Last month AMD quietly took the wraps off their latest chipset known as the 890GX. Though the new platform really doesn’t give us anything brand new, it does provide a meaningful update to the original 785G and 790GX chipsets. Thanks to the availability of some very good boards, we’ve had an excellent opportunity to really get to know this new platform and its features. As a result of our extended time with boards from ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI we’ve come up with insights beyond just the generic benchmarks.
Our experience has been shaped by a trio of motherboards that launched with the chipset. These include the GIGABYTE’s GA-890GPA-UD3H, MSI’s 890GXM-G65 and the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3. With the help of these boards, we were really able to get to know just what the 890GX was capable of in terms of the user experience. Instead of beating them to death in benchmarks, we challenged ourselves to find things that really illustrate just who this platform is for and why it might very well be AMD’s most versatile and best bang for the buck platform yet.
A Little Old. A Little New.
It’s no coincidence that the AMD 890GX diagram looks a lot like the diagram for an AMD 785G chipset. It’s fundamentally the same with a few notable exceptions as noted below…
- Integrated Graphics: HD 4290 chipset (plus Hybrid CrossFire Support) vs HD 4200 GPU on 785G
- Memory: Full DDR3 support vs. DDR2/DDR3 support on 785G
- SATA: Support for SATA 6Gbps (3.0) vs only SATA 3Gbps (2.0) on 785G
- CPU: Supports only AM3 CPU while 785G supports AM2/AM2+/AM3
Other features that are actually part of the platform include AMD’s own Gigabit Ethernet solution with optional USB 3.0 support. Apparently, no one loved AMD’s network solution enough to include it. USB 3.0 support isn’t part of the spec, but everyone is supporting it and AMD has done well to accomodate it in its specifications. This is usually implemented with a third party chip from NEC in most cases. This is true in the case of our review boards.
Doing The USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 Milkshake Better Than Yours
Though INTEL solutions were first out of the gate to integrate optional SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 solutions, the initial boards met some performance difficulties. Boards that integrated both SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 had problems allocating enough bandwidth to the two controllers. This lead to performance anomalies that affected graphics performance when both solutions were sucking bandwidth away from the PCI-Express lanes powering the GPU, among other things. This of course has been addressed by board manufacturers on their own terms, but it was still a bit of an afterthought.
AMD decided to integrate the SATA 3.0 6Gbps controller right into the SB850 southbridge, thus removing a potential performance bottleneck. This also allowed AMD to provide enough bandwidth to the PCI-express lanes to support an add on USB 3.0 solution. The result is a solution that avoids the issues surrounding the initial implementation on some INTEL solutions. In a nutshell, less performance problems for you and me.
Three Motherboards and a Reviewer
In order to give you the lowdown on this new chipset, we’ve been provided with three solutions: GIGABYTE’s GA-890GPA-UD3H, MSI’s 890GXM-G65 and the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3. Thankfully, unlike reference video cards, these three AMD 890GX solutions are very well differentiated in terms of features. Though in reality, motherboards based upon the same chipset rarely differ greatly in terms of stock performance. You’ll know I’m telling you the truth when you’ve experienced that sensation of indifference as your eyes glaze over at the benchmark charts. All the charts start to look the same and you realize that the last five reviews had the same scores. That’s not to say they aren’t important as they can reveal whether an implementation needs work. But just so you know, we aren’t going there hardcore in this article. We are going to shine a light on the things that make a board an AMD 890GX board.
The title of this article is reflective of how the rest of the this article will unfold. We’re not looking for numbers like how we wouldn’t care if one SUV smokes another SUV in the 0-60 test. Cupholders, airbags, GPS navigation and the backup camera matter more. This is what ultimately leads you to the driving experience you want just like the make up of features on a particular board drive you to it. Otherwise, we’d all be driving Buggati Veyrons. We will also look at features in our subject that give this platform the potential to kick it up a notch as Emeril Lagasse would say. But first, we’ll get to know a bit more about each board.
