AMD's 890GX Chipset - Same Graphics, Better South Bridge
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 2, 2010 4:36 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Say Goodbye to ACC, Say Hello to ASUS
One thing AMD neglected to mention in its press presentation about the 8-series chipset was the fact that it removed support for Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) from AMD’s BIOS. You may remember that ACC was the nifty tool that first let us overclock Phenom processors higher, but later allowed us to unlock disabled cores on Phenom II X2, X3 and Athlon II X3 processors. You heard it right, apparently ACC is gone.
Well, not exactly. Apparently ASUS has figured out a way to unlock cores despite not having easy access to whatever it is ACC did. And you have three ways to enable it:
1) Turn this switch on:
Technically it's the switch to the right of this one, but you get the point
2) Hold the “4” key during POST
3) Or enable it in the BIOS
Nifty. As far as I can tell, ASUS and ASRock are the only companies implementing ACC at this point. I suspect the rest will follow once they figure out how to do it.
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Paladin1211 - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - link
TechReport has pointed out the 890GX has very good overclock capabilities. I want to know if it can really get the Athlon II X4 630 to over 4Ghz. You have been praising the overclocking potential of the Core i3/i5 + H55/57 all lately. How about the same test with a few sensible AMD CPUs?Thank you.
Reference link:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18539/10">http://techreport.com/articles.x/18539/10
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
Hi,From the looks of it, those were simply bus frequency tests made possible by a low CPU multiplier. I doubt that CPU's are hitting higher overall core frequencies (at normal CPU multiplier ratios) just by a change of Southbridge.
regards
Raja
Paladin1211 - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
Wasn't it a change of southbridge that "Enabled higher Phenom overclocks?"http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
I'd have thought once you get to 4GHz or so most people are limited by cooling because the AMD substrate seems to favour lower temperatures for outright CPU frequency.We can test it against 790 at some point (assuming both boards have been 'engineered' to the same level).
later
Raja
Paladin1211 - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
Waiting for boards, BIOSes, drivers to be more mature is always a good idea. I do care about 24/7 stable overclocking at stock voltage and highest possible core speed on air.Thank you, I'll stay tuned :)
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
Hi,Waiting for things to mature would be a good idea based upon what I'm seeing with the Sharkoon Drive Port..
regards
Raja
chucky2 - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - link
What was the point of this release, other than to come out with a "new" product to increase sales from the Gotta Have It crowd...?1. STILL no 8 channel over HDMI???? It's something that should have been done in 780G, then 790GX, then 785G, and now 890GX does not support it?!?!?! I don't need to buy an add-in card AMD, I can just buy an Intel box. Insanity.
2. Would it seriously have been so hard to put in a 5000 series core to one-up Intel and actually have SOME reason to buy this over cheaper - and essentially just as good - mature 790GX alternatives (which can also still do core unlocking btw)? Exactly why buy this over a cheaper, more stable 790GX, or competing Intel product?
They should have called this 795GX and saved themselves the embarrassment. <- 690G and 790GX user, not an Intel fanboi.
Chuck
leexgx - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - link
the audio is very good point, it still can unlock cores and do ACCgeok1ng - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - link
I once again request a side by side image quality comparison.AT is almost making me concede that Intel graphics are good enough, now all the matter is to proof once and for all that Intel is not cheating ( again, i would kindly remember)on image quality, as it did on the past.
swaaye - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - link
I'm guessing that one big reason for the IGP being the same is that the bandwidth to RAM, across the HT bus, is unchanged since Phenom came out. The peak bandwidth is a measly 8.8GB/s assuming you have a CPU with a 2.2GHz HT clock, and that is shared with the rest of data going across HT.