AMD 890GX Unveiled: Three Motherboards Compared

[Crashman]

AMD’s new chipset promises big performance increases with its Radeon HD 4290 graphics core and built-in SATA 6Gb/s controller. Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI sent their latest motherboards to help us find out how well 890GX and SB850 deliver on those promises.

AMD 890GX Unveiled: Three Motherboards Compared : Read more

 

[outlw6669]

Nice southbridge update AMD!
It is a shame you could not have added native USB 3 in there along with the SATA 3.0.

A bit more lackluster on the northbridge though.
Other than the DX10.1 update, I really see nothing new...

 

[anamaniac]

Nice boards.
Though honestly, I'm just awaiting a Quantum Force (Foxconn) X68 board to replace my Bloodrage. Good to see atleast someone is getting SATA 6Gb/s.

Come on AMD, give us some more juice. I don't know if my second system will be a desktop or laptop yet, and a good integrated GPU will help me decide (720p gaming on what will hopefully be a 50" plasma).
How about triple channel memory too? I'd think it'd help the GPU somewhat also.
I'm not against paying bucket loads for a motherboard (but I expect to get what I pay for).

One last thing...
DisplayPort. Give it. The faster nvidia/integrated adopt it, the faster Samsung/Dell etc. will put them on their monitors.
The industry adopted HDMI like it was nothing. DP has less licensing fees, but DP monitors are in the $500 range (granted, IPS panels etc.). We want $150 1080p DP panels please.

 

[knowom]

Horribly unexciting launch on AMD's part the only good part is that their other mobo's might come down a bit in cost hopefully.

 

[-Fran-]

I kinda agree there... Lackluster chipset launch.

Come on AMD, you can do it better.

Cheers!

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I am not excited about this one.

 

[falchard]

Why still bothering with Ultra ATA? I like how MSI decided to trim the unnecessary in this mobo. I hope in the future a mobo manufacturer does this to the extreme. No IEEE-1394, no Ultra ATA, no floppy, no CD In, no MIDI, no PS/2 ports. You get the picture.

There are a couple things I like about the SB850. Obviously the native SATA 6.0, and also the integrated Gigabyte ethernet. No more crappy Realtek Ethernet.

The more time goes on, the more I realize a Server Mobo would be more ideal for my workstation.

 

[jitpublisher]

Nothing to see here.

 

[Guest]

Very very unimpressive. Call me when you have a rv710 level northbridge on a 40nm process. That would hurt 5450? maybe, but 5450 is a joke to begin with, shoud've been redwood/2, would be pretty much the same die size and would allow gaming with old stuff like Wow, asian mmorpgs, etc

 

[xkche]

is a good MoBo to upgrade from AM2+ old Mobo...
Wait the 890X mobos's!

 

[Pei-chen]

I wish AMD's product actually caught up with marketing. The on board graphic is far too weak to have "integrated gaming" that was promised to us when 690G was launched. They should put a 5450 in there or something.

 

[masterasia]

Oh man...!?! I was really pulling for AMD here. Looks like they haven't improved anything over my 790FX board.

 

[void_pointer]

MSI bursts forward in Crysis, ...

Bursts? Oh please. Hyperbole much? Especially when it refers to a bunch of soporific graphs with blanket-finish results!

 

[Otus]

Wouldn't an SSD (e.g. ioXtreme) have been a better way to test the effects of SATA 6GB/s?

 

[megamanx00]

Heh, Asus is borrowing cost saving tricks from it's ASRock division. I was expecting the new IGP to have at least 80 shaders and be DX11 in order to hybrid crossfire with a 4350/4550 or 5350 type card.

 

[buzznut]

As an AMD fan, I find this disappointing. I would have expected more performance. I see no reason to change my 790gx board. SATA 3 looks nice on paper, but we don't have any drives that can use that bandwidth so what's the point of adoption right now?

 

[victomofreality]

MSI bursts forward in Crysis, while the legacy motherboard tips towards the bottom.

Rofl with a lead that couldn't be noticed without testing software.

 

[gnesterenko]

How about some overclocking tests?

 

[bill gates is your daddy]

I will wait for the 890FX

 

[Onus]

On a possible new build later this Spring/early Summer, I'm still waffling between a AM3 or 1156. The former offers lower cost and more PCIE lanes / better expansion; CPUs for the the latter offer much lower power usage and better performance (that I may not notice). I'm not sure this makes my choice any easier.

 

[kal326]

In all fairness they are comparing 3 fresh off factory floor boards with a mature product in the 790gx. Give it some time for the mobo makers to refine it and you will probably see a slight improvement over the current performance.

 

[godwhomismike]

How long until the X6 processors?

 

[Ciuy]

i was like "omg" when i read the title....then i was "oh, thats all?" after i read the article. :/

not even usb 3, noo goody

 

[chechak]

All motherboards have 2(x16/x0, x8/x8) and isn't MSI heat sink small or amd890gx chip don't need a lot of coiling or what?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]gnesterenko[/nom]How about some overclocking tests?[/citation]

Sorry, those take time. Short story behind that: One of the three boards was canceled from the launch, leaving just enough time to bench and O/C test the other two. But after O/C testing the first one, the missing one was re-added to the launch! Basically, the time that would have been spent O/C testing the second board was instead spent benchmarking the third, and the end result is that Tom's Hardware has O/C results for one board but not the rest.

And it just wouldn't be fair to the other two manufacturers to publish the O/C numbers from only one.