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
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Testbed Setup Overclocking / Benchmark Testbed |
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| Processors | Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz 6MB L3 Cache |
| CPU Voltage | Various |
| Cooling | Scythe Mugen II |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX620W |
| Memory | CorsairXMS3 CM4GX3M2A1600C7 2x2GB Kit |
| Memory Settings | Various |
| Video Cards | Radeon HD5870 |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 10.7 |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD |
| Optical Drives | Plextor PX-B900A, Toshiba SD-H802A |
| Case | Open Test Bed |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64 bit |
| . | |
We are splitting today’s test into two parts. In part one; we take a look at the impact of Thuban’s CPU-NB (or IMC, integrated Memory Controller) on performance, courtesy of our retail 1090T and the ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4. In part two we’re pitting the ASRock 890FX Deluxe 4 against ASUS’ M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 through our usual but slightly revised and condensed benchmark suit.
For the latter, we would like to ask readers ahead for an understanding that this is our first evaluation of the 890FX-based board and we are in the middle of devising a proper testing suit for this platform. Once we have more experience with products based on this chipset, we will have a thorough comparison of power consumption and onboard controllers, including multi-GPU performance.
To make up for this deficit, we decided to spend some time on investigating the new CPU-NB of Thuban. It is a well-known secret that Phenom architecture benefits from faster CPU-NB. The bottlenecks are manifold, but we hypothesize a few.
- The CPU-NB’s frequency is directly responsible for the transaction of data between CPU and memory. Lower CPU-NB frequency thus tends to waste memory bandwidth.
- The CPU-NB’s frequency is also the CPU’s L3 cache frequency. Even when memory access doesn’t come into equation, slow L3 impacts the overall CPU performance.
- The CPU-NB is what controls the memory (it’s another name is “IMC” after all). A higher quality IMC tends to be more flexible when it comes to DIMM frequency and timings. Whether overclocked or not, previous generation Phenoms didn’t like high speed memory, even though the same modules were perfectly able on Intel platforms.
Assuming the above, it is easy to imagine the performance impact CPU-NB plays on this architecture. Any of the above can present a performance bottleneck. Prior to E0 revision silicon (Thuban is E0 stepping), Phenom II’s CPU-NB’s quality was frankly abysmal, and outside extreme conditions (i.e. sub-zero) there just wasn’t enough room to improve performance by manipulating CPU-NB.
However, we now see a dramatically different characteristic of the CPU-NB in E0 silicon Thuban CPUs. Previously unthinkable frequencies under air-cooling are now a possibility, and it handles high frequency DIMMs much better as well. So we think it is a perfect time to start examining the impact of the CPU-NB in AMD’s “Star” architecture.
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Kane Y. Jeong - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Anand has already covered SB850 in depth, so I linked to the article.http://www.anandtech.com/show/2973/6gbps-sata-perf...
Said that, I will get back to you after contacting ASRock as to your question. Thank you.
poohbear - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - link
that article doesnt address how TRIM is disabled w/ the AMD drivers. It might increase performance, but with TRIM disabled it makes the SSD have terrible performance in the long term. Please bring this up in AMD chipset reviews as AMD is just ignoring the issue. its a mess.Slaimus - Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - link
Are you talking about the RAID driver passing TRIM to the individual drives in the array? TRIM in general is working AFAIK.stuartrue - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Do the AMD AHCI drivers support the TRIM command?DWeber - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Love the extent of your articles. Clean written, good facts, interesting NB-Frequency benches.But what the f* is a Radeon HD 5780?
Egap19 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
Thank you for the throw review, but if it's first 890fx review why not asus or gigabyte? Heck MSI there too. Do a round up or something. AMD gets no love around here.BestBuyJock2 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
I love the StarCraft 2 bench. It was an eye opener. I only have an Athlon X4 but I may test the same thing. Very informative review rarely seen these days. Thank you Anandtech!cousin2003 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
cousin2003; Very impressive article. Is the Motherboard available yet. I really learned about more about Thuben CPU's. Thank you.najames - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
It is rumored that AMD 890FX boards will allow passthrough hardware in virtual machines like Intel VT-d with some "updated BIOS", meaning a graphics card or video capture card and USB devices could be assigned in a VM. It would be nice if someone can verify this.I have briefly tried this with my Gigabyte X58-UD4P BIOS 13 and i7920 setup. It shows a virtualization option in the BIOS but Vsphere (ESXi 4.1) still shows it as unavailable. There is however a Beta BIOS I have not tried yet.
This seems to be a voodoo hit or miss on desktop computers although support goes back to the Q35 era desktop boards and servers.
beretta2013 - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - link
You mentioned reaching 4.1Ghz on the 1090T, was that at idle in CPU-z validator or was that under full load in prime95? My $95 GA-770TA-UD3 can validate at 4.4GHz but 3.9 is the max stable clock speed. As far as wattage being pulled, my 1090T @3.8 & 1.42v draws 177watts itself under peak load in prime95; as quoted by the Gigabyte Energy Saver app. Cheers.