march 11 2010

anandtech reviewed the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3

This mainboard was compared to the MSI H55M-ED55 and the ASUS P7H57D-V EVO using several processors.

Conclusion: ASUS gives you value for money with automated overclocking, fan control, core unlocking and a very good BIOS layout. The AMD HD 4290 IGP was not as strong in the in the Cadalyst benchmark, Intel’s processor crunching advantage and bus I/O performance even makes the i3 540 faster. The random SATA3 resume behavior with the PSU is a bit of a problem, after 'getting out of' a sleep mode, you might have to reboot.

Overclocking: Using a Phenom II X2 555 the reviewers were able to unlock the 4 cores and they ended up with a stable 301 BCLK going somewhat over the 4GHz barrier with 8GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3 memory CAS 6-7-6-20 1T running @1604MHz. Base clock overclocking using TurboV resulted in a 270MHz BCLK. the water cooling used was a Corsair H50.

Benchmarks: DPC Audio Latency, DC CPU Power Consumption, Dawn of War II, Winrar, AutoCAD 2010 x64—Cadalyst 2008, Far Cry 2, Sorenson Squeeze 6, Bibble 5.0

march 10 2010

guru3d reviewed the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO USB3

There is a video that will guide you through the BIOS, SSD performance and the new SATA3 6G controller are also tested.

Conclusion: The M4A89GTD PRO USB3 has an extensive and tweakable BIOS, core unlocking is possible and there is an overclock switch. A perfect platform for Phenom II and upcoming 6-core Thuban CPUs. SATA 6G/s will give SSDs the necessary bandwidth and with RAID it will be as fast as can be. Power consumption idle 77 watts full load 153 watts.

Overclocking: A Phenom II 965 was running stable @ 4 GHz with the vCore voltage set to 1.55v and a multiplier of 20. the air-cooler used was an OCZ Vendetta 2.

Benchmarks: SiSoft Sandra, Everest, 3D Mark 2006, 3DMark Vantage, Handbrake, Crysis WarHEAD, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, Resident Evil 5, Far Cry 2.

march 8 2010

neoseeker reviewed the ECS A785GM-AD3

This mobo was compared to the Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P, ASUS M4A785TD-EVO and the ECS A785GM-M.

Conclusion: This mainboard does not support processors with a TDP of more than 95W and has no onboard HDMI output, on the other hand it has power, reset and CMOS clear buttons. The A785GM-M would be a much better choice because it has a lot more features, supports CPUs up to 140W and sells for the same price.

Overclocking: Aphenom II X2 555 was OCed@ 4080MHz, 214X19 dan the vCore was set to 1.525v. To keep the mosfest cool a Tornado 92mm fan was used.

Benchmarks: SiSoft Sandra Professional, WinRAR, PCMark Vantage, Handbrake, POV-Ray, Cinebench, Call of Juarez, World in Conflict, Lost Planet, Far Cry 2, Bioshock, Crysis Warhead, Left 4 Dead, Power Consumption: ldle 100 watts -- Full load 363 watts.

march 5 2010

overclockersclub reviewed the ECS A890GXM-A

The ECS A890GXM-A was compared to the ECS A785GM-AD3, ECS A785GM-M, Sapphire PA-AM3RS785G, Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P and GA-MA785GMT-UD2H. USB3 and SATA3 devices were not tested. There are also no test results from the new Radeon 4290 IGP.

Conclusion: The new implementation of the 890GX/SB850 was very good, with the USB3 and SATA3 working perfectly, this mobo is also ready for the future as far as the new Phenom II X6 six core processors are concerned. Other things that need to be mentioned are 5u Gold contacts, the Qooltech III cooler to cool the chipset and the 'new' DisplayPort connector. When it came to overclocking, the A890GXM-A crashed.

Overclocking: overclockersclub tried to overclock this mobo using two different BIOS versions and both had an instant system crash after raising the multiplier. This is the second board fromECS that refused to overclock an AMD Phenom II X4 955, while it overclocked on many other boards successfully. The 890GX chipset shows up as 785GX/SB750 in CPU-Z.

Benchmarks: Apophysis, WinRAR, Office 2007, POV Ray 3.7, PcMark Vantage, Sandra 2009 Professional, ScienceMark, CineBench 10, HD Tune, Far Cry 2, Crysis Warhead, Call of Duty: World at War, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, 3DMark06 Professional, 3DMark Vantage Professional.

march 3 2010

techreport reviewed the Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

This is actually an AMD 890GX integrated graphics chipset test where the GA-890GPA-UD3H was compared to the Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3. A Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 was also added in the test results to see where the Intel platform stands.

Conclusion: The the UD3H has a comparatively high power consumption, USB 3.0 performance was flaky at best and CPU utilization was a lot higher than the Asus M4A89GTD.

Overclocking: Techreport did some Base Clock overclocking with an Athlon II X4 635, they reached 280MHz which theoretically could OC the X4 625 to 4GHz.

Benchmarks: CPU-Z 1.41, The Panorama Factory 5.3, Stream 5.8, TrueCrypt 6.3, x264 HD benchmark, 7-Zip, Cinebench 11, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, DiRT 2, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead, HD Tach 3, Intel IOMeter, RightMark Audio Analyzer 6, CyberLink PowerDVD 9.

march 1 2010

legitreviews reviewed the ASUS P7H57D-V EVO

This mainboard was compared to the Intel DH55TC.

Conclusion: The wasP7H57D-V EVO extremely stable during extreme overclocking and has about the same results as the P55 based ASUS P7P55D Premium. legitreviews thinks the price is to high compared to MSI H57M-ED65 and the Gigabyte GA-H57-USB3. The power consumption was 58 watts idle and 111 watts full load.

Overclocking: A core i5 661 was OCed @4454.9MHz the vXcore was set to 1.3v and the BCLK 171.3MHz. A Cooler Master V10 air cooler was used during testing.

Benchmarks: iTunes9, Video Encoding x264, Colin McRea Dirt 2, Stalker Call of Pripyat, Cinebench, Sisoft Sandra, 3D Mark Vantage, PC Mark Vantage.

february 26 2010

legitreviews reviewed the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7

This motherboard was compared to the EVGA X58 SLI Classified. There are also a lot of screenshots of the EasyTune 6 software.

Conclusion: Extreme is a good description of what this board has to offer. The performance was about the same as the competition. The board is a bit on the expensive side but it does come packed with features and is a superb overclocker.

Overclocking: A core i7 920 was OCed @4275MHz vCore @ 1.34v.The CPU-Cooler was a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus and 3x2GB Corsair Dominator GT DDR3-2000 C7 memory. legitreviews also has a special page for Liquid Nitrogen LN2 Overclocking.

Benchmarks: Sandra 2010, WinRAR, Cinebench R10 x64, SuperPi v1.5, 3Dmark Vantage, Heaven DX10 1280x 0xAA.

february 24 2010

extremeoverclocking.com reviewed the ASRock X58 SuperComputer

This mainboard was compared to the EVGA E758.

Conclusion: A great board for overclocking and gaming with Quad-SLI or CrossFireX . The Performance was almost the same as the EVGA X58. With the Xeon and Tesla support and 24GB of ECC memory you could have a supercomputer at a budget price. The CPU socket location could lead to issues with the heatsink.

Overclocking: A Core i7 920 C0 was overclocked @4.0GHz on air running stable with reasonable temperatures and voltages. CPU Cooler: Thermaltake V1AX Heatsink. DDR3 Memory: OCZ Platinum 1600 7-7-7-24.

Benchmarks: Everest Ultimate Edition 5.30, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2, Terran Conflict Demo, DPC Latency Checker.