ASRock 890FX Deluxe: Comprehensive Motherboard Review & Investigation of Thuban Performance Scaling
by Rajinder Gill on August 31, 2010 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- ASRock
- AMD
- Motherboards
- 890FX
We now follow up with our usual system evaluation suit to test ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4 and pit it against ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 . For this part of the test, we enabled all the power-saving features of our 1090T and Turbo Core, and Windows power plan was set to “Balanced”. We matched the 4x2GB of Corsair XMS3 sticks to DDR3-1600/7-8-7-1T on both boards using 3:12 (1:4) divider. All games were tested at their maximum graphics quality settings available in-game. Anti-aliasing was set to 4xAA when applicable, and anisotropic filtering was set to 16xAF in Catalyst Control Panel.
Application Performance - WinRAR 3.90 64-bit
This benchmark compresses our AT workload consisting of a main folder that contains 954MB of files in 15 subfolders. The result is a file approximately 829MB in size.
Application Performance - Bibble 5.0
We utilize Bibble Labs’ Bibble 5 v2 to convert 50 RAW image files into full size JPEG images with the program’s default settings. This program is fully multithreaded and multi-core aware.
Application Performance - Sorenson Squeeze 6.0
We are using Sorenson Squeeze to convert eight AVCHD videos into HD Flash videos for use on websites. This application heavily favors physical core count and processor clock speed.
Gaming Performance - Resident Evil 5
We are using the built-in benchmark utility of Capcom's highly addictive horror game.
Gaming Performance - StarCraft 2
We use the same replay file we used in part 1, but the numbers are slightly different because here our setups are devised more closely to match actual user experience. Keep in mind that Turbo Core is enabled and memory configuration is different for this part of the test. 16AF is forced from Catalyst Control Center.
USB 3.0 Performance
We use Acronis TrueImage Home (v. 10) to make a backup of our installation drive to an external SATA 3.0 Gbps drive via USB 3.0 and compare it with USB 2.0 and SATA 3.0 Gbps transfers. The total data backed up is approximately 20 GB. We could not complete the backup on the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 in a consistent manner.
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HangFire - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
It is good to see a USB 3.0 performance test in there. I would like to see another or more, especially something simultaneous- for example, run backup on one port (say, USB 3.0) and stream video from a webcam in another (probably USB 2.0). This test makes a lot of sense in that a user would engage in Social Media while running a backup in the background.It would also tell us if the system can maintain a steady webcam image while doing other work, something we would expect a 6-core system to do (if not hobbled by poor USB implementation). The test could be repeated for a port on each USB 2.0 controller on the M/B to make sure each USB port set is as able as the rest.
Kane Y. Jeong - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
I appreciate your constructive comment. I will keep it in mind.Stuka87 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Really a great review. I almost wish I would have held out building a new system until these 890's came out with USB3 and such (I built last Janurary). But I have no real complaints about my 790GX.Ratman6161 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Asrock has Asus as it's parent company and I thought that Asrock was supposed to be the low priced/budget branch of Asus. By taking Asrock upscale, isn't Asus just competing against itself?mino - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Not anymore. ASUS spun off it OEM arm (Pegatron) last year.And even when they had the same parent company, the design teams were separate since ASRock inception 7yrs ago.
blacksun1234 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
ASRock works well on the budget M/B market and try to offer more with lower price for high-end market. If you would like to get "Valued product" at mainstream segment, ASRock is a good choice.mapesdhs - Thursday, November 25, 2010 - link
Very true! I've ended up buying several Asrock P55 Deluxe boards because this
performs so well (i7 870 @ 4.1GHz), costs very little (less than 70 UKP) and it
has excellent slot spacing (as with this review board, I really like the 3-slot
spacing between the 1st and 2nd PCIe slots; I use the 3rd slot for a SAS RAID
card. At least ASUS has done the same thing aswell). See:
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/Asrock_P55_Deluxe.j...
I'm a tad out of touch with AMD boards atm, but if I was buying an X58, I'd go
with Asrock's Extreme6; it won't give the best overclocks, but the slot spacing
again wins it for me. And if I was looking for an AMD board, again I like the
890FX-Deluxe's slot spacing *and* the fact that it does have a 3rd PCIe slot
(I notice the ASUS board doesn't). Oh for a board like this with onboard SAS...
Ian.
PCR - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Don't you mean M4A89GTD PRO/USB3? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...Kane Y. Jeong - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Yes, thank you. Will fix it ASAP.poohbear - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Kane Jeong why didnt you mention in this article how AMD's AHCI driver doesnt support trim even w/ the newest 890FX chipset? Its supposed to be an enthusiast chipset but doesnt even provide a working AHCI driver?? For everyone that owns an SSD, we're completely left in the dark w/ any AMD chipset and SSD combo. Its august 2010, latest 890FX chipset, and on an SSD AMD doesnt even support TRIM w/ their latest drivers. This is unacceptable!!!! You guys need to address this in ANY AMD chipset review, what enthusiast wants a system that doesnt provide SSDs w/ TRIM support??? We're all stuck using MS default AHCI drivers lest we lose TRIM support, its pathetic and way overdue for AMD to provide a working AHCI driver. Please mention this in your reviews cause the vast majority of enthusiasts have SSDs, and an enthusiast chipset geared towards us without TRIM support is a joke.