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  • ReaM - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link

    I don't know why you people say "I don't like AMD"

    Now tell me, have you ever been satisfied with intel's performance? I have never been. Since my 1400 thunderbird :P I am with AMD. Unlike the p4 3000 Northwood, it did not have fps drops in counter strike. I had to overclock the northwood to 3.4 to play it decently.

    Then I had a Venice 3000+ that would run at 2.8ghz from 1.8 base. I still have it.

    And still today, in games AMD beats the more expensive i5 750. How many of the market will use i5 750's benefits? Almost noone! People really need to look and see that the best bang for buck is AMD. Cheap Boards, Cheap CPUs, and in summer RAM prices are expected to drop. It will be a 200 dolla upgrade to a quadcore if you have PSU and a case already.

    I have just bought i7 860 yesterday (i got it real cheap, I wanted the 920) with p55m ud2 Gigabyte and gskill 4gb 1600 cl7 ONLY because I need the render faster in Maya. I just have no choice here, because AMD does not seem to be the renderer's choice.

    It is bad to have no choice, because there is not direct competition between the two, but often I do not understand why many mainstream people get i7 920 for gaming. Because they don't care how much they spend?

    I am also forced to choose Quadro over FireGL, but that's another story. Radeon since 4xxx series is SICK!!! I love ATI and AMD.

    You should not hate AMD, cmon

    But for mainstream user, why i5? Way too expensive
  • butdoesitwork - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    Forget speed. Is it safe to be an early adopter?

    1. Does the Linux kernel support this chipset at all yet? Does it need any special boot parameters to work at all? e.g. Do I need to forcibly disable MSI again?

    2. How _well_ does it work? If you copy files over these new-fangled SB850 SATA ports, does it get there correctly? e.g. can you do a linux "diff" to prove that it isn't broken? Are there any strange messages in /var/log/messages?

    Been bitten by this too often in the past. Most recently the cheap JMicron SATA-to-USB bridges found in most external enclosures often caused bus resets and data corruption. May have just hit a similar problem with my board's JMicron eSATA port.
  • Taft12 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    As a Linux user you should be well aware by now that it's never safe to be an early adopter.

    Check the changelogs of the newest kernels.
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    I have not tested Linux on this platform yet - I find things need a while to settle before everything works properly (that goes for all operating systems). I might give things a whirl on our next review depending upon time constraints. For this article we tested platform compatibility with Windows 7 and found the big problem was with the Sharkoon QuickPort (LucidPort perhaps, although its still up in the air).

    Regards
    Raja
  • AceKing - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link

    So has anyone tested this with Linux yet? I'm curious to know if there has been any problems. I see the last post on this was in March, which was 7 months ago.
  • bji - Friday, November 19, 2010 - link

    I own one, and it works perfectly in Linux. Onboard video and audio are flawless and well supported in Xorg (no xorg.conf even needed) and ALSA (easy alsaconf setup). I use a Phenom II 1075T and man does it fly. I primarily do software development and 6 thread compiles are just so fast. Even faster than the much more expensive 4 core hyperthreaded Xeon that I have at work.

    The board does do this weird thing where if you power it off before the OS has shut it down completely, when you power it back on it thinks that you have an overclocking problem (probably detects an incomplete shutdown and assumes bad overclocking) and requires going into the BIOS and back out to continue the boot. And I don't have any overclocking enabled at all, I just manually set the timings for my memory because the defaults were not right.

    I disable the JMicron SATA RAID and IDE controller though as I don't need them and I never trust anything that JMicron makes. Nor should you.
  • caraway - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link

    Which kernel and distribution are you using?
  • GeorgeH - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Measuring DC power consumption as opposed to AC is a very welcome improvement - hopefully this is Anandtech's new SOP for all reviews.

