Gigabyte's GA-890GPA-UD3H: AMD-890GX Arrives March 02, 2010 Brandon Sandman Bell

Gigabyte’s GA-890GPA-UD3H: AMD-890GX Arrives

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The introduction of the 790GX chipset was a bit of a redemptive moment for AMD amongst enthusiasts. Thanks to its SB750 South Bridge, the 790GX chipset was the first to offer native support for Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC), AMD’s slick feature that could be used to tweak Phenom’s internal timings to improve overclocking headroom.

Depending on the processor, ACC typically delivered an additional 200-400MHz when OC’ing; that’s a pretty substantial improvement considering that most Phenom CPUs of that era couldn’t be pushed much further than 200MHz over their stock frequency: a 2.5GHz Phenom 9850 that may have topped out around 2.7-2.8GHz before ACC could now hit 3.0-3.1GHz with full stability!

And thanks to its Radeon 3300 IGP, the 790GX chipset was the most powerful integrated graphics offering of its era.

Over time though the 790GX chipset became less relevant. Newer 790FX motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and others were updated to include ACC support, and more importantly, AMD resolved the issue altogether with the introduction of newer, more powerful Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs last year. ACC isn’t needed to deliver monster OCs with these processors.

Because of these developments, it has become harder for do-it-yourselfers who build their own systems to rationalize the need for 790GX, and because of its higher price tag than other IGP offerings, 790GX was never a viable product with OEMs -- despite offering improved 3D gaming performance over 780G/785G, the platform is just too pricey for use in low-cost PCs.

AMD’s got a new generation of 8-series chipsets though, and once again they’ve decided to give the GX variant the new South Bridge first, as their oft-delayed SB850 chip debuts for the first time with today’s 890GX launch.


Let’s make things clear though, despite its new name, the 890GX chipset isn’t an entirely new, next-generation IGP with DirectX 11 graphics. If you were hoping for that, you’ll unfortunately be disappointed, as AMD has opted to wait for their upcoming Fusion CPUs beginning with Llano next year before integrating DX11 graphics.

What the 890GX chipset does bring though is a brand new South Bridge, SB850, and an improved North Bridge built around ATI’s Radeon 4290 IGP. SB850 brings with it native support for 6Gbps SATA, making it the first chipset to offer built-in support for the latest SATA standard.

The 890GX Chipset

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If you recall the relationship between 780G and 790GX, you’ll remember that AMD followed the same strategy with these platforms as well. The 790GX was based on the same graphics core found in the 780G, only AMD bumped the clock up to 700MHz.

All four IGPs are largely based on ATI’s RV620 GPU. This is the same GPU found in the Radeon 3450/3470 launched in January 2008 – two years ago. And don’t forget that RV620 was merely a die shrink of the RV610 chip used in the Radeon 2400 from 2007. Clearly this isn’t cutting-edge technology.

To AMD’s credit though, the Radeon 4200 IGP found in the 785G was updated to include DirectX 10.1, HDMI 1.3, and UVD 2 support. UVD 2 includes support for hardware-accelerated picture-in-picture for watching Blu-ray movies, and video enhancement features like dynamic contrast, HD color enhancement (including flesh tones and color vibrance), and post-processing effects like noise reduction, de-interlacing and HD pulldown detection. The 42xx series IGPs also supports video transcoding on the GPU, freeing the CPU up from performing this task.

Unfortunately, HTPC users will be disappointed to hear that the chipset lacks support for bitstreaming HD audio, and LPCM audio over HDMI is limited to just two channels.

AMD’s IGPs all feature 40 stream processors, with the 780G and 785G relying on a 500MHz core clock, while the graphics core on the 790GX and 890GX run at 700MHz. Besides higher clock speeds, one neat feature AMD adds to the GX series chipsets is Sideport memory. This is a pool of memory that’s dedicated just for the IGP, enhancing performance. In order to reduce costs, the G chipsets lack Sideport memory.

The Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

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Board layout/BIOS

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Board layout is one of the key issues that can plague many IGP motherboards. Layout issues can range from sockets that don’t provide enough clearance for large CPU coolers, to SATA ports that can interfere with long graphics cards like the Radeon 5870 because they’re rotated perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard instead of parallel to it.

Fortunately though the GA-890GPA-UD3H doesn’t suffer from these problems as Gigabyte has placed everything well, with no interference issues with any of the board’s core components. You’ll find plenty of room in the AM3 socket area for the largest CPU coolers from Scythe and Thermalright, and there’s also more than enough room between the DIMM slots and the primary PCI Express Graphics slot (PEG), so you won’t have to install your system memory before the graphics card.

