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The biggest question we were left asking ourselves after getting several days of hands-on time with 790GX was: who is this chipset really aimed toward? Nvidia created 780a SLI — a great idea in concept, were AMD shipping Phenom’s able to compete with Intel’s fastest chips — and then followed up with GeForce 8200/8300, a platform that makes a lot more sense. On the other hand, AMD started out with a home run in 780G and is now vying for the high-end using 790GX. AMD will tell you that 790GX is a mainstream chipset, and it’s only half-right.
Look at the chipset’s biggest additions: ACC, CrossFireX support, and a faster integrated core. The first two are decidedly enthusiast features, and with 790FX boards coming online with SB750 southbridges, we have to imagine that anyone looking into CrossFire would rather enjoy their SB750 with a northbridge better set up for high-end graphics configurations. The 790X chipset would make an even better candidate for the gamer on a budget, since 790X board are even cheaper. But we already checked with AMD and, supposedly, there aren’t any vendors with plans to go 790X/SB750.
At the entry-level, 780G is still a great value on boards priced between $60 and $90, of course giving up overclocking and CrossFire in favor of a lower price tag. You can still add a Radeon HD 3450 and get decent gaming performance from 780G. More than anything, the platform remains a productivity play able to deliver the speed of a quad-core Phenom inexpensively.
AMD’s 790GX touts the flexibility to go integrated-only, Hybrid CrossFireX, or straight CrossFireX for an extra $50 or so dollars. That’s quite a broad audience — perhaps too broad, since it means paying for an integrated GPU. “But wait,” you say. “If you listen to Nvidia, all chipsets should have integrated graphics.” Perhaps, but Nvidia also offers HybridPower for saving energy, even with a couple of power-hungry GPUs installed. AMD’s core logic is missing that interaction, which we think is critical if you hope to sell onboard graphics to high-end buyers.
We suspect that the most likely customers will be the ones right in the middle — not so budget-constrained that the pricier motherboard is a problem, but still reluctant to spend $200 on a Radeon HD 4850. The SB750 is AMD’s real strength here. Otherwise, we’d probably go for the inexpensive 780G with a Radeon HD 3870 or 4850. But with ACC and RAID 5 support wrapped up into AMD’s new southbridge, the company finally has a platform to tie the assets it acquired from ATI into its own processor lineup. Naturally, it helps that the onboard RV610 core is now running at 700 MHz and aided by side-port memory. The main story here is ACC and what AMD is doing to make its processors more attractive in the face of a formidable opponent.
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Great review, and it's good to see that AMD is at last able to target more enthusiast markets competitively.
Great review, and it's good to see that AMD is at last able to target more enthusiast markets competitively.
Thanks for the feedback Kit.
^^^iseriously thought that was sarcasm, until i saw the authors name
So... why does a page 15 and 16 of this article exist if there is no page 15 or 16 to the article?
Take a closer look. What happened?
PCMark seems Intel biased, please read this:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/har [...] view.ars/6
Please change this benchmark suite or check if PcMark Vantage is unbiased.
So... why does a page 15 and 16 of this article exist if there is no page 15 or 16 to the article?Take a closer look. What happened?
That was strange. Should be fixed now.
PCMark seems Intel biased, please read this:http://arstechnica.com/reviews/har [...] view.ars/6Please change this benchmark suite or check if PcMark Vantage is unbiased.
Fortunately, with no Intel platforms tested, this should be a non-issue for the current situation ;-) In the future, you'll be seeing SYSmark, though.
Seems past page 8 or something the links are corrupt.. can't fully read this article and getting error 404 - page not found.
.. and now the article seems to be removed even from the main page!?!?!
.. and now the article seems to be removed even from the main page!?!?!
Alright, mystery solved. It's back up, sans the blank page. Thanks for pointing that out lacrits!
Hi, i wanted to ask something aout the article.
why you use 3470 and 8500 for the tests?
hybrid crossfire and nvidia boost don't work with faster cards?
is the performance gain not big with 3870 or 9600gt?
thanks
Hybrid CrossFireX uses alternate frame rendering, as does GeForce Boost, I believe. As a result, both technologies are best complemented by discrete boards evenly matched to the integrated core. In the case of the GeForce 8300, that'd be an 8500 GT. For the 790GX, AMD recommends the 3470. To spend any more money on discrete graphics for either platform would be a waste of money even if you could use faster cards.
thanks for responding so fast.
so what if i use a 3650 with this board? or why will i buy a quad core and dont spend some more for a 3850?
Unfortunately, performance won't scale with the 3650. With that said, you'll still see reasonable gaming performance in Hybrid CrossFireX. The beauty of this board is that you CAN drop in a 3850, 3870, 4850, etc. and then add a second one later for CrossFireX.
as cool as new main board features are , I think eventually consumer graphics wil move to a poitn where seperate card buses jsut dont cut it, I see a future where a main board has 2 sockets on board one for teh CPU and one for the GPU , at that time i also expect that the main board with have two sets of ram slots as well one set of slots for system ram and one set of slots for video ram. think of teh possiblities such a future could have , instead of replacing an entire component card , you just drop in a new gpu and or add more video ram much as you would upgrade the cpu/system ram. of course in this furture FSB speeds would ahve to reach ridculous proportions , i think this is the only reason that this kind of video ard setup hasnt already happened
Unfortunately, performance won't scale with the 3650. With that said, you'll still see reasonable gaming performance in Hybrid CrossFireX. The beauty of this board is that you CAN drop in a 3850, 3870, 4850, etc. and then add a second one later for CrossFireX.
Nice Review, However I would like to see how well SLI scales on this board using a 4850 and 4870 vs another AMD Board with full Duel 16x PCIE 2.0 Slots.
I've seen some other reviews where Dual 8x PCIE 2.0 Slots start having scaling issues on the 4850 at are not seen on the 3800 Series.
Thank you for this excellent article.
Does the 128mb side-port limit the on board video to that amount of memory? Does this affect Vista Areo?
Good article. Phenom can finally OC. I wounder if the mobo makers are going to make them with higher quality voltage regulators so it can support the 9850BE and higher across the selection.
good review,
i have a question why do you recommend ddr1066 over 800? i thought there wasn't a huge difference.
also im a bit confused about this 16x, vs. 8x 8x...
if i use a single card (for now) which motherboard (790g, 790gx) will produce more graphixs capabilities?
It would have been interesting to see a comparison between the GMA X4500 and the 790GX.
http://www.hkepc.com/?id=1510&page=5&fs=idn#view
The GMA X4500 seems to be much faster than the GMA X3500 and within 10-30% of the 780G in actual games. I guess the 790GX was a timely addition and with it being 20% faster than the 780G, that should open up the lead over the GMA X4500 to 30-50%.