    The only question I think you should make clear (or clearer, with apologies if I missed it) is if you're measuring and summing the DC power across all of the rails or just on a select few; i.e. are you including HDD, ODD, GPU PCIE, and fan connections in the power consumption figures?
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    I'm not adding HDD's/DVD peripherals into the figures. The power figures shown are from all 4 rails - EPS 12V, ATX 12V, 5v and 3.3v. The CPU fan consumption is about 2w and left in. I can make things lot more granular than I have here - but I figure what we're providing at present is enough for reviews like this, unless concentrating on specific areas of consumption (which may be called for at some point).

    regards
    Raja
  • GeorgeH - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    I saw that in the 980X article - tell Anand you need a raise.
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Should clarify - I do not add GPU PCIe power draw because that is a separate entity from board consumption really. It's drawn from ATX 12v on most boards so is easy for me to factor out.

    later
    Raja


  • strikeback03 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    You might want to do a writeup on what exactly you are including, as I was wondering how the CPU, chipset, and GPU all totaled only 29W at idle.
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    In hindsight I should have - I'll be sure to do so in future.

    later
    Raja
  • Kibbles - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    For a second there I though the sticker ontop of the USB3 ports were an additional 2 internal USB ports. I was thinking "oh cool, that's nifty, don't know what I'd use it for (wifi?) but it's still nifty." Then I saw a closer picture and realized it was just a sticker lol
  • Foggg - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    The blue header with the yellow sticker by the SATA's must be a PATA 133 IDE connector. It doesn't appear on your spec sheet on page 3.
  • strikeback03 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I thought all AMD motherboards had the cage to mount a cooler to around the CPU socket. I don't remember the CPUs coming with this, is it included but not mounted? Do some coolers not use it?
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    They still come with the cage, I uninstalled it to mount the Corsair H50 cooler. So yes, some coolers do not use AMD's mounting plate..

    regards
    Raja
  • DigitalFreak - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    WTF is up with the PCI-E switch card? They couldn't swing for automatic switching on a $150 motherboard?
  • xeopherith - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I wish all the motherboard reviews were this detailed.. Good Job!

    Most don't have a bunch of "new" features to try out really but I really think you set a new standard by including all the BIOS screens and such.
  • sampoerna - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    does anyone know if the heatpipe below the chipset heatsink directly touches the HD 4290 IGP core?

    thnx.
  • semo - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Who uses one or more legacy PCI card in their modern PC (old boxes don't apply) and what is their purpose (audio, com/lpt, SCSI...)?
  • l8gravely - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    I'm still using Legacy PCI cards, since I'm building (one of these days) a replacement home server. Going with an AMD Quad Core, 4-8Gb of RAM and some disks.

    I need PCI for a SCSI tape library and a PCI multiport serial card I still have. Builtin video leaves me with tons of expansion options down the line, since I don't need graphics at all.

    I'd love to see an article on the perfect cheap home server board, case and system. De-emphasize the OC, video, etc. More LAN ports, builtin video and remote management on the cheap. And of course plenty of SATA ports.

    John
  • ottawanker - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link

    Even a dual-core and anything more than 2 GBs of RAM is way overkill for a home server.

    I just downgraded my Linux-based fileserver from a Dual-core Socket 939 with 4 GBs of RAM to a Single-core Socket 754 based system with a 25w mobile Turion and 2 GBs of RAM.

    Transfer speeds actually went up thanks to the Intel NIC I put in, and I can now average 80-90 MB/second over the network.

    I recommend a good NIC, decent SATA controllers, and lots of hard drives if you want a fast fileserver. I have three 4-disk RAID5 arrays and haven't had any data loss yet, even with a couple of failed drives. I'd go RAID6 with anything more than 4-disk arrays, and even then backups are a great idea.
  • Wellsoul2 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I still use a PCI HDTV card.

    I'd rather the leftmost PCI Express be the 16x and the middle one
    stuck at 8x..without the stupid jumper board.

    Hopefully you don't have more that one PCI board cause you lose one
    with a two slot wide video board.

