Top of the 890FX Food Chain?
Some years back MSI decided to really attack the enthusiast motherboard market, and they seem to have succeeded in garnering quite a bit of attention for themselves. Before then, MSI had a reputation for cutting corners where they could, and producing a board which may not be up to snuff as compared to their primary competitor, Asus. Of course, before the Phenom launch there really wasn’t much excitement on the AMD side, so it was interesting to see MSI produce a really good AMD 790FX board at launch, the MSI K9A2 Platinum.
The unique aspects of that board revolved around the ability to actually do quad CrossFire X with dual slot cooler cards plus the “Circu-pipe” cooling solution. It had many of the same features of other competing 790FX boards, but again for those looking to use up to 4 ATI/
AMD video cards there was no other choice but MSI. The board did fairly well in benchmarks and overclocking, but it was not the top end product of that generation. It did not feature more than a standard 4+1 power phase array, or the DrMOS power circuitry. The next generation 790FX-GD70 seemingly was the groundbreaking part for MSI on the high end for AMD parts. This was a board much more in line with what MSI and enthusiasts wanted. It did feature the DrMOS based power phases, had a layout that fixed most of the issues with the K9A2, and added other features like power/reset/overclock buttons and “Active Phase Switching” to conserve power when not at full speed. It seemingly had everything an enthusiast needed, and was a huge step forward for MSI garnering the respect they hungered for. Now that the latest generation of AMD chipsets are out, MSI has once again gone back to the drawing board to produce what they think is the best 890FX board out there. The AMD 890FX and SB850 The 890FX chipset is a combination of the 890FX northbridge and the SB850 southbridge. The 890FX is functionally almost identical to the older 790FX, but it adds virtualization hardware to the mix for I/O transactions (IOMMU). It is a 65 nm part produced by TSMC, and features a total of 42 PCI-E 2.0 lanes. These can be divided into 2 x 16 lanes, 1 x 16 and 2 x 8, or 4 x 8 lanes. The other 6 lanes are then used for connections to the southbridge and other onboard components, such as the PCI-E based Gig-E controllers, USB 3.0 chips, and other SATA controller chips.
 Everything is packed in quite nicely, but other boards have more interesting extras.
The 890FX is very power efficient, and when combined with a SB850 it consumes around 17 to 19 watts in total for the motherboard. It is not a particularly hot motherboard chipset, but some cooling is obviously needed when looking at the very small die involved.
The SB850 is a huge step forward for AMD as compared to the very mediocre SB600, and the slightly improved SB750/SB710. This is the first SATA 6G native chipset part on the market, and it appears as though AMD has done a lot under the hood when it comes to its storage controller. For years AMD has been plagued by low performance in heavy I/O transactions on the hard drive. Integrated controllers from Intel and NVIDIA have consistently outperformed the AMD units, and this was a major issue for users who required (or at least wanted) high performance storage solutions. This issue is further exaggerated by the latest generation of solid state drives, which push these controllers to their limits.
890FX Changes and the MSI Version
The new SB850 SATA 6G controller now appears to be at or near the same level as the industry leading Intel controllers. Not only does it match those units, but again it is the only native chipset solution with SATA 6G. On Intel based boards, SATA 6G is provided by the Marvell controller and its performance is certainly nothing to crow about. It has a lot more overhead than the AMD part, and it simply cannot keep up with the I/O requests when that aspect is pushed. I am currently trying to get our storage editor, Allyn Malventano, an AMD setup with the SB850 controller to give it the full review it deserves from a storage standpoint. Hopefully we can get that to him soon so he can see exactly how effective this new southbridge is for AMD.
 Production boards will not come with bubble wrap, but instead that strange, pink, spongy thingy. AMD is also pushing motherboard manufacturers to include USB 3.0 support in every new AMD motherboard they produce. For the most part these companies have complied, and it is only at the most price conscious points do we see AMD motherboards based on the 800 series without USB 3.0 support. While AMD has not thrown any huge whiz-bang features with the 890FX as compared to the previous 700 series parts, the IOMMU and SATA 6G additions are very welcome. The MSI 890FXA-G70 MSI looks to have built upon the 790FX-GD70, and improved it to a healthy degree. Overall the board does look very similar to the older unit, but it has some significant differences. It shares the same 4+1 phase DrMOS power supply to the CPU. While other manufacturers are using 8+2 arrays for the CPU, MSI is taking a slightly different direction. In some cases, more phases are not necessarily better. DrMOS is essentially a solution that integrates the driver IC, top-mosfet, and bottom-mosfet into a single chip. This somewhat simplifies PCB routing, but more importantly it does increase power efficiency due to its design, and can allow for higher switching frequencies than discrete components. The only major change here is the use of long life Hi-C caps (flat) instead of the older solid/polymer caps (barrel). The rest of the board features solid caps vs. the older electrolyte based, but the CPU power circuitry gets the slightly more robust and efficient Hi-C variants. Plus, it does cut down on some of the clutter around the CPU socket. This setup is rated for 140 watt TDP CPUs.