What’s Common. What’s Not.
Before we dive straight in to what each board offers special to the 890GX party, let’s have a look at some of the variations (and similarities) that we can see. AMD has given manufacturers some leeway in some of the components they can specify for the 890GX. Here’s a quick look at the variations between our test boards…
With the exception of the micro-ATX 890GXM-G65, the M4A89GTD PRO/USB 3 and the GA-890GPA-UD3H are both ATX boards. This accounts for the major weight difference between it and the two ATX counterparts. While the weight of a motherboard doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with performance, it may have to do with some of the components selected in the construction of some of the boards. Plastic is always lighter than metal and we’ll find that some of the boards definitely give you more of the good stuff.
Working our way up, all of our boards used a 128MB Hynix Memory module to support the SidePort memory on our HD 4290 Integrated Graphics solution (IGP) so we expect performance to be similar in terms of standard graphics performance. Other differences were very hard to spot. For example, we found out that the USB 3.0 NEC chip, despite being the exact same part number, varied in location of manufacturing. We will actually be shining a spotlight on this in our testing.
Other differences included slight variations in the networking solution and a break in the audio solution with the MSI board, going to an ALC889 audio solution vs. the ALC892 on the ASUS and GIGABYTE. Both solutions are known to be great performers but the ALC892 does have the advantage of being able to stream lossless formats like DOLBY True HD and DTS HD. I would have expected the micro-ATX MSI to have included this solution seeing as the board’s format does lend itself to being a better home theatre PC solution. The variations in the networking solution are not so significant as the chips are fundamentally the same.
All of the boards feature commonalities in connectivity which include DVI/HDMI, VGA and similar numbers of USB 2.0/3.0 ports. The MSI board does lack Firewire (IEEE1394) support so if you need that connection, you’ll find that the ASUS and GIGABYTE will likely be more to your liking.
MSI 890GXM-G65 Micro-ATX Motherboard
Starting at the bottom in terms of price point, the reasonably priced ($129.99US) MSI 890GXM-G65 was the only Micro-ATX solution out of the gate at launch and is the only Micro-ATX in our trio. It’s also one of two boards that feature CPU unlocking (through the BIOS) which allows you to discover that inner four core CPU from various two and three core AMD processors. Given form factor restrictions, the board also gives us the the fewest SATA 3.0 ports (five vs six) based on the SB850 southbridge and lacks Firewire ports as mentioned earlier.
Unique features of the board include a hardware based overclocking function accessed by a couple of dip switches, allowing you to easily give your CPU a 5 – 20% boost in performance without getting into the BIOS. The board also offers all solid capacitors, heatpipe cooling and power savings via MSI’s Active Phase Switching (APS) technology. Coupled with its Micro-ATX form factor, we expect it to be one of the lower power solutions of our trio.
The board layout is logical, clean and the CPU socket area allows for ample room to attach even the largest of heatsinks. While all the features that support the 890GX are there, a quick visual inspection does reveal that the board just isn’t as well put together in some respects as the others. Some components are crookedly soldered onto the PCB and some of the connectors are fairly barebones in comparison to its 890GX brothers. I also found the VGA/DVI connector to be somewhat flimsy, possibly asking for a “breaking” moment.
Overall though, the MSI does offer everything that makes an 890GX board an 890GX board. Component flimsiness aside, if you plan on setting this up once and leaving it alone, I’m sure it will be fine. Especially if performance is up to par in the areas that are important to the platform. This is important as the board is part of their “Gaming Series” and gamers need reliable boards. More specifications and details can be found on the product page. Moving right along…
GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H Ultra Durable 3 Motherboard
The GIGABYTE board is definitely the most attractive of the trio and the middle child in terms of price at $139.99US. This company has definitely come a long way in terms of color coordination and the blue and white motif definitely works well together; a far cry from the “LEGO Brick” color scheme that the company was plagued with not too long ago. The board’s layout is logical and the the cooling solution is definitely impressive with large aluminum heatsinks and a heatpipe tying it together. Coupled with GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable 3 technology which includes a 2oz copper PCB and a full complement of solid Japanese capacitors, the board definitely accounts for its extra weight on the scale a feeling of durability.
