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
After two weeks of being abused, ASRock’s 890FX Deluxe 4 proved to be a worthy contender in the market where users are looking for a home of their brand new Thuban CPU. It wasn’t without its share of issues, though, and we want to disclose at this point that we lost our first deluxe 4 during testing. According to ASRock the board was a pre-retail board and we saw a few physical differences between the first and second board, so we do believe it.
When we compared ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4 and ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 through our benchmark suit, there was an interesting pattern. In applications that can take advantage of all 6 cores, the 890FX Deluxe 4 equaled, if not exceled by a thin hair, the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3. When not all CPU cores were busy, however, the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 consistently pulled out better scores. The difference is small, but it is there nonetheless. We suspect that ASUS’ expertise in BIOS tuning is at work here, either for faster memory access or better Turbo Core implementation.
What we did not expect was that a similar pattern would emerge from our CPU-NB testing. Our experiment with Thuban’s CPU-NB was truly strange. In applications that can take advantage of as many cores as 6, the gains achieved by CPU-NB overclocking was rather small. It’s there, but not to the point of writing home about. On the other hand, overclocking CPU-NB greatly benefited less-threaded applications, namely games. This can also be observed from the X264 HD 3.0 test, where the less intense first pass yields much better scaling with CPU-NB overclocking than the second pass.
We have no conclusive theory to explain this phenomenon at this time. Originally our suspicion was limited to CPU-NB’s frequencies and memory frequencies/timings, but now we wonder whether the size of L3, which is meager 1MB per core for the X6’s, comes into play as well. We are looking to further examine this subject in the future.
At the end of the journey, we do not have a show-stopper complaint on ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4. It does what it sets out to do and it does it very well. Is it worth $180 when ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 is $30 less? We think the difference largely comes down to the board’s selection of components. The Deluxe 4 is based on the 890FX chipset, more expensive than the 890GX. It has two NEC USB 3.0 controllers, instead of one, of which the performance is flawless. The bundled USB 3.0 front-panel bay unit is the first of the kind we have seen, and we suppose that costs something as well. Add them up, and you can imagine where the price difference lies. The M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 feels like a sprinter. The 890FX Deluxe 4 an all-round workhorse. And the choice is yours.
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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.