Five $160 To $240 990FX-Based Socket AM3+ Motherboards

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Sabertooth 990FX Firmware

Although it was the GUI that often scared new overclockers away from the BIOS, underlying limitations of that technology were the driving force behind Asus’ switch to UEFI. Nevertheless, we enjoy and appreciate the BIOS-like simplicity of the Sabertooth 990FX's UEFI interface.

Spanning three pages, Asus’ Ai Tweaker menu provides a wide range of clock and voltage controls that, unlike those of many competitors, actually work in a predictable manner. For example, when we disabled AMD Turbo Core to stability-test our maximum continuous overclock, the Sabertooth 990FX actually locked in the speed we set.

A little experimentation with Asus’ multi-stage Load Line Calibration revealed that the “High” setting kept our overclocked CPU very close to the continuous voltage we desired.

Asus-specific features are primarily limited to operational modes for its PWM, though all of the expected CPU, DRAM, and chipset voltage settings are also available.

Primary, secondary, and tertiary memory timings are individually selectable from Ai Tweaker’s DRAM Timing Control submenu.

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Summary
  1. 990FX: AMD Leads The Chipset Game
  2. ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
  3. Fatal1ty 990FX Professional Firmware
  4. Asus Sabertooth 990FX
  5. Sabertooth 990FX Firmware
  6. ECS A990FXM-A
  7. A990FXM-A Firmware
  8. Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7
  9. 990FXA-UD7 Firmware
  10. MSI 990FXA-GD80
  11. 990FXA-GD80 Firmware
  12. Test Settings And Benchmarks
  13. Benchmark Results: 3D Games
  14. Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
  15. Benchmark Results: Productivity
  16. Power, Heat, And Efficiency
  17. Overclocking
  18. Which 990FX Board Should You Buy?
About the author
Thomas Soderstrom

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.

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    Top Comments
  • _Pez_
    Yeah If were to buy this boards would be with a Phenom real 6 core CPU 1100T :D that is the smartest choice. I think.
  • ta152h
    What a bunch of pretzel logic we have in this article.
    Quote:
    Of course, a fan of Intel's work could argue against the need for 42 lanes of second-gen PCIe when the 36 native to X58 Express support multi-card graphics configurations just as capably. But such a comparison really isn't necessary. After all, we've known for almost a year that Intel’s lower-cost Sandy Bridge-based part outperform the pricey six-core Gulftown-based processors in many desktop benchmarks, including pretty much every gaming scenario we throw at the two platforms.


    So, x58 is irrelevant, because SB beats it. Except AMD's offering is somehow relevant even though both x58 and SB beat it. What?????

    If you ignore x58 because SB offers better performance, you ignore anything AMD has because a SB setup offers better performance. If you want 36 or less lanes, x58 still offers better processors than you can hope to get from AMD. Bizarre logic.

    Not that AMD is irrelevant, just the logic is badly flawed.
  • ellmondo
    let the amd bashing begin...
    • Other Comments
  • timbo1130
    How is this relevant to enthusiast? Bulldozer is out classed by Sandy Bridge I don't care if there are a few less sata ports. If you need to upgrade your better off going with Sandy bridge and z68 or p67 or wait for SB-E and X79.
  • julianbautista87
    thanks for this article. I was waiting for it since some guy said that the 8150 was performing badly because of the mainboard used, but now I see that that was not correct.
  • mayankleoboy1
    nice thorough review.
    but great chipsets cant offset poor CPU's.
  • ellmondo
    let the amd bashing begin...
  • _Pez_
    Yeah If were to buy this boards would be with a Phenom real 6 core CPU 1100T :D that is the smartest choice. I think.
  • theuniquegamer
    What about asus 990fx crosshair v formula motherboard?
  • frostweaver
    I would wait till next year to decide. I still feel that windows 7 aint optimized for BD.
  • Tijok
    First off, thanks for the great article, good to see Tom's is keeping up the top notch quality!

