Test Setup

Processor AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (6C, 3.3 GHz)
AMD FX-8150 (8C, 3.6 GHz)
Motherboards ($230) ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX)
($185) ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
($180) Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
($195) MSI 990FXA-GD80
($130) Biostar TA990FXE
Cooling AMD All-In-One Liquid Cooler, made by Asetek
Power Supply Silverstone 1000W 80 PLUS Silver
Memory Patriot Viper Extreme 2x4 GB DDR3-2133 9-11-9 Kit
GSkill RipjawsX 4x4 GB DDR3-1866 9-10-9 Kit
Memory Settings Default
Video Cards XFX HD 5850 1GB
ECS GTX 580 1536MB
Video Drivers Catalyst 11.8
NVIDIA Drivers 285.62
Hard Drive Micron RealSSD C300 256GB
Optical Drive LG GH22NS50
Case Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0
Operating System Windows 7 64-bit
SATA Testing Micron RealSSD C300 256GB
USB 2/3 Testing Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0

System Power Consumption

Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the power supply, while in a dual GPU configuration.  This method allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency.  These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.

Power Consumption (Idle) - Two 5850s

In idle power consumption, the FX-8150 with its newer architecture is able to more efficiently power gate itself.  The Gigabyte board comes last on both processors, while the MSI has a good showing.

Power Consumption (Video) - Two 5850s

In video mode, it's all about how the motherboard decides to activate cores and/or turbo modes.  Again, the FX-8150 seems to be the (in general) processor of choice, with the MSI again taking command of low power usage.

Power Consumption (Video) - Two 5850s

For OCCT, our CPU stress test, the FX-8150 starts to draw that extra power it needs.  In this circumstance, the ASUS boards tend to use less power under either processor than their competitors.

Power Consumption (Metro2033) - Two 5850s

In the case of Metro2033, as both GPUs are running equally at large load, it is all about how the motherboard decides to power up the CPU and assign turbo states.  The Crosshair V Formula performs well on both processors.

CPU Temperatures

With most users’ running boards on purely default BIOS settings, we are running at default settings for the CPU temperature tests.  This is, in our outward view, an indication of how well (or how adventurous) the vendor has their BIOS configured on automatic settings.  With a certain number of vendors not making CPU voltage, turbo voltage or LLC options configurable to the end user, which would directly affect power consumption and CPU temperatures at various usage levels, we find the test appropriate for the majority of cases. This does conflict somewhat with some vendors' methodology of providing a list of 'suggested' settings for reviewers to use.  But unless those settings being implemented automatically for the end user, all these settings do for us it attempt to skew the results, and thus provide an unbalanced 'out of the box' result list to the readers who will rely on those default settings to make a judgment.  CPU Temperatures are not really indicative of quality or performance, even though one would postulate that worse parts may produce higher temperatures.  However, if a manufacturer uses more conductive material in the power plane, this reduces resistance and increases the voltage at the CPU, causing a higher temperature but potentially better stability.

CPU Temperatures (Idle)

CPU Temperatures (Video)

CPU Temperatures (OCCT)

Analysing CPU temperatures is an observational science under our methodology, restricted by the fact that different motherboards use different sensors to report the temperature - some use the response back from the CPU to show temperature, while some connect themselves to onboard sensors.  This has a direct result on any default fan profiles, as the Gigabyte board gave us almost zero fan speed while at idle, indicating perhaps a quieter (but potentially hotter) system.  The Biostar seems to take advantage of this the most to represent the lower temperature (possibly to confuse reviewers...?), or there is a slight mis-calibration on the sensor readouts.  

Biostar TA990FXE – In The Box, Board Features, Software System Benchmarks
Comments Locked

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!

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now