 The package does look a little more impressive when spread out.
MSI markets this under their “Military Class” concept, which uses higher standard chokes and caps throughout the board. In the case of this design, Military Class requires a certain lifetime on the part running at a higher than normal temperature. So the use of solid and Hi-C caps throughout the design should enable the motherboard to survive even in high temp conditions that would eventually blow up an older electrolytic capacitor in short order. Solid ferrite chokes are used, and as compared to older, exposed ring chokes, these do not buzz and have a larger overall surface area so it stays cooler under use.
The next change is that of removing one of the older PCI slots and replacing it with a PCI-E slot which can accommodate up to 4x PCI-E lanes. This slot should not be used for CrossFire though. The board still features the 4 x PCI-E 16 length slots which will support up to 4 x 8X PCI-E 2.0 lanes in total.
The use of the SB850 southbridge of course gives the added feature of SATA 6G support for the board. It also features the NEC USB 3.0 chip, a JMicron 2 x SATA 2 and 1 x IDE chip, a VIA 1394a chip, dual Realtek PCI-E based Gig-E controllers, and the Realtek ALC 889 high definition audio codec. The e-SATA port on the back is powered by the JMicron controller.
More MSI 890FXA-G70
The design is fairly roomy, and the auto-sensing slots will configure themselves as needed when multiple graphics cards are inserted. The black, blue, and titanium colors are not garish, but they do highlight the physical appearance of the board nicely. The PCB itself is a 6 layer unit, but it does not feature the 2 oz. of copper that Asus and Gigabyte utilize on their top end boards. There is a lot of debate about how effective using 2 oz. of copper in the PCB rather than 1 oz. In this case, I do not think that it makes any significant difference other than slightly higher electrical resistance in the 1 oz boards. If a single component on the board was sucking 200 watts of power, then it probably would make a difference. But since the CPU is supplied by quite a few phases, and graphics cards utilize connections directly to the power supply, it is not a make or break deal in this particular case.
 We are nearing the end of the PCI bus. Hard to believe it has been around since 1993. The board still supports one of them. Directly to the right is the LED diagnostic display that is used to troubleshoot failed bootups, and while running displays the CPU temperature. The heatpipe setup seems to work very well for this board. The southbridge has a small cooler on it, and a heatpipe travels from that, to the northbridge, and then to the DrMOS chips. There is a large cooler over the northbridge and DrMOS chips. With around 19 watts TDP (at maximum) the chipsets themselves do not produce large amounts of heat. With the greater efficiency of the DrMOS units, they also do not create an excessive amount of heat. Cooling for this board is more than adequate, and the design allows the use of larger cards and heatsinks than perhaps some of the competition. MSI is also including a new feature which allows
internet access without actually booting up into an OS. Winki is MSI’s version of a quick launch skinny client which allows internet access, browsing, Skype, Open Office, instant messaging, photo view, and System Rescue support in case the main OS is hosed. Like most other recent boards, this one can flash the BIOS from a USB stick. Also, if the BIOS flash is bad, the board can be recovered from USB as well. This is a positive thing as anyone who has messed up a board while flashing can attest. Inside the BIOS, MSI also allows the unlocking of disabled CPU cores. In older SB750 and SB710 chips, AMD integrated ACC functionality which would allow unlocking of cores. With the SB850, this feature was removed. MSI has been able to create a workaround without any external chips attached to the board to allow unlocking of the latest CPUs from AMD.
 The six SATA 6G ports support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. The blue port is off the JMicron SATA 2 controller. This may be the last generation of boards seen with the old IDE port as well.
