA cable
  • 1 x SATA power cable (from the 4-pin Molex)

Layout

Courage to the signal colour shows Biostar in the color scheme of TA890GXE, the Red RAM slots, PCI slots, and SATA connectors fall directly into the eye. While other manufacturers use a colored heat sink as, however, only of the three radiators on the dark PCB on the second inspection. A heat pipe between the two radiators close to the processor is missing.

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Although µATX boards offer not the largest space, all important elements are present and well positioned. The RAM slots make for confusion or rather their explanation in the Guide. Two of the benches are red, two white. Thus two bars for the dual-channel operation in two red and two black slots should be – accommodated when appropriate reading of the channels via software confirmed this statement. In the manual, however, is that when two ties for dual-channel one in the red and one must plug into the white Bank. For inexperienced users an annoying error.

It is commendable that also Biostar has placed extra power and reset buttons on the Board, also informed a red LED strip of current system problems such as memory errors or problems with the graphics card. As the four LEDs however poorly labeled and various lighting combinations are possible, always a look in the Guide to the interpretation is necessary – which would have to solve one also skillful.

Even if the placement of jumpers is not part of the everyday actions in dealing with computers, it should be placed still reasonably accessible. This remarkable Biostar unfortunately with a USB jumper, which sits between the CMOS jumper and a capacitor and therefore without hardly put pliers. Not a major point of criticism, yet too.

Otherwise, the layout Biostar TA890GXE gives little cause for complaints and leaves a solid impression with his layout.

Software

The CD included the Biostar motherboard includes the usual range of programs: beginning of required drivers to proprietary software for updating the BIOS’ or to the overclocking of the system.

The TOverclocker also offers the possibility to overclock the system an informative view of the hardware components and their properties, as well as a hardware monitor. To do this are either five predefined profiles or manual control available.

Already good form for mainboard manufacturers, a tool is one of power saving. Even if game is efficiency and just display the actually saved Watt more likely, it can not take Biostar, also with the green power II utility include such a program. Also here are different modes available, which control the Watts. In addition the internal graphics card of the chip can be via a tab (whether they should run with as high-performance, as low-consumption, or two intermediates).

BIOS

At the beginning of the considerations of the mainboard BIOS has been updated, this update also the installed RAM bars were properly detected and correctly set the speed. Previously this had to be corrected manually, and the amount of RAM was printed incorrectly in the BIOS, which is probably just due to a different calculation based on megabyte or mebibyte. The update went thanks to the included program TSeries BIOS update easily by States.

A curious characteristic executed the BIOS on the test computer, how much this also when other computers comes to bear, while difficult to assess, however is likely. When booting the BIOS not recognized initially attached SSD and automatically rebooted was. On the second try was the hardware always properly detected and loaded the operating system. This error appeared at every boot, itself an adaptation of the SATA settings could not fix the problem. In future BIOS updates is to be expected but with a problem-solving, in any case Biostar has been advised by us of the error.

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Otherwise, the BIOS of the mainboard offers all common features. Overclocking of the machine is an automatic system available, whose Taktungsfreude may be fixed in three stages. As usual, course manual interventions on all clock rates are possible, however the multiplier even with appropriately shared processors because of the missing possibility can be changed in the BIOS.

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

More precisely, the Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H of the first revision is regarded as a third candidate. With its price of around 109 euros, behind the ASUS, it is the second most expensive product in this test.

• Scope of delivery
  • Drivers DVD
  • Manual
  • I/O-bracket
  • 2 x SATA cable
  • 1 x IDE cable

Layout

With the GA 890GPA UD3H gigabyte focuses on a blue PCB, the radiators also come because in matching colours. These are at least close to the processor comparatively large and are also connected by heat. The cooler on the southbridge is in the usual compact dimensions. The four fan connectors provide enough possibilities for system cooling.

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Directly when you turn on the ATX boards reveals which that gigabyte has installed an on button nor any optical system status indicators. Not only LED decorates the Board. The colour very well accented front panel connector, which facilitates the light of the small connector on the right position and requires no view in the manual is practical for the power process.

Like numerous other mainboards, also the gigabyte has problems with large CPU fan in combination with RAM ties together with Heatspreader. For the Assembly of all four slots is almost impossible for non-boxed fans with widespread basis.

The other arrangement of the slots are hardly rise to the criticism. Probably not all ports of 90 ° to the now should be on the SATA ports, a major problem not result but. So in short, the layout of GA 890GPA UD3H leaves a good impression.

Software

As usual, the gigabyte CD provides the tool Xpress install, which detects missing drivers and installed. The other proprietary tools for energy savings, overclocking, or for system information correspond to the usual content and scope.