    Secondly, I would really like to see a piece on extreme CFX/SLI configurations on rigs like this. It seems an article with reliable information on this would be beneficial to gaming enthusiasts, IT professionals, and HPC builders alike!

    Hope to see an article along these lines soon!
  • palladin9479
    I bought the Sabertooth during the summer and I can attest to how amazing that board is. It's really nice, lots of features and high quality. I'm running a Phenom II X4 970BE @ 4.3Ghz on water right now. Absolutely wonderful system.
  • ta152h
    What a bunch of pretzel logic we have in this article.
    Quote:
    Of course, a fan of Intel's work could argue against the need for 42 lanes of second-gen PCIe when the 36 native to X58 Express support multi-card graphics configurations just as capably. But such a comparison really isn't necessary. After all, we've known for almost a year that Intel’s lower-cost Sandy Bridge-based part outperform the pricey six-core Gulftown-based processors in many desktop benchmarks, including pretty much every gaming scenario we throw at the two platforms.


    So, x58 is irrelevant, because SB beats it. Except AMD's offering is somehow relevant even though both x58 and SB beat it. What?????

    If you ignore x58 because SB offers better performance, you ignore anything AMD has because a SB setup offers better performance. If you want 36 or less lanes, x58 still offers better processors than you can hope to get from AMD. Bizarre logic.

    Not that AMD is irrelevant, just the logic is badly flawed.
  • we_san
    Want to know if 990's abundant pci lane give significant benefit over z68 in gpu bottleneck scenario (SLI or crosfire off course).
  • Crashman
    TA152HWhat a bunch of pretzel logic we have in this article.So, x58 is irrelevant, because SB beats it. Except AMD's offering is somehow relevant even though both x58 and SB beat it. What????? If you ignore x58 because SB offers better performance, you ignore anything AMD has because a SB setup offers better performance. If you want 36 or less lanes, x58 still offers better processors than you can hope to get from AMD. Bizarre logic. Not that AMD is irrelevant, just the logic is badly flawed.
    That's what it looks like after copy-edit.

    Originally it referred to AMD's insistence of comparing its FX-8150 to the 990X to prove that the FX-8150 had far better value. The original version of the paragraph referred to that comparison method a sham, and THEN referred to the SB vs BD debate. I guess it's neither nice nor necessary to call the 8150/990X price/performance comparison a sham, so the paragraph was altered to improve it's tone :)
  • Device Unknown
    Fantastic guys! I have been researching which mobo to get the last 2 days for our mod... this saved me a lot of trouble. Asus it is :)
  • jdwii
    The Sabertooth is such a good board i love it so much. I even think its the best bang for buck out of the 990FX boards. To bad i could not give such positivism for the Bulldozer.
  • masterofevil22
    Hey, that my board :D Sabertooth 990FX with 1055t @4.1Ghz on a Noctua D-14. Waitin around for better AM3+ chips..
  • kg2010
    Dear Tom's,

    Please do a Tri-Sli review with 580's in it.

    Compare the 8150 @ $279 vs the 2500K @ $215, who would you recommend?

    Hint: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/03/amd_fx8150_multigpu_gameplay_performance_review/1
  • g00ey
    I have read that the Gigabyte UD5 and UD7 motherboards have vdroop issues due to lack of an LLC unit. There has been a lot of talk about this in different forums with a lot of people getting disappointed about it. When I wrote to the Gigabyte support team they said that they have added the LLC in revision 1.1 of the UD7 motherboard in the review. According to your review you have the rev 1.1 of this motherboard and yet LLC features are missing in the BIOS, so there are still vdroop issues with this motherboard, am I to understand that this is correct?
  • tmk221
    you use radeon hd 6950 while there is radeon 6970 on a picture :)
  • nikorr
    Not bad at all!
  • dkraptor
    Hmmm. So where is the most important of them all? Asus Crosshair V Formula?
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