another let down from AMD

[EDIT] oops, this should really be in the Phenom review section.

It's really a shame that AMD is going to keep taking a beating (not that it isn't justified), but it's nothing new. I think maybe the difference was that even when Intel's performance sucked they still had no problem making money. AMD was the outperforming alternative that had the bonus of being a bit cheaper.

Now they're the alternative that has nothing to offer, and I think we're just all wondering how this is going to play out.

When they were developing the Phenom, were they not aiming for an on par or greater performance then the C2D? So what happened on a technical or development front? How could they let themselves hang out to dry in such a big way?

My lingering fondness for AMD and my desire to tinker with some K10 cores made me look, but hoooly crap, 270$??

I think AMD needs to realize that they didn't buy the most prestigious chipset maker around. Even Nvidia struggles to move mobos at those prices, and they're widely liked. Intel is getting up there, too, but they have the rep for top speed and stability to make it possible. AMD/ATI has neither. Must Make Cheaper.

Bring back the BH6 mentality! We don't need glowing slots and half hazard heatsinks glued on the back; just make it simple, tweakable, and fast and let us handle the rest! The over-integration must end!!

If Spider were a rock band, Phenom would undoubtedly be the front man, with the Radeon HD 3870 and 3850 filling in at lead and rhythm guitars. On drums, you'd find AMD's new 790FX chipset

Where's the Bassist?

And if anyone has seen some of the new Phenom benchmarks, it seems the first wave of chips gets beat handily by Intel Quad Core, and in some cases where Core count isn't a factor, even by the highest speed AM2 processors.

I don't know what to think. Promises of an unlocked Phenom, 790 chipset board with a decent southbridge, a dual GPU 3870 and DX10.1 support are tempting, but I was hoping to have some upgrade parts under the X-Mas tree this year, which means maybe I should keep my Nvidia 590 board and throw a couple of 8800GTs on it... Not even sure if the Phenom is worth it. I might opt for the 500+ black edition.

And then there is always the siren song of Intel.... I have resisted for a long time so far....

For me to even mention an Intel CPU is a dire situation indeed, btw. I've built dozens of computers over the past 15 years, and only one of them was Intel... I'm not a fanboy per say, but I've always liked that AMD was out there and thought their price/performance was good

Could any of the lackluster performance be involved with the Bios of Motherboard? I looked on their site and there is no F2K as seen in the TR Testmethod. Was it not updated when computer was installed? Sorry to question TR, but i cant find that bios anywhere on the Gigabyte USA website.

Post # 29 touches on it, but i havent seen a real response about the F2K.

thanks in advance!

FWIW, MSI's K9A2 Platinum has a MUCH better layout

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.aspx?Image=13-130-136-03.jp...c13-130-136-04.jpg%2c13-130-136-05.jpg%2c13-130-...[.com]

Nice little write-up Gee-off. Even if you are a muscle-bound tech geek from Canadia-land. Do I have enough hyphens so far? I think so.

Anyway, onto serious business. What BIOS did you use for the GB board? I have been testing this number, and I have had some different experiences than what you have written about here. I am using the F2H BIOS, which is apparently their most recent that is publicly available.

I was able to clock my sample to 325 MHz, giving it a nice 1300 MHz HTT. I tried setting the HT multiplier to 5 at that speed, but no go. Still, 1300 is pretty impressive (since I was using a X2 5000+ Black Edition).

I was able to install Vista with AHCI, but initially I was having problems doing so. It seems that the issue I was running into was the PATA to SATA adapter on the optical drive. If that was installed and I had it plugged into the SB600 southie, then the Vista install would have major problems and I was unable to complete it. Once I took off that adapter, or used a native SATA optical drive, I was able to get AHCI to work (I think... but then again I'm just a slightly overweight tech guy from Wyoming, so what do I know?).

I too was surprised by how much power the board pulled. With all the talk about how efficient the 790FX was, and how historically low the SB700 pulled power, I was expecting it to be a cool running board. Not so! That heatpipe system gets real toasty, and the Asus M2N32-SLI actually pulls about 10 watts lower than the 790FX at idle. Really strange turn of events here, I wonder if Gigabyte has done something naughty to their design?