Unique to the board is GIGABYTE’s 3X power technology which supplies the USB ports extra power to give devices like power hungry USB hard drives and even iPads, extra juice. This means that USB splitters are no longer required to power up your arsenal of USB devices. Among other features are GIGABYTE’s Easy Energy Saver which combines software and hardware to auto adjust power requirements. Taking it a step further, GIGABYTE also has software called Auto Green that, when coupled with a Bluetooth adapter and a Bluetooth enabled cellphone, can put your system into standby and lock it down when you’re out of range, reducing power consumption further.
The board does lack the easy overclocking and core unlocking (hopefully coming in a new BIOS update) features of the MSI and ASUS. However, the BIOS overclocking options are no slouch thanks to the work that the company has done in perfecting it with the help of the best overclockers in the world. It’s definitely a board with with a mild manner but performance potential with the right skill. There’s also plenty of room for big coolers. There’s more info on the product page if you need more detailed specs.
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard
In this trio of boards, the ASUS is the most expensive. Clocking in at $149.99US, it earns the price premium by adding in the most number of features. While the board definitely isn’t as well built as the GIGABYTE, but far superior to the MSI, a number of innovative features make it worth the price premium. For example, the board offers a number of little features that make installation of components easier like the quick release PCI-E slots and the single sided memory slots (though it would have been nice if the clips were on the opposite side so they don’t but into a video card).
The ASUS’ Q-Connector also makes life easy, allowing you to pre-plug your front panel connections before plugging them into the board. I was just a little perplexed by the placement of the SATA connectors and why they couldn’t all be placed at a 90 degree angle, while ditching the IDE connector that no one uses anymore. You win some. You lose some.
Speaking of odd, ASUS included this strange VGA switch card which you need to use if you want to use the far PCI-E slot as an x16 slot. Unplugging it turns the slot into an x8 PCI-E slot and allows you to plug in a second card for CrossFireX support. Also, you can’t use the top (light blue) slot as an x16 slot and plug card in the second slot. The card must be in this slot for the second slot to function at x16. Weird.
Finally, the ASUS was the first 890GX based board to offer hardware based core unlocking that is activated via a switch on the board (or Hot Key on the keyboard). Beside this same switch is the ASUS Turbo Key II which unleashes extra hardware based overclocking features. To the left of that is the life saving MemOK switch that takes memory that’s a little sketchy and at least gets you booted while you figure out the real settings.
In a nutshell, this board is stacked for tweaking and if you like to tweak, you’ll love this board. In fact, it’s almost overwhelming and this is just the hardware based stuff. ASUS has their own software suite for taking advantage of the hardware based overclocking features, kind of like AMD’s Overdrive, but made specifically to interface with their hardware. If you’re all about the specs, you can check in on the product page.
Now that we’ve had a chance to highlight some of the things that make each of the boards unique, let’s put some parts together and look at some performance numbers.
Test System Setup and Benchmarks
With the exception of our respective boards from ASUS, MSI and GIGABYTE, we maintained a uniform test setup for all of our benchmarks and feature testing. Part selections were reasonable reflecting what normal human beings with limited pockets would choose to pair with this budget but versatile platform.
Common hardware components included:
- CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 2.6GHz AM3 Processor
- Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR3 2x2GB 1333MHz Memory Kit
- Hard Drive: INTEL X25 80GB SATA2 SSD
- Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 3.0
- USB 3.0 Enclosure: Rosewill RX358 USB 3.0 Enclosure
- Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5450 (for Hybrid CrossFire Tests)
- Optical: LG SATA DVD Writer
- Power Supply: ULTRA Products X4 750Watt Modular Power Supply
- CPU Cooler: Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooler
- Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
All of the components were assembled on top of a HighSpeedPC Tech Station. We also added two CoolerMaster case fans in order to represent a real-world power consumption scenario. Unless otherwise stated, our benchmarks are based on the default settings offered by our chosen benchmarks. In the spirit of value which seems to be the hallmark of this platform, we’ve stuck to benchmarks that are free and that anyone can download and try. This allows you to easily check your results against ours without any special software or equipment.