The BIOS is set up like most other MSI boards. It has all of the basic functionality to enable and disable components. Under the “Cell Menu” is where all of the overclocking features are located. It contains all of the timings, voltages, multipliers, and other random settings needed to successfully overclock the CPU, memory, and northbridge. MSI allows the unlocking of CPUs that have disabled cores in this area. It also has the OC Genie functionality which will automatically overclock the board for the user and test itself so that it reaches a stable operation.
Instead of buttons on the board as MSI has been wont to do in the past, they placed touch sensitive pads on the motherboard. When I first received the board, I thought I had a pre-production part that was not complete, and they had left off the necessary buttons. Then I actually took the time to read the manual. Shocking, I know. A light touch on these pads will activate them. As long as a user does not have sausages for fingers, then they will rarely touch two at once. The four functions are power, reset, green power, and OC Dial enable. Green power will underclock the board and components when necessary and will allow idle power consumption to be lower than at stock. The OC Dial allows the overclocking of the HTT bus in realtime by turning the OC knob.
The board has essentially everything a user could possibly need, with the exception of pre-installed CPUs, memory, and video cards.
Board Impressions and Test Setup
The build of the board looks to be very good. Solder points are clean, components are firmly attached, and I could not see any real issues in terms of component placement. One interesting choice is where MSI puts the northbridge on the board. Note that it is not located in the middle of the board like many other products, but is more to the side and right in line with the PWM circuitry for the CPU. This does clear up some more space around the CPU and allows the placement of seven slots on the board.
 Note the flat Hi-C caps between the chokes and the CPU socket. DrMOS seems to work pretty well, and certainly takes up a lot less board space than traditional 4+1 and 8+2 PWM setups. Like essentially all AMD boards, it is not entirely generous about space around the CPU socket. AMD has official specifications about minimum spacing placement around the CPU, and all motherboard manufacturers stick with this. I honestly have not had a board through my hands that has more clearance than what we see here. The back panel connections are in their standard places, though the inclusion of both an optical and coax digital output seems a bit redundant. There is a clear CMOS button also installed into the back, which can be easily pushed if not careful when plugging in digital audio cables, PS-2 cables, etc. The only major thing not present is the Firewire port on the back. These are only available as headers on the motherboard. The SATA 6G ports are all rotated 90 degrees, so they will not interfere with long cards being placed in CrossFire X. The only SATA port that is traditionally mounted is the single unit from the JMicron controller. The power connections are placed where most people like them, or at least tolerate them. There is still a single IDE port for people holding onto old drives. There is no floppy drive connection, so installing RAID drives on older operating systems can be problematic. The bundle with this board is fairly mundane. It features SATA cables, an IDE cable, USB 2.0 cable/header, a pair of 4 pin to SATA power connections, the front panel wiring blocks for easy installation, and a CrossFire bridge. A fairly comprehensive manual is included, as well as the driver disk with the Winki installation. There are also manuals on the HD backup program, the Control Center program (which is a pretty comprehensive overclocking utility), and a quick setup guide/poster for new builders.
 The back panel is pretty standard, and not terribly exciting. Of note is the clear CMOS button by the PS-2 ports, the dual Gig-E ports, and the blue USB 3.0 ports. MSI essentially gives the user/builder what they need to get up and running in terms of components included with the motherboard. The box is not very flashy, but this is not particularly an issue for most users. Certainly it could make a difference in a retail store where eyes could be drawn to flashier boxes from the competition, but shopping for a motherboard on the basis of a box design is problematic in the first place for a user. Test Setup I ran this board for several weeks under varying conditions (heat, cold, small children throwing objects at it…) and the board did not show a single sign of instability. The BIOS was updated to the latest version on the MSI website (as of Sept. 1, 2010). The flash procedure was very simple with a USB
memory stick with the correct BIOS file on it. It took under 3 minutes to flash the bios and reboot the machine. A fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit was applied to the board, and all updates loaded. I compared this board to a previous AM3 motherboard that I tested, the MSI 890GXM-G65. This is a micro-ATX motherboard based on the latest AMD 890GX chipset, with the SB850 southbridge. With the retreat of NVIDIA from the AMD chipset market, it is awfully hard to find comparable products to test against. The last NVIDIA nForce 980A motherboard tested was the MSI version, and its overall performance was measurably lower than what we found on the AMD side. USB 3.0 testing was done with a Sharkoon USB 3.0 SATA dock with the WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6G hard drive installed. AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Processor 2 x 2 GB OCZ Platinum DDR-3 1600 running @ 1333 with 7.7.7.20 timings 2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6G attached to the AMD SATA 6G controller, non-RAID AMD HD 5870 Reference Video Card Corsair TX750W Power Supply Silverstone Raven 002 ATX Case Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Catalyst 10.5 Drivers AMD AHCI drivers
Results- SiSoft 2010 and HD Tach Hard Drive
SiSoft Sandra
I did a few CPU tests to ensure that the boards are running the CPU at near the same clockspeeds. If there is any significant difference in memory performance, then it could also show up in these results.
