990FX Motherboard Roundup with Thuban and Bulldozer – A Second Wind for ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Biostar
by Ian Cutress on April 5, 2012 11:00 AM ESTBiostar TA990FXE In The Box
In The Box
For a cheap board, we would expect a bare box with limited additions, reminiscent of what certain other manufactures may put in there. But I was quite surprised:
IO Shield
Driver CD
User Manual
Six SATA cables (locking)
Two Crossfire bridges
The addition of Crossfire bridges is odd, as typically SLI bridges are given in boards (although the initial BIOSes of this board did not support SLI). Also worthy of note is that the CPU back bracket on the board did not function with AMD all-in-one cooler.
Image courtesy of Newegg
Board Features
| Biostar TA990FXE | |
| Price | Link to Newegg |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | AM3+ |
| CPU Support | AMD FX/Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron |
| Chipset | AMD 990FX |
| Base Clock Frequency | Auto, 200 MHz to 600 MHz |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.70 V to 1.55 V, Offset +0.50 V to +1.450 V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, x8 to x31.5 |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, -0.25 V to +0.49 V |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1T or 2T |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel Support for DDR3, 800-2000 MHz, |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe Gen2 x16 (x16/x16) 1 x PCIe Gen2 x4 2 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 5 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 |
| Onboard |
5 x SATA 6 Gbps (SB950) 3 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x S/PDIF Output Header 2 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x USB 3.0 Headers 1 x IEEE1394 Header 1 x Serial Port Header 1 x CIR Header |
| Onboard LAN | Atheros AR8151 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC892 |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector 1 x 4-pin Molex connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header 2 x SYS Fan Headers |
| IO Panel |
2 x Keyboard/Mouse PS2 Port 1 x Optical SPDIF Output 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Output 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 2 x USB 3.0 4 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA 3 Gbps Port 1 x IEEE1394 Port Audio Outputs |
| BIOS Version | 29/02/2012 |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years from Manufacture date |
As I mentioned in the TA990FXE overview, there are a few oddities. The placement of the PCIe slots is questionable as it doesn't allow a gap between multi-GPU systems, and the inclusion of the Atheros network controller rather than a Realtek (for the combo discount) is odd. The lack of fan headers is a concern.
Software
As we have never covered Biostar software before, it was worth my time to dig deep into what makes Biostar tick in this regard. The myriad of software comes down a few key utilities - eHotLine, BIOS Update, TOverclocker and G.P.U.
eHotLine: This software seems to be part of Biostar's bug reporting. Have an issue with your board, and this software pulls almost all the necessary info for you to send to them to help diagnose it.
BIOS Update: Does exactly what it says on the tin - even better if you are connected to the internet, as then it will search for the latest BIOS it can find from the Biostar servers, then download it and install.
TOverclocker: The main hub of software action takes place in TOverclocker. On loading, it will apply any overclock previously set (even if it crashes your system), but offers information on the CPU, Motherboard and memory. The OC Tweaker allows the user to change the base frequency and select the overclocking mode - the voltage options did not work on the Bulldozer processor. H/W Monitor shows the voltages and temperatures, and even offers a CPU fan calibration tool.
G.P.U: The confusing part of the software is this - the Green Power Utility. Why it was called GPU I have no idea, but this software takes a while to load and attempts to adapt the system to use less voltage.
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phys1cs - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Spamming affiliate links, I see.R3MF - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
"The third generation FX processor, codename Steamroller, is still reported (not confirmed) to use AM3+, meaning that there are still quite a few years left in this platform when taking the AMD route."If this is true then i simply cannot believe that AMD will continue on socket AM3+ without a chipset that supports PCIe 3.0!
Where, when, and what will the 1090FX chipset arrive?
SilthDraeth - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
This seems to be an ok roundup of AMD boards.However, how do the latest Windows 7 tweaks increase the performance of the Bulldozer? Can we get a before and after benchmark based on Win 7 and or Win 8 (beta) optimizations?
I was hoping we would get that information. Also, how does it compare to similarly priced Intel offerings?
IanCutress - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Thank you for your comment. I didn't perform comparisons as Anand did a comprehensive look at the scheduling updates here:http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the-bulldozer-s...
(Also reviewing five boards and writing 20,000 words about them takes longer than you think!)
If there are any motherboards you would like to see in the future (or particular tests), drop me an email (ian AT anandtech.com) and I will have a look. Obviously I can't take care of every little niche test that everyone wants, otherwise we'd only get one board a month out for review, but I'll do what I can!
Ian
SilthDraeth - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Thank you for the link. That is what I wanted.StevoLincolnite - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I noticed your Thuban was hitting 60'C+So I was just wondering if you took the Thubans thermal bug into account on those readings? On my old 1090T and 1045T I had to have a 13'c offset to get a correct thermal reading.
sumitlian - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
Temperature related problem have long been rectified in C3 stepping of Denab CPUs and in Thuban as well. There is no fault in temperature sensor anymore in our CPUs.Only C2 rev. or earlier rev. AMD CPUs suffered from this issue.
Download and Read:
"Revision Guide for Family 10h CPU"
ExarKun333 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
More to life than gaming on your PC. If you read the article, you could see how terrible the non-gaming benchmarks are for 'only' a Intel 4 and 6-core vs the 8-core AMD. Fanboi much?blazeoptimus - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I bought an MSI 990FX-GD80 board a couple of months ago and was looking for a review like this one at the time. I would have loved the info you brought up here and I hope it will help others looking into the available 990FX boards.I went with the MSI board since it seemed to hit a sweet spot on features, price (newegg was offering $20 off which put it to $169) and performance. I also went with a Zosma processor since it seemed to hit the price elbow and had the most unlocking potential. I've been very happy with the experience thus far. I've been able to unlock the 2 additional processors and have pushed the clock to 3600mhz (stock is 3k). My next push will be to see if I can hit the aggressive clocks listed in this article.
Thanks again for the write up. I'm a long time reader and frequently use the information in these reviews to make hardware decisions.
Taft12 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Very comprehensive, thank you Ian!Of course now that you've exhausted so much energy on this review, the 1090FX chipset is right around the corner alongside the 2nd gen FX CPUs.
Such is life for a desktop hardware reviewer!