990FX Motherboard Roundup with Thuban and Bulldozer – A Second Wind for ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Biostar
by Ian Cutress on April 5, 2012 11:00 AM ESTMSI 990FXA-GD80 In The Box
For a 990FX board, MSI has put thought and effort into what we get in the box here. For $195, it is good to see this much in the box! As the USB 3.0 port is at a right angle, the USB 3.0 bracket supplied has the option of going to the back of the case or in the front by removing the bracket. In terms of what we get:
IO Shield
Driver CD
User Guides
Three flexible SLI connectors
Six SATA cables (locking, right angled)
Two Molex to SATA power cables
USB 3.0 bracket
Image courtesy of Newegg
Board Features
| MSI 990FXA-GD80 | |
| Price | Link to Newegg |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | AM3+ |
| CPU Support | AMD FX/Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron |
| Chipset | AMD 990FX |
| Base Clock Frequency | 200.02 MHz |
| Core Voltage | Auto, Range Dependant on CPU |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 4x to 32.5x |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 1.199 V to 2.460 V |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1T or 2T |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel Support for DDR3, 800-2133 MHz, |
| Expansion Slots |
3 x PCIe Gen2 x16 (x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8) 2 x PCIe Gen2 x4 2 x PCIe Gen2 x1 1 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 6 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 |
| Onboard |
6 x SATA 6 Gbps (SB950) 5 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x S/PDIF Output Header 2 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x USB 3.0 Headers 1 x IEEE1394 Header 1 x Serial Port Header 1 x Clear CMOS Header Power/Reset Buttons 1 x OC Genie Button 1 x TPM Module Header |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek 8111E |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC892 |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header 4 x SYS Fan Headers |
| IO Panel |
2 x Keyboard/Mouse PS2 Port 1 x Optical SPDIF Output 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Output 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 2 x USB 3.0 4 x USB 2.0 2 x eSATA / USB 2.0 Combo Ports 1 x Clear CMOS Button Audio Outputs |
| BIOS Version | B80 |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
Amazingly the MSI board is the only one which hits the 200 MHz base frequency spot on. The other boards hover at 200.7 MHz (or 201.3 MHz) due to the way the frequency is determined. As a result, you would expect the performance to be a little worse on the MSI, unfortunately. For features, there is not anything out of the ordinary here compared to the other 990FX products apart from the odd fan header arrangement. We also have another Realtek NIC/Audio combination, as well as a three year warranty.
Software
Rather than attempt an all-in-one solution for their software, MSI are using the ‘bombard’ approach, as the majority of their software features come under different installations and names. The major one is Control Center:
Control Center is the face of overclocking, voltages and the limited fan controls. With this software you can apply OC Genie, unlock cores in your processor, or turn the LEDs on the motherboard off if they bother you.
Another important element in the MSI arsenal is Live Update 5, a piece of software I rather like. Live Update 5 will analyze your system in terms of BIOS, drivers and utilities and double check with the MSI servers if you have the latest versions. If you do not, then the system will ask if you want to download the necessary files. While it sounds like a good system, there is one major drawback – it does not tell you how big the files are! It also likes to download whole packages, and waiting for a 130 MB audio driver update does not sound like fun. However, it is useful for BIOS updates.
Also available from MSI is Network Genie, an application designed to prioritize certain types of network traffic over others, and Teaming Genie, which combines network ports into single transmissions (however users will need to add network cards to use this functionality).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
57 Comments
View All Comments
phys1cs - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Spamming affiliate links, I see.R3MF - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
"The third generation FX processor, codename Steamroller, is still reported (not confirmed) to use AM3+, meaning that there are still quite a few years left in this platform when taking the AMD route."If this is true then i simply cannot believe that AMD will continue on socket AM3+ without a chipset that supports PCIe 3.0!
Where, when, and what will the 1090FX chipset arrive?
SilthDraeth - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
This seems to be an ok roundup of AMD boards.However, how do the latest Windows 7 tweaks increase the performance of the Bulldozer? Can we get a before and after benchmark based on Win 7 and or Win 8 (beta) optimizations?
I was hoping we would get that information. Also, how does it compare to similarly priced Intel offerings?
IanCutress - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Thank you for your comment. I didn't perform comparisons as Anand did a comprehensive look at the scheduling updates here:http://www.anandtech.com/show/5448/the-bulldozer-s...
(Also reviewing five boards and writing 20,000 words about them takes longer than you think!)
If there are any motherboards you would like to see in the future (or particular tests), drop me an email (ian AT anandtech.com) and I will have a look. Obviously I can't take care of every little niche test that everyone wants, otherwise we'd only get one board a month out for review, but I'll do what I can!
Ian
SilthDraeth - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Thank you for the link. That is what I wanted.StevoLincolnite - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I noticed your Thuban was hitting 60'C+So I was just wondering if you took the Thubans thermal bug into account on those readings? On my old 1090T and 1045T I had to have a 13'c offset to get a correct thermal reading.
sumitlian - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
Temperature related problem have long been rectified in C3 stepping of Denab CPUs and in Thuban as well. There is no fault in temperature sensor anymore in our CPUs.Only C2 rev. or earlier rev. AMD CPUs suffered from this issue.
Download and Read:
"Revision Guide for Family 10h CPU"
ExarKun333 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
More to life than gaming on your PC. If you read the article, you could see how terrible the non-gaming benchmarks are for 'only' a Intel 4 and 6-core vs the 8-core AMD. Fanboi much?blazeoptimus - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I bought an MSI 990FX-GD80 board a couple of months ago and was looking for a review like this one at the time. I would have loved the info you brought up here and I hope it will help others looking into the available 990FX boards.I went with the MSI board since it seemed to hit a sweet spot on features, price (newegg was offering $20 off which put it to $169) and performance. I also went with a Zosma processor since it seemed to hit the price elbow and had the most unlocking potential. I've been very happy with the experience thus far. I've been able to unlock the 2 additional processors and have pushed the clock to 3600mhz (stock is 3k). My next push will be to see if I can hit the aggressive clocks listed in this article.
Thanks again for the write up. I'm a long time reader and frequently use the information in these reviews to make hardware decisions.
Taft12 - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
Very comprehensive, thank you Ian!Of course now that you've exhausted so much energy on this review, the 1090FX chipset is right around the corner alongside the 2nd gen FX CPUs.
Such is life for a desktop hardware reviewer!