Before any testing happened, every system was put through a 24 hour burn in using 3DMark Vantage at the Extreme setting. This ensured that we had good and stable hardware before logging our benchmark numbers. Let’s get to work!
PCMark Vantage x64
This is a great synthetic benchmark that gives you an overall snapshot of how your system performs. The categories are broken down so that they can be easily compared across systems. We’ve benchmarked all three boards with the same components and have compared them in the graph below.
While the benchmark is synthetic and may not represent all real world situations, it does give you a good impression of how each system should perform in other benchmarks. Based on the results, we can see that the MSI edges ahead in HDD, productivity, music, memories and overall performance. However, the GIGABYTE takes the win in communication, gaming, and TV & movies. The ASUS seems to take up the rear with the exception of the TV & Movies category which mainly tests encoding of video files. However, in the big scheme of things, the differences are so minute that you’d be hard pressed to really notice these differences.
3DMark Vantage
This benchmark gives us an overall score of GPU and CPU performance as well as an overall score. While the overall score doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot, the GPU and CPU scores are useful for comparison purposes.
Just like what was revealed in the PCMark Vantage x64 benchmark, the ASUS takes up the rear for both the CPU and GPU score as well as the overall score. It makes me wonder if the vast number of hardware features (or the weird VGA Switch Card) might be at fault for it’s slightly lower performance. The MSI continues to perform well and the GIGABYTE takes the lead in the CPU score.
Cinebench 11.5
This benchmark really takes your system to task by stressing its CPU and Memory and how well the system utilizes both. It also gives a kick to your GPU in the OpenGL department.
The ASUS seems to redeem itself in the OpenGL, CPU, CPU Single Core and keeps up in the MP Ratio %. Again, a lot of these tests are, in reality, so close that it’s really not worth stressing about. Ideally, we’d like to see all of these 890GX boards score about the same in all of our tests. It’s when there is a severe difference that we should be worrying and so far, none of these boards are throwing up a red flag.
Now that we’ve gotten the overall system benchmarks out of the way, we can see that the three boards really are comparable. Other than some minute differences on the negative with the ASUS board, the trio of boards is more or less the same in terms of overall performance. Let’s move on to some of the more functional benchmarks including a look at both SATA 3.0 and the optional USB 3.0 implementation of our boards.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – SATA 3.0
First up is the SATA 3.0 performance of our boards. SATA 3.0 (aka SATA 6Gbps) is part of the 890GX chipset and is built right into the SB850 southbridge. We check out the single drive performance of the controller using the Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB drive in our parts arsenal. We expect the results to be pretty much uniform across all of the motherboards seeing as every board uses the same chipset.
As expected, the results are pretty much uniform right across the board. Any dips and spikes are pretty minute percentage wise and they won’t be things that you can feel in the real world. The MSI continues to be strong overall which reflects what we found out in the PCMark Vantage x64 benchmark. The GIGABYTE seems to swap spots with the ASUS on a couple of the tests.
CrystalDiskMark 2.2 – USB 3.0
The USB 3.0 is something we said that we’d shine a light on. This is mainly because USB 3.0 support is optional for the 890GX chipset. In fact, ASUS actually manufacturers a version of the M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 without the USB3 and sells it for a few dollars cheaper. The other reason why we wanted to shine a light on USB 3.0 was because we found two distinct versions of the NEC USB 3.0 chip: one made in China (on the ASUS) and one made in Japan (fitted to the MSI and GIGABYTE).