In terms of CPU
performance, the slightly older 890GX board comes out behind. This is not a huge difference, but it could be a small issue due to the BIOS being used. In terms of memory performance the 890GX comes out slightly on top, though the same memory timings were used. This is something that is important, but is not exactly a make or break situation. Current AMD processors, even the latest 6 core products, do not seem too concerned with memory performance as long as it is over 12 GB/sec. Increasing the CPU’s integrated memory controller speed and going to DDR-3 1600 memory does show a performance gain, but with the IMC at stock clocks there is little actual difference between DDR-3 1333 and DDR-3 1600 memory speeds.
The HD controller results are essentially identical, with the 890GX coming just slightly ahead on a few tests. In these particular tests, the latest AMD southbridge is performing right where it is expected. SSD drives likely will further enhance the performance, but none were available to me for testing at this time. HD Tach Hard Drive The WD Caviar Black drive is a native SATA 6G unit. A second drive was attached to the AMD controller, so this and the previous test did not occur on the boot/OS drive.
In this test the 890FX comes up and beats the other board in burst and minimum transfer rates, but otherwise the results are very similar.
Results- HD Tach USB 2.0 and HD Tach USB 3.0
HD Tach USB 2.0
The same Sharkoon USB 3.0 with the WD Caviar Black 1TB drive is used on both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. This should give a good idea of the advances in the new USB specification, as well as any improvements in AMD’s native USB 2.0 controller.
HD Tach USB 3.0 I then swapped the drive unit to the USB 3.0 connection and redid the HD Tach tests to see where we stand.
I am not sure if it is a physical difference, a BIOS difference, or a chip revision difference, but the same NEC chip used on each board has wildly different results. The 890GX in this case runs significantly slower in USB 3.0 performance. Interestingly enough, the USB 2.0 implementation on the 890FX board is again slightly faster than that on the 890GX. GA_googleFillSlot("ROS_300x250");
Results- 3D Mark Vantage and Cinebench 11.5
3D Mark Vantage
We take a quick look at this benchmark to make sure that the data is getting to the graphics subsystem as it should. Considering how much better PCI-E is as compared to AGP, AGP 2.0, and AGP 3.0 in terms of consistent performance and compatibility, this is tested more to make sure that everything works rather than proclaim a performance king.
The 890GX solution again squeaks out a win, but it is far from a landslide (or even that appreciable). Both boards are working as they should. Cinebench 11.5 Though
memory bandwidth does have an effect on this particular benchmark, the overall stream performance differences between the two boards were minimal. This should give us a good idea if memory performance between the two boards is in fact evenly matched.
Results are well within spitting distance.
Overclocking the MSI 890FXA-G70
There are several different ways to overclock this board. The traditional BIOS, the OC Button and dial, the OC Genie setting in the BIOS, and by using AMD OverDrive or MSI Control Center. All of them work, but some are more effective than others.
 One can see the initial confusion of thinking that MSI did not actually install the buttons on this motherboard. "RTFM!" shouted the MSI PR rep, over his lousy cellphone connection. And I did. And it was good. Going in and individually setting the BIOS to the desired settings is the most effective. This allows users to control the different memory, CPU, and HTT multipliers as well as voltages to all major components. Using this method I was able to achieve an easy 4 GHz overclock on the X6 1090T processor. I was able to tweak it up to 4.1 GHz, but that was getting into an area where I was concerned about voltage on the processor. I was also able to overclock the HTT bus to an impressive 318 MHz in a separate test. I could again have gone higher with more voltage, but it was stable over 3 days at that speed and stock voltages. The OC Button and dial are of limited use, because it only increases the HTT speed. This does serve a purpose in overclocking though. Once a stable overclock is found, the user can boot into Windows (or other OS of choice) and fine tune the CPU speed and HTT speed very easily with the dial. It is just a simple way to increase the speeds without going into an overclocking program. Control Center and AMD OD are very similar in that they can overclock the board in a Windows operating environment. Most of the settings are available to these programs, and a successful overclock in the same range as I described above can be achieved. Voltages can be problematic at times with these software solutions, as they do not always have the ability to change voltages while the board is running. Only using the BIOS and
rebooting are able to adjust some of these settings.
