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 ESTASUS Sabertooth 990FX In The Box
In comparison to the Crosshair V Formula, the Sabertooth does not come with as many goodies in the box. This may be indicative of the price difference (~$45 cheaper for the Sabertooth), and that part of the price of the Sabertooth is due to that five year warranty. In the box, we receive what I would deem the bare minimum for a product of this price:
IO Shield
Driver CD
User Guide
Four SATA Cables (Locking, right angled at one end)
Flexible SLI bridge
ASUS Q-Connector
Image Courtesy of Newegg
Board Features
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | |
| Price | Link to Newegg |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | AM3+ |
| CPU Support | AMD FX/Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron 100 |
| Chipset | AMD 990FX |
| Base Clock Frequency | 200.66 MHz |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.675 V to 2.075 V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 4x to 35x |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 1.2 V to 2.5 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, 1066-1866 MHz, ECC or Non-ECC |
| Expansion Slots |
3 x PCIe Gen2 x16 (x16/x16 or x16/x8/x8) 1 x PCIe Gen2 x4 1 x PCIe Gen2 x1 1 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
6 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 2 x SATA 3 Gbps (JMicron JMB362) 1 x Power eSATA 3 Gbps 1 x eSATA 3 Gbps |
| Onboard |
6 x SATA 6 Gbps (Chipset) 2 x SATA 3 Gbps (JMicron JMB362) 6 x Fan Headers 2 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x USB 3.0 Headers 1 x S/PDIF Output Header 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x COM Port Header 1 x Clear CMOS Header 1 x IEEE1394 Header 1 x MemOK! Button |
| 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-pin) 4 x CHA Fan Headers (one 4-pin, three 3-pin) 1 x OPT Fan Headers (4-pin) |
| IO Panel |
1 x Keyboard/Mouse PS2 Port 1 x Power eSATA 3 Gbps 1 x eSATA 3 Gbps 1 x IEEE1394 Port 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 2 x USB 3.0 10 x USB 2.0 1 x Optical SPDIF Output Audio Outputs |
| BIOS Version | 0901 |
| Warranty Period | 5 Years |
Instead of bleating continuously about that five year warranty, on the board we have a set of six fan connectors, and the SATA ports are bolstered by a SATA 6 Gbps controller in the form of the rarely seen JMicron JMB362. Lacking on the Sabertooth products are the Power/Reset buttons and two-digit debug LED which is unfortunate, plus there is extra space on the back panel for perhaps an extra network controller. The board uses also a Realtek NIC/Audio combination.
Software
ASUS Software revolves around its AI Suite package. This attempts to bring together all the features of the product into one interface, which for the most part is simple enough to use. One downside of the AI Suite software is on the DPC Latency, our audio test. This test performs a deferred procedure call and times how long it takes the system to process it – these calls are queued based on priority. The DP calls done by AI Suite as part of its sensor software have higher priority than audio, thus causing the DPC Latency to increase from ~200 microseconds (sub-500 is a good result), to over 2000 microseconds. Ideally this means that if you are expecting to record audio with an ASUS system, AI Suite should be switched off. I should note that other manufacturers are victims of this also – any vendor that includes sensor software as part of its package and by default causes it to boot with the operating system is liable to these spikes in performance for the DPC Latency test.
With that being said, AI Suite is good at what it does. As this is a Sabertooth product, we get Sabertooth specific features. Instead of the AI Tuner we normally get on an ASUS product, this is replaced by the Thermal Radar:
This integrated fan technology allows the user to associate fans connected on the board to certain temperature sensors. So a chassis fan at the back of the case directed air in or out can be connected to the CPU and VRM sensors (at a ratio determined by the user), and have its speed adjust appropriately using a customized multi-ramp speed profile. If you wanted customizability with your fans, ASUS has got it with their Sabertooth product.
Elsewhere on the AI Suite software is the TurboV Evo option, allowing the user to apply temporary overclocks until the system is restarted, and Digi+ VRM, giving the user control over the limitations of the power delivery on board (applicable to overclocked systems). AI Charger as part of the AI Suite gives extra current to a particular header on the motherboard, allowing it to charge your Apple device (iPod, iPhone or iPad) at a faster rate. Users can also update the BIOS through the AI Suite software.
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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!