MSI certainly appears to have the most polished offering to date, and their price is certainly a lot more enticing. I will be interested to see that one in action.

Overall I think it is good that AMD is injecting a bit of excitement into the motherboard industry, as it has been a LONG time since the last big AMD core logic update. I know the mobo guys are happy to get some fresh offerings out there in the AMD sector.

Edit: I will have to double check that AHCI is in fact running on my board. I agree with Damage though, having such issues with what is a very mature southbridge should not be ignored. The chipset guys at AMD need to put out separate drivers for their chipsets instead of just rolling them into the full Catalyst install.

Believe me when I say I've seen my fair share of AHCI issues with ATI boards.
The AHCI issue is a combination of a bug in Microsoft's AHCI driver and SB600 so its present in pretty much every single AMD board that there is out there.
In XP the ATI/AMD chipset driver fixes that. For Vista there is a hotfix that can be added to the installation but thats a painful process.
The argument I've heard many times for not fixing it is ofcourse that AHCI and NCQ have minimal to no benefits in terms of performance.

Realistically, wait till SB700 or Vista SP1 and cross your fingers...

Note to the reviewer: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931369
So the AHCI problem is related to Vista itself.

Thanks for the review Geoff. Good call mounting a Ninja to test clearances. The Gigabyte 690G mobo that I have has the exact same relative position of the RAM and CPU socket cause my Ninja touches the heatspreader on the first RAM stick too.

Without SB700 it is pretty uninspiring. Overclocking is disappointing. Power consumption is mystifying. Heck the need for all those heatpipes is mystifying. Perhaps the higher power consumption comes from needing all the accessory chips (firewire, network, SATA)? Those things have to consume some level of power. BIOS problems are troubling considering that this chips has been in the works for a while IIRC.

If I was building right now it'd be P35, no question, and the cheapest dual core Conroe.

Overdrive is nice but not nearly enough to forget all the areas that the platform fails to measure up.

Yeah and shame on Gigabyte for that layout. Sheesh.

Maybe i'm just blind, but i still haven't been able to find a guideline for the results that the RightMark Audio Analyzer gives. I even went to their webpage and read through the "manual", but there's no indication whether high or low numbers are better nor what real-world values they indicate.

Perhaps you could add the traditional "Higher is better" (or the converse) to that plot?

I was holding up my upgrade for almost a year waiting for AMD.
That's really sad. I was really looking forward to Phenom platfrom.

I guess tha best thing I can do to help AMD is to buy an Intel/Nvidia rig. They need a kick in the butt to wake up. Or is it too late already...

AMD doesn't seem to be catching a break these days - getting whooped in the ass on both sides - graphics by Nvidia and CPU/Mobos by Intel... Where is the silver lining?

yahhooo... amd still suck on the CPU front....

Phenom 9600 priced at $283... what a drag....

the Q6600 is cheaper and faster... and consumes less power.... beat that!

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=1

Utility is impressive

Thanks for the review. Nice to see a new AMD chipset, but it seems it was released a little to early. I think they need the SB700 and maybe a better built board. This board is a bit of a disapointment.

excellent review.
VERY surprising chipset power usage there.

where's the LEAD SINGER?!?!?!?
(Phenom)?

Can I get one for my Core2 please? :P

some real problems there... puts a big damper on the whole platform.

Geoff, you may have a broken benchmark/mislabelled graphic on your hands.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13628/10

SATA Average Write speed lists the average write speed on the NVIDIA platform as 89.4 MB/s, when the maximum internal speed of the drive is only 84MB/s

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/10152

If it is not a mislabelled graphic, or a transcription error, then I'd suspect some buffering is coming into play when it shouldn't. The 790FX figure is closer to what I'd suspect even for a Raptor for an "average write speed".

Oh, and Diss, it's xTr3/\/\3, not xTr3me :)

Woot! I kept refreshing and refreshing this page, anxiously awaiting.

Now I have an excuse not to study. Time to go read the review, which will be first class as always

Hooray for AMD!

The new 790FX chipset arrives in time for the Phenom and Radeon HD38xx release. It'd be nice if SB700 were here for the party, too.

When will we get 4-card CrossfireX benchmarks?