Thus, also the well-known EasyTune 6 is with of the lot. It allows the simple overclocking of the system users. Still slightly gigabyte could work on clarity, so the current clock speeds and temperatures not on different tabs should be for a good overview of distributed – which brings many unnecessary clicks with it at overclocking.

BIOS

The updating of the BIOS using the tool @ BIOS went at the beginning of considerations without problems of States.

The BIOS itself offers a familiar picture. Starting from the motherboard intelligent Tweaker (m.i.t.), where all clock settings (from the processor, memory, internal graphic) of a hardware monitor to normal SATA and power management settings.

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MSI 890GXM-G65

Next, the MSI is more considered 890GXM-G65, his 108 euros is the of the gigabyte Board at a level.

• Scope of delivery
  • Drivers DVD
  • Manual
  • I/O-bracket
  • 1 x SATA cable
  • 1 x SATA power cable (from the 4-pin Molex)
  • 1 x Ultra DMA cables

Layout

Black PCB with black and blue slots, so is because the MSI 890GXM-G65. Cooling is by two grey heat sinks close to the processor, which are connected by heat. The southbridge is a small cooler, such as in the previous candidates also – much to do it in today’s times but eh no longer has.

As usual of MSI, the manufacturer in the positioning of the components at first glance is no unknown ground. It finds himself everything to its original location, which is available on the µATX motherboard not naturally in abundance available.

But small peculiarities can be found in closer, so falls directly when you connect the 24-pin ATX cable, that it must be installed in the Mainboardinneren to the IDE connector. A position of both ports side by side would certainly make more sense for a wiring with regard to good airflow.

The position of the memory slots is laudable, because these are all easily accessible even with larger CPU coolers and RAM ties with Heatspreader.

MSI was somewhat remiss for the front panel connector, which is not properly labeled or color divided. Especially also the placement of the battery is, it is located on the PCI-Express 2.0 x 16 connector, so in many cases, the video card hidden. While the battery is changed not daily, however, other producers that have can find better positions.

Some optical change provide four blue LEDs at the top of which show the status of current modes of the CPU. Apart from that, MSI was somewhat economical with switches and buttons in the 890GXM-G65, room would be available for a show or reset switch. Instead, one finds an OC switch with two controls, which – depending on the position – overclock the processor to 10, 15 or 20 percent. However, should not “on-the fly” switching but are made in the off State.

Software

The enclosed software collection of 890GXM-G65 includes the usual suspects, starting with drivers for the chipset, graphics, LAN, RAID, audio and USB 3.0 on additional programs like Live Update 4 or Control Center up to the trial version of anti-virus program.

The Control Center displays information about the currently installed hardware and provides the ability to overclock the processor. The entire structure is quite open and the predefined profiles at the OC give no cause for concern, in the installed Phenom II X 4 965 is maximum increase of the bus’ proposed around 7 MHz on 207 MHz. Manual intervention is, with higher risk, of course much more.

The system fans maintained from the motherboard and not have an extra fan control, whose maximum speed under the Green Power point can be adjusted downwards and a display outputs the energy thereby saved.

BIOS

At the beginning of the consideration, the BIOS of the MSI mainboard on the version 1.60 has been updated.

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MSI summarizes the mode related settings in the cell menu, corresponding OC settings could also be saved in profiles. The settings of the internal graphics chip can be found in the Advanced BIOS features, suspect one would you rather said and quite extensive cell menu. Otherwise the BIOS is logically structured, the needed setting option is found quite quickly.

Test system

Test system

• Processor
  • AMD Phenom II X 4 965 Black Edition (4 x 3.43 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 6 MB L3 cache, 2.0 GHz HT)
• CPU cooler
  • Noctua NH-U12P
• Memory
  • 2 x 2,048 MB Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3-1600 (8-8-8-24)
  • 2 x 2,048 MB OCZ Platinum XTC Edition DDR2-1066 (5-5-5-18)
• Graphics card
  • ATi Radeon HD 3870 (777 MHz / 1.124 MHz), 512 MB
• Power supply
  • Silverstone ST60F (600 watts)
• Peripherals
  • LG GH22NS50 (DVD drive)
  • Toshiba SD-H802A (HD-DVD drive)
  • Super talent Ultradrive GX MLC (SSD 128 GB capacity and 64 MB cache)
• Housing
  • LANCOOL metal boned K7 gold
• Driver versions
  • ATi catalyst 10.5
• Software
  • Microsoft Windows 7 x 64

Benchmarks

The settings within the graphics driver are left at the default settings. The processor ran Cool’n’ quiet enabled cool.