 Unlike other competitor's boards, there are not a lot of filtering capacitors around the sound chip. This may or may not affect audio quality, but if quality is truly what a user is looking for, then going to a standalone sound card is best. Note as well the VIA firewire chip, and the dual ethernet chips. The final way is the OC Genie overclocking setting in the BIOS. All the user does is go into the BIOS and the Cell Menu, enable OC Genie, and reboot the system. The system then automatically overclocks itself, makes sure it is stable, then boots up. At this point, the user will want to go into the BIOS and then disable OC Genie. Unless of course the user wants the system to re-overclock itself the next time it boots. Once OC Genie is disabled, all of the settings it used to achieve the overclock are left in place. OC Genie overclocked the HTT to 230 MHz, the CPU to 3.68 GHz, the northbridge/memory controller to 2.3 GHz, and raised the CPU voltage to 1.336v and the northbridge to 1.1v. Considering that my CPU sample was able to go to 3.8 GHz on stock voltage, this is not the world’s most impressive overclock. But it was very easy to do, and the results were stable in my testing. For novices to overclocking, this is a good way to get their feet wet.
Wrapping up the MSI 890FXA-G70
There are, without a doubt, flashier motherboards out there that will tempt users. More LED’s, unique cooling solutions, exotic colors, etc. But when it comes down to usable features, stability, overclocking, and the ability to run 4x CrossFire, then the MSI 890FXA-G70 is really the only solution out there. As of this writing, Asus is introducing a new Crosshair IV with Lucid Hydra which can support up to four cards, but the price of that board will be significantly higher than what we are seeing today (and is as of yet unreleased).
The retail price of the 890FXA is officially $199. This is $30 less than a standard Asus Crosshair IV’s MSRP. It is not uncommon to see the 890FXA for $20 below MSRP online. Today I was browsing Newegg, and after the special and MIR it was $159. The pricing on this does fluctuate quite a bit, but it can generally be had for well under $199.
 Here is the MSI 890FXA-G70 compared to the Asus Crosshair IV (which will be reviewed at a later date). The only issue I had with this board is that there seemed to be a strange short in the audio out. It would, now and then, report that I had unplugged an audio device and plugged a new one in. This was easily fixed in software, as I disabled the automatic audio jack sensing. The audio worked perfectly fine, but it was annoying at first. This is most likely a one off issue, as I have not seen it widely reported when reading about this board. Overclocking was a surprise for me. I did not expect to be able to take the board to 318 MHz HTT. This is pretty hefty for me, as I am far from being a talented overclocker. If I can do it, then pretty much anyone can. I only had a few hiccups at the usual spots between 245 MHz and 256 MHz, as well as 285 MHz to around 296 MHz. These are somewhat “dead” zones where the board will not want to boot up. Anywhere outside of these ranges, the board had no problem with. The build is good, and the chip
selection and features MSI implemented on the board are all above average. SATA 6G and USB 3.0 are the main selling points, but decent audio, Firewire, and a separate e-SATA controller are all positives. I found no layout issues worth mentioning. MSI designed a very good board, and the price is one of the best in the class. While the MSRP is higher than some of the competition, it is still well below the top products from Asus (and is comparable to in performance and features). Green Power was not something I delved into extensively, but it does help to shave around 10 watts at the wall off of an idling system. If a user leaves their computer on for extensive periods of time, this is probably a good idea to enable. It may save a few dollars a year, but it certainly will not cut your power bill in half. It should run cooler as well, but the differences between Green Power and standard idle will be minimal in terms of thermal production. Overall it is an excellent board at a very competitive price. MSI did a very nice job on this one, and I am seriously considering using this particular board as the basis for upgrading my primary machine (it is running one of the first 790FX AM2+ motherboards with the not-so-impressive SB600 southbridge). So with that particular recommendation, it is a no brainer that it receives the Gold Award from PCPer.com.
Key tags : 890FXA-G70, Crosshair IV, Lucid Hydra, SATA 6G, USB 3.0, NEC USB 3.0, JMicron, VIA 1394a, Realtek PCI-, CrossFire, 4 x PCI-E 16, SLI, e-SATA port, |
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