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BIOS Interface

Gigabyte didn’t skimp on the GA-890GPA-UD3H’s BIOS. Everything an enthusiast would need for OC’ing can be found in here. HyperTransport speeds up to 500MHz are available in 1MHz increments, and if you find the Radeon 4290 IGP a little sluggish in your favorite game, clock speeds ranging from 200-2000MHz are also available in 1MHz increments.

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System setup

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AMD Phenom II X4 965

Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
GA-MA790GPT-UD3H

Intel Core i5-661
Gigabyte H55M-USB3

4GB (2x2GB) OCZ Reaper HPC @DDR3-1333

2TB Seagate Barracuda XT

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Benchmarks

Far Cry 2
Crysis
Resident Evil 5
Left 4 Dead
Batman Arkham Asylum
Modern Warfare 2

Media Encoding/Rendering Benchmarks

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Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

USB/SATA Performance

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USB Performance

SATA Performance

Left 4 Dead

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Left 4 Dead - DirectX 9

Modern Warfare 2

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CoD: MW2 – DirectX 9

Crysis DX10

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Crysis – DirectX 10

Far Cry 2

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Far Cry 2 – DirectX 10

Resident Evil 5

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Resident Evil – DirectX 10

Batman: Arkham Asylum

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Batman:AA – DirectX 9

HAWX	Page:: ( 14 / 16 )

HAWX – DirectX 10/10.1

IGP Overclocking

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Conclusion

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Intel isn’t expected to add 6Gbps SATA to their chipsets until next year with their 6-series family coming in early 2011, so AMD will be able to boast this advantage for quite some time.

True, Seagate’s 6Gbps drive, the Barracuda XT isn’t anywhere close to pushing the limits of the new SATA interface, but once 6Gbps SSDs hit the market later this year, expect things to change.

And while the chipset doesn’t officially offer USB 3.0 support, AMD thought ahead by providing the PCIe 2.0 lanes needed to run USB 3.0 devices at full bandwidth. Motherboard manufacturers won’t have to integrate PCIe bridge chips to provide full bandwidth for USB 3.0 and 6Gbps SATA, which adds to the cost of the motherboard.

We do wish AMD had done more to differentiate the Radeon HD 4290 IGP from previous integrated offerings though. Even if we’re willing to forgive the lack of DX11 support, which likely wouldn’t deliver playable performance in an IGP with 40 shaders anyway, we do think AMD should’ve put more effort into separating 890GX from its direct predecessor, 790GX, in 3D performance. Both chipsets are armed with the same number of stream processors and the same clocks. The only difference between them is that the newer 890GX supports DX10.1, while 790GX is limited to DX10.

As a result, unless you’re specifically running a DX10.1 game, and also remember to turn on eye candy effects that can be sped up with the newer 10.1 shader model like SSAO, the two IGPs will perform the same.

Clearly based on our OC’ing results, AMD has tons of frequency headroom built in to the IGP, so there’s no excuse why they couldn’t bump the 890GX’s clock speed up another 50-100MHz. Obviously cranking up the clocks to these speeds will have a negative effect on your TDP, something AMD apparently didn’t want to live with.

Because of this though, Intel’s Core i5-661 and its 900MHz IGP actually managed to outrun 890GX in a few of our benchmarks. This is the first time we’ve seen an Intel IGP ever outperform anything!

Keep in mind that the Core i5-661 is built specifically for 3D graphics; the IGP used in Intel’s other Clarkdale CPUs is clocked at 733MHz, so the other Core i5 and Core i3 processors won’t put up as strong a showing against the 890GX platform. Still, the message is clear: it’s taken them a few years, but Intel is finally gaining on AMD when it comes to the 3D performance of their IGP. AMD’s been stagnant for too long here.

If you’re shopping for a new 890GX board, Gigabyte’s GA-890GPA-UD3H is a pretty sweet offering. The board’s feature set is quite good, with heatpipe cooling, USB 3.0, and Gigabyte unique features like their 2-ounce copper PCB and of course DualBIOS rounding out the board’s long list of features. We also really like the BIOS interface and its extensive OC’ing support, including fully adjustable speeds and voltages for the IGP and its Sideport memory. Sideport memory speed adjustment wasn’t present on 790GX boards.

Depending on where the price ends up, this could be the 890GX board to buy.

Now we eagerly await the arrival of the rest of AMD’s 800-series chipset lineup, including 880G and 890FX, as well as the first 6-core Phenom II X6 CPUs which are rumored to be coming at the end of April. This will likely be the last of AMD’s performance-oriented IGPs. From here on out, the future is Fusion.