As software was PC mark Vantage, SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2010.1.16.11, Cinebench R10 and ATTO disk benchmark v2. 41 used. Monitoring of boat hours was carried out using Event Viewer “eventvwr” by Windows itself. Power consumption has been validated with a commercially available ammeter, thus you get the power consumption of the complete system so as a value.

Serve as a comparison the ASUS M3A78-T and the ASUS M4A79T Deluxe based 790GX or 790FX, ASUS P7P55D and MSI H55M-ED55 based on Intel’s P55 / H55 chipset. As processor i7-870 was at the Intel motherboard in the core, the core i5-661 was used for the tests of the internal graphics.

PCMark Vantage

No surprise is that the Intel processors here front nose in comparison. A pretty balanced picture, without special break up or down is reflected under the test candidates.

Cinebench

As in Cinebench shows, all test candidates with the boards with older 790er chipsets at about a level – are at least the rendering with a processor core. As shown in the rendering with all four cores, designed the newer chipsets X better on current processors such as the Phenom II 4 and achieve therefore visibly better values.

SiSoft Sandra 2010

Processor performance shows that the Board with 790FX-Chipsatz something earlier. Because the comparison candidate shake not so far off with 790GX-Chipsatz, the solution should be here to find a more quite taufrischen BIOS, the the Phenom-X 4 CPUs not optimally appeals.

The memory benchmarks a very balanced picture under the test boards, also compared shows total to their chipset predecessor. As a result of the DDR2 memory with different timings and clock rates, the ASUS M3A78-T with 790GX-Chipsatz is not listed here.

Game benchmarks

Anno 1404

The candidates of this test with their on-board graphics chips are clearly front compared to the reference motherboard with Intel chipset and processor internal graphics. However the advantage of the higher clock rate compared to the 790GX-Chipsatz can not be played.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2

The average FPS at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, all of them, are at a level. The reference to the H55 chipset missing here, as Colin McRae: dirt 2 with the graphics of the core i5-661 not ran.

Crysis warhead

Here are the offers mainboards minimal before the comparison value of H55 Board. Otherwise again shows that the benefit of 890GX-Chips compared to the predecessor marginally fails.

Other measurements

Interfaces

Both the test candidates and the previous chipsets, and the H55 reference are the rates on a very similar level.

Although the values for USB are apparently larger fluctuations than is the case for SATA, but show up here finally no serious differences. Although the differences are high percentage, is here none of the boards of a defect in the USB drive. Especially since measurements are subject to always some fluctuations.

Boot time

There is a significant break with the Biostar at boot time. The reason for significantly longer boot time of TA890GXE is in the already mentioned fact that the attached drives always only is recognized by the BIOS at the second start attempt, to find.

Power consumption

Idle differences of about 20 Watts are what’s on the control of different partly, of cool ‘n’ quiet mode due to is. The gigabyte Board is in a quite large power hunger. In contrast, the MSI is the most economical candidate 890GXM-G65.

Power consumption (iGPU)

Comparison of power consumption with internal graphics show little difference in the candidates. Only the Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H moved 193 Watts during startup of the operating system for a short time. Then, this value has been reached but not again.

Conclusion

Overall, the benchmarks show that the 890GX-Chipsatz not significantly differs from its predecessor and more of an evolution than a revolution. This applies to both the CPU and the GPU performance. For this, appropriate boards offer current interfaces, USB 3.0 must back be taken also in the 8xxer series on additional chips. But we come to our test candidates.

When looking at the motherboard is to take into account the different format, we start with µATX. When the two motherboards TA890GXE Biostar and MSI 890GXM-G65 must itself this Biostar not only due to the missing USB 3.0 support beaten give. But the bigger problem of the Board is booting, which need two attempts to recognize attached drives correctly. Although a BIOS update here could improve this situation, but whether and when the producer provides this, remains unclear for the time being. A better placement of TA890GXE would it help, for any other services convince – also with small Downstrokes layout – just because of low price. Thus, smaller boards the 890GXM-G65 of MSI remains for fans. In the benchmarks, places it in the midfield and can also see for software and BIOS. With two PCIe 2.0-x 16 slots in a tight space are layout smaller compromises necessary, solves what MSI but overall good.

The larger in their dimensions mainboard ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 and Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H hardly differ in their connection. A pity, that gigabyte waives eSATA and LEDs to display status of the Board. Also in the benchmarks show both ATX candidates at a similar level. With the power the GA 890GPA UD3H must be beaten then considerably. Thus, it is ultimately the small details that make the Pro/USB3 M4A89GTD with solid layout, additional buttons, and numerous fan terminals here the better choice.

Recommended are thus both MSI and ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 890GXM-G65, where it is only a question of the place in the housing between the two. The MSI offers everything necessary in a small area and the ASUS offers more convenience functions thanks to better conditions.