Gigabyte MA790FX DQ6

[Lightman]

Very good clocks considering stock/under volts! According to Planet3D review our DQ6 achieved best stable clocks on stock voltages and best 2GHz undervolting using less than 1.0V .

BTW difference between MA790GP-DS4H and DQ6 on stock volts was mere 124MHz ....

Link ---> http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...#content_start

[G0ldBr1ck]

Very good clocks considering stock/under volts! According to Planet3D review our DQ6 achieved best stable clocks on stock voltages and best 2GHz undervolting using less than 1.0V .

BTW difference between MA790GP-DS4H and DQ6 on stock volts was mere 124MHz ....

Link ---> http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/...#content_start

I think that can be contributed to the DQ6's power regulation. When you set the voltage it is solid and will not droop alowing for the lowest voltage possable.
I really have a feeling that its gonna be one of the best overclocking boards we have access to for now.

[Stuen4y]

As of today Gigabyte released new BIOS for DQ6 with microcode update
F6D

I really don't like the new bios, the old F6b was much better and more stable for OC. I hope the new bios performs better with PhII.

[-= rtz =-]

I really have a feeling that its gonna be one of the best overclocking boards we have access to for now.

Gonna be? It is allready Im certainly glad I went for this board instead of the DS4 or DS5 a year ago, not regreting it one bit! Now all I need is the new phenom in it and its good to go

[BertM]

can you raise the NB speed with those clocks?

i have not tried it yet. time is up now and i can continue tomorrow or sunday.
3500mhz was almost instant crash after starting prime, and it resulted in blanc screen and reboot.

f6d has problems booting almost each time. it resets my ram alot.

its insane that this board could be called the best since its the first one build for am2+.

i did some crysis benchmarks at 3300mhz. my automatic pump switch turned off the pump during the session because the cpu was below 32 degree. insane.
in windows it turns on the pump from time to time. perhaps every 5 minutes for 3 seconds.

[G0ldBr1ck]

lol ya they got suckered into building a top notch board back when the world thought Phenom was gonna be the second comming of conroe

[demonkevy666]

i have not tried it yet. time is up now and i can continue tomorrow or sunday.
3500mhz was almost instant crash after starting prime, and it resulted in blanc screen and reboot.

f6d has problems booting almost each time. it resets my ram alot.

its insane that this board could be called the best since its the first one build for am2+.

i did some crysis benchmarks at 3300mhz. my automatic pump switch turned off the pump during the session because the cpu was below 32 degree. insane.
in windows it turns on the pump from time to time. perhaps every 5 minutes for 3 seconds.

board are being picky about this new phenom II I booted my nb at .28ghz with 1.450 volts stable got to windows tried higher and got a no boot redid the 2.8ghz nb and volts and got a NO boot after that >_< WTF.... it booted once with it.

[BertM]

it seems its booting faster when you just left bios for a change.
i have the same with an asus a8v that allows me to set 2720mhz and is pretty stable but then doesnt allow me to reboot, ever!!

[Lightman]

I think we deserve BIOS F7 from Gigabyte for our board. I've flashed F6D and still NB voltage is only allowing to decrease it down by 0.3V max. That doesn't bode well for NB clocking from BIOS at all. Good thing is that NB multi goes all the way up to 20x and CPU multi all the way up to 35x (or 36x??).

I will write an e-mail to their customer support. Who's with me?? What other things would you like to have enabled/fixed in BIOS?

[BertM]

cpu blower settings. temp starting point etc.
current settings make it never run max speed.

[-= rtz =-]

To be able to boot after power loss or power disconnect without ram in slots 1 and 2. (when you use only slots 3 and 4)

[Stuen4y]

I think we deserve BIOS F7 from Gigabyte for our board. I've flashed F6D and still NB voltage is only allowing to decrease it down by 0.3V max. That doesn't bode well for NB clocking from BIOS at all. Good thing is that NB multi goes all the way up to 20x and CPU multi all the way up to 35x (or 36x??).

I will write an e-mail to their customer support. Who's with me?? What other things would you like to have enabled/fixed in BIOS?

I have the problems with booting too, so they should fix that too. I have no complaints about something else, just the bios is not stable, last night it crashed several times with no reason and the clocks I reached were lower than with F6b. I hadn't had this kind of problems with F6b. I'm sure they will do something for this problems.

[Lightman]

This morning I finally received my Phenom II X4 940BE!

Here it is:


and here you can see how nicely it looks in a socket:


I've spend some time running power consumption and benchmark comparison between Phenom 9950BE @3.0GHz NB2.0GHz RAM 1066MHz 5-5-5-15-25 2T and Phenom II X4 940BE @3.0GHz NB2.0GHz RAM 1066 5-5-5-15-25 2T

Note: For power consumption tests my HD4870 is clocked 625(500MHz desktop)/465MHz to save power. Everything else as in my SIG. RAM set in BIOS @2.05V
For game and application testing my HD4870 is set to 825MHz/950MHz
All tests are run on Vista Business x64 SP1 with all latest patches. Power options are set to High Performance which means C'n'Q is DISABLED!
Every test was ran at least 2 times and second test result was taken to minimize HDD activity influence on scores.
Cooling: AIR TT120Ultra + 120mm FAN 12V, ambient temp for first runs on Phenom 9950 around 16C-17C, later runs were 19C-21C.

Below are my findings:

Lets start form Power Consumption:


Phenom I 3GHz/1.32V after 15min. full load - 283Watt




Phenom II 3GHz/1.36V after 15min. full load - 241Watt




Special for BertM
Phenom II 3GHz/1.32V after 40min. full load - 233Watt (Higher NB @2.2GHz/ RAM@2.15V instead 2.05 like for previous runs - I will re-run this test properly later)
EDIT re-tested with 1.32vCore NB@2GHz RAM@2.05V - 230Watt



Phenom I 3GHz/1.32V idle - 238W



Phenom II 3.0GHz/1.36V idle - 190Watt



Phenom I 1.2GHz/1.05V after 15min. full load - 206Watt




Phenom II 1.2GHz/1.05V after 15min. full load - 185Watt




Phenom II 1.2GHz/1.05V idle - 176Watt



----> Undervolting<----


Phenom II 1.2GHz/0.88V after 15min. full load - 179W




Phenom II 1.2GHz/0.8V after 20min. full load - 177W






---->Benchmarks<----



Applications:



Cinebench R10 x64 - look at highlighted and top line

clarification - both Phenom I and II are using exactly same setting: 3001MHz core / 2277MHz NB / 1102MHz RAM

Cinebench 2003 x64 - look at the top 2 lines



Phenom 9950 - KirbiBench City - 14.67FPS



Phenom II 940 - KirbiBench City - 15.69FPS



Phenom 9950 - KirbiBench Ultra - 4.08FPS



Phenom II 940 - KirbiBench Ultra - 4.24FPS


RealStorm2006 - Test1 640x480 - Ref. System --> Phenom 9950 @3.0GHz / Base System --> Phenom II 940 @3.0GHz


RealStorm2006 - Test2 640x480 - Ref. System --> Phenom 9950 @3.0GHz / Base System --> Phenom II 940 @3.0GHz


RealStorm2006 - Test3 1024x768 - Ref. System --> Phenom 9950 @3.0GHz / Base System --> Phenom II 940 @3.0GHz



RealStorm2006 - Test