In order to test USB 3.0 performance, we inserted our Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 3.0 drive into the Rosewill RX358 USB 3.0 Enclosure. This product retails for around $69.99US and provides a pretty good value, allowing you to turn any hard drive into a USB 3.0 compatible one. Keep in mind that your hard drive selection will impact performance. The box is built well and offers both active cooling (or passive if you turn off the fan via an external switch). The box lights up blue and is powered by an external adapter. A USB 3.0 cable is also provided to get you going and assembly is super easy, even without instructions (which are provided anyway). You’ll be seeing this enclosure a lot this year as we rip through our list of board reviews and you can pick up your own at Amazon.
The ASUS and GIGABYTE implementations seem pretty solid, and both boards seem to swap places depending on the test. The MSI however falls short in the sequential read and write tests and 512k tests, but pops back up a bit in the 4k read and write tests somewhat. What we’ve learned here is that whether the chip comes from China or Japan, performance doesn’t seem to be an issue. To explain the large lead that the ASUS and GIGABYTE have over the MSI board, I can only point to a couple things.
GIGABYTE’s USB 3.0 implementation is coupled with some 3X powered USB slots. I can only wonder if this extra boost in power could be responsible for the performance gain. The performance on the ASUS points back to the controller inside the Rosewill RX358 enclosure. What I found out is that inside the enclosure is a chip made by “ASMEDIA” which is actually a division of ASUS. I’m not 100% sure, but this could be why the ASUS puts up a fight with the GIGABYTE and leaves the MSI behind as well. I’d like to get an enclosure without a controller made by ASUS to see if the board still performs, but we’ll leave that for another article. At this point, they are just theories as to why theses differences exist.
Needless to say, there does seem to be some variance in performance when it comes to USB 3.0 implementation and some of the gaps are quite substantial. If this is important to you then you’ll want to keep an eye on these benchmarks when picking up the board you want.
Something Called Hybrid CrossFireX
One of the unique features of the 890GX chipset is something called Hybrid CrossFireX. This is a feature that allows one to add an external GPU, in this case any HD 5450 based video card, and CrossFire it with the internal HD 4290 IGP. By doing this, you can increase your 3D Graphics performance by up to 28% according to AMD.
While I would normally just suggest to someone to simply buy a discrete video card solution, I was very curious to know if this solution would get us to a “good enough” scenario so we wouldn’t have to. Not to mention, an HD 5450 GPU can be had for as little as $34.99 US if you shop around so it’s really an inexpensive upgrade. It would be even better if it took your game from barely playable to playable.
To kill two birds with one stone, we’re going to compare both HD 4290 and Hybrid CrossFireX performance with a standard ATI HD 5450 to see if we can get the performance we need on the cheap. All tests were done with default settings unless otherwise stated.
Unigine Heaven 1.0 Benchmark – DX10
Unigine’s Heaven 1.0 benchmark gives us a good base in which to compare both IGP and Hybrid CrossFireX performance. It’s also a good benchmark for assessing potential performance in a lot of demanding, 3D intensive, MMORPG games. Using the DirectX 10 test, we can see how all of our boards perform both in both modes.
Based on these benchmarks we can see that the addition of the HD 5450 in Hybrid CrossFireX has a profound effect on performance. In fact, it doubles the scores across the board for all of motherboards. Although the differences between the boards are fairly minute, we can see the GIGABYTE slightly ahead of the pack, but not enough for you to actually feel a difference.
Street Fighter IV Benchmark
Since this platform appeals very well to a mass market, I figured that I’d choose some games that a mass market audience might play. This Street Fighter IV benchmark seemed very well suited to our testing needs.
The Hybrid CrossFireX has taken a potentially unplayable scenario with the IGP into an almost playable one. At nearly 30 FPS, the game is almost playable at default settings. Turning down some of the settings, you should be able to hit 30 FPS. The nice thing about this game is that you still get the SFIV experience even without the eye candy. Again, the GIGABYTE takes the lead in terms of performance by a very slight margin.
Resident Evil 5 – DirectX 10
While we’re on the CAPCOM kick here, we might as well check out Resident Evil. This benchmark does a pretty good job of representing a first person shooter scenario. Let’s see if we’re going to be able to play this game for real.