    $140 with a crappy slot layout..I say buy a cheaper board and you can afford whatever AMD BE CPU you want anyway.
  • strikeback03 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    At this point, around 7 years after PCIe was introduced, users really should have more PCIe than PCI devices. This transition has been in progress forever and I can't wait till it is over.
  • Taft12 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    RS232 for me!

    http://www.startech.com/item/PCI1S550-1-Port-16550...">http://www.startech.com/item/PCI1S550-1-Port-16550...

    Should have made sure the board I bought included a serial port first, but I don't blame OEMs for stripping these out of their standard motherboard offerings.
  • mariush - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I have a TV tuner on one PCI slot... Some have additional SATA or IDE controllers (if the motherboard had no IDE slots)
  • mariush - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Oh and Firewire cards... some don't have Firewire chips on the motherboard
  • piroroadkill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I use an Auzentech X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect because it was the first card made to do DTS 1.5Mbps bitstream encoding over SPDIF in real time
  • piroroadkill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Machine is a Core 2 Duo e6550 @ 3.45GHz, Radeon 4890
  • Calin - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I use a TV capture card in a PCI slot, and I don't think I'm the only one. True, my PC is an oldie box (Athlon X2 4600+ AM2, 2300MHz I think).
  • feelingshorter - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    One thing about unlocking (some?) AMD CPUs is that the lose their ability to use the auto fan speed feature (cool n quiet). Otherwise, using the stock cooler, your fan wont speed up despite being at 100% load. Not to mention there is only an 80% chance of getting all 4 cores working without corruption (the cores work but its usually the cache that has issues). AMD mobo + cpu is cheaper than Intel's offerings. As soon as you spend 140$ on a mobo AMD lose their value and your entering i7 price territory.
  • Voo - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    cool n quiet has as much to do with fan speed as SpeedStep has, which is to say absolutely nothing.
  • alimaamoser - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - link


    All Topics are very nice......So I read one by one so I like it......
    http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/livea-...">http://www.articlesbase.com/health-arti...o-get-fr...
  • jigglywiggly - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I dun like amd cpus btw
  • afkrotch - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I'm with you, so I didn't even bother to read this article on the board's performance. I can say, this is a very nice clean looking motherboard.

    I think more should strive for this and not start randomly throwing crap in every which way direction.
  • Taft12 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Daily Tech forum downrating feature badly needed here :(
  • jonup - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Highly doubt that it will keep him from posting. May admin should ban him
  • JohnMD1022 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    No one cares.

    Learn grammar.
  • piroroadkill - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    Thanks for that contribution
  • deputc26 - Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - link

    I am extremely happy that you decided to include a dpc latency screenshot, I am not a true audiophile I just hate stuttering audio, would be great if you could include this on laptops as welll where it is more often an issue.
  • Ben90 - Thursday, March 11, 2010 - link

    Are there computers out there that actually have problems streaming real time audio? The results look the same as my $400 laptop purchased around 2003.
  • alm4rr - Sunday, May 9, 2010 - link

    Was a memory module compatibility list ever published for this board?

    Thx
  • chillmelt - Sunday, July 4, 2010 - link

    These benchmarks are unfair. The AMD processor's worth less than a hundred pitted against Intel's cores at much higher value? Even a Phenom II X4 965 costs less than an i5 750 and it's nowhere to be seen on these benchmarks....
  • doylecc - Sunday, July 4, 2010 - link

    This is an interesting review, but it seems more like a processor review. This review should have compared the performance of several AMD-compatible MOTHERBOARDs using several popular AMD processors--say 665, 630 and 555--so that we can make informed MB purchasing decisions. We already know about the performance of Intel and AMD processors from their respective reviews. Let's keep motherboard reviews focus on comparing motherboards.
  • oktam - Thursday, July 15, 2010 - link

    Does anyone know if it is possible to use IGP on ASUS M4A89GTD board in CrossFire with GPU Radeon 5770 and connect together 5 displays?

    2 displays connected to IGP, 3 displays to GPU. All via DVI (via reductions).

    Thanks!

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