Unfortunately, Hybrid CrossFireX couldn’t help us out in this game, but it did nearly triple the frame rate. Given the increase in performance, it’s possible that somewhere out there, there is a game that we haven’t tested that could go from unplayable to playable on the 890GX with the addition of an HD 5450 GPU in Hybrid CrossFireX. We’d imagine that a number of more mature titles based on DirectX 9 like Portal and Half-Life, even Left 4 Dead, would be very playable. Just give us a request in the forums and we’ll be happy to run those.
Again, the GIGABYTE is slightly ahead in the benchmarks. We have double checked the settings, and the IGP and memory is not overclocked. But in reality, the difference is very small and not noticeable in real world gameplay.
World in Conflict
Real Time Strategy (RTS) games are popular. Anyone that’s played Starcraft or Command and Conquer knows what I’m talking about. However, some games are very demanding and World in Conflict can easily take your system to its knees. We put it to the test to see whether we can get away with the IGP or under Hybrid CrossFireX.
A game like World in Conflict stresses both CPU and GPU, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get any playable frame rates using default settings, despite our use of the Hybrid CrossFireX action.
What’s The Verdict on CrossFireX?
That takes us to the end of our game benchmarks. While it’s pretty clear that Hybrid CrossFireX can make a huge difference in frame rates in some games, it still might not be enough to get you from unplayable to playable. However, I can see this technology being extremely useful for games that are older such as many DirectX 9 titles. If there are any games you want us to check out, just drop us a note in the forums or leave a comment and we’ll check that out. But as for its performance in modern DirectX 10 titles, we’ve got titles that come close to being playable and some that still aren’t playable at all.
I did want to pass on a quick tip for those of you that want to setup Hybrid CrossFireX. Initially I assumed that you would keep the cable connected to the board as you add the HD 5450 for Hybrid CrossFireX. I tried for hours installing and uninstalling drivers to get the CrossFire option to show up in the ATI control panel. What wasn’t explained clearly in any of the manuals was that you would need to detach the cable from the IGP and connect it to the HD 5450. Only then will the CrossFire option be enabled in the ATI control panel and you can turn on the Hybrid CrossFireX option.
What’s The Verdict on the HD 4290 IGP?
One of the things that is completely underrated about the HD 4290 IGP on the 890GX chipset is the fact that despite its budget nature, it does retain many of the features that make ATI GPUs great which is the 2D image quality. Colors were good and text was sharp all the way up to 1920×1080, making this solution great for stand alone productivity tasks. The other feature that often gets missed in the discussion of this IGP is the fact that it’s no slouch when it comes to dual monitor support. Using both DVI and HDMI you can run dual monitors using the built in graphics, thus forgoing the need to buy an external graphics solution. This quality seemed similar throughout the ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI boards. One thing to note though is that you cannot use the DVI/VGA port simultaneously as they are one and the same so take your pick.
With support for all of AMDs Quad Core CPUs (and future support for their six core CPUs as well), the 890GX could be a pretty powerful workstation platform as long as intensive 3D graphics performance isn’t a factor. With GPU acceleration for things like video encoding and Flash, the HD 4290 easily makes the 890GX a decent all day everyday use system.
One observation I did make while inspecting all three boards was the fact that the on both the ASUS and the MSI board, the connectors for the VGA/DVI ports were extremely flimsy. This is due to the fact that the connectors are anchored to a plastic connector which is soldered to the board. The GIGABYTE uses a much stiffer and stronger metal connector that should last much longer.
890GX Power Consumption
We took all of our platforms and got full system readings using each of our systems. Idle conditions were established after waiting for 5 minutes after the system booted into Windows 7. Load conditions were established running Cinebench 11.5’s multi-threaded CPU test. We also enabled all of the power saving modes in the BIOS for each board, allowing us to get a best case scenario.
Our initial hypothesis was that the Micro ATX MSI would have the advantage simply because, in general, Micro ATX boards use less power than their ATX counterparts. After our tests, we can see that our hypothesis was mostly correct as the MSI gave us the lowest idle consumption of 52 Watts. It was only second to the ASUS in the fully loaded scenario. What was very surprising was just how far out the GIGABYTE results proved to be. It’s a total power hog and I suspect that the board’s overpowered USB ports could be the culprit.
Overall, the numbers are fairly impressive given all the features that are included with each motherboard. You get it all including the latest SATA 3.0, USB 3.0 and a quad core CPU to boot. Combined with decent graphics for productivity, you have an all day use system that won’t put the hurt on your electrical bill. If you need a green board, definitely go for the MSI 890GXM-G65, however, what was most impressive was the consumption of the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB 3 which only gives up 4 watts at idle, but uses 2 fewer watts at load. It’s also the most feature rich board of the bunch.
Is AMD’s 890GX Platform The Most Versatile Yet?
There are a few factors that make this AMD’s most versatile platform yet. First off, this platform and the boards that have represented it in this article have really shown versatility in their implementation of the 890GX. From the uber feature set of the ASUS to the minimal nature of the MSI, the solutions definitely showed versatility and variety. Secondly, each board provides a cornucopia of connectivity options. With the exception of the MSI, each board provides Firewire, USB 3.0/2.0, SATA 3.0/2.0, and HDMI/DVI/VGA. It also allows for dual monitor support right out of the box and a cheap upgrade to Hybrid CrossFireX provides a vast improvement in 3D performance without breaking the bank.
Although the availability of both ATX and micro ATX form factors is nice, the best part about 890GX is the fact that it supports AM2+ and AM3 CPUs from dual core to quad core (and soon hexa core). Add in the ability to run two high-end GPUs in CrossFireX and versatility is 890GX’s middle name.
Is AMD’s 890GX Platform The Best Bang For The Buck Yet?
With full support for all AM3 and AM2+ CPUs, the options allow you to upgrade from an existing AM2+ or AM3 platform and get into all the latest technology for as little as $129.99 US based on the MSI 890GXM-G65. If you want as many features as possible, then the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 is definitely a great deal at $149.99 US. But if you want an all around great board that gives you great features, durability and a slight edge in performance out of the box, the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H is really hard to beat at $139.99 US.
Prices for AMD Quad Core CPUs start at $100 for an Athlon II X4 620 to $199 for the top end Phenom II X4 965. It would be very easy to build a decent quad core system with 4GBs of DDR3 RAM for under $500US.
Final Thoughts on the MSI 890GXM-G65
The MSI board definitely has its pros and cons. On one hand the board offers up everything that makes an 890GX an 890GX. However, the board definitely isn’t the most well built tool in the shed. This is more than made up for in the performance department. It’s stable, well featured, and definitely a great value for a budget build. This board most certainly gets my nod for a Value Added Award in this round up at $129.99 US.
Final Thoughts on the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H
The GIGABYTE was definitely my overall favourite. Even though performance advantages were minimal, the board is extremely well built and you can really feel it when you pick it up. Although it lacks the vast feature set of the ASUS, the minimalist nature of the board isn’t a bad thing for long term durability. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t squeeze performance out of this board as the BIOS is very well featured for the seasoned overclocker. Currently, it does lack the core unlocking capability of the MSI and ASUS, though we hear it’s on the way in an update. It may have sucked up the most power, but it also won’t leave my USB peripherals starved for juice thanks to the extra USB power.
Final Thoughts on the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
The ASUS is definitely the king of features in this trio of boards. It has so many features that one simply gets completely overwhelmed. If you want to tweak and adjust things at will, this is definitely the board for you. The board also features a number of features that make it easy to setup and upgrade and at $149 US, you really get a great value if you’re looking for the most features possible on your 890GX board. It’s definitely the most innovative of the bunch when it comes to implementing an 890GX solution.
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AMD 890GX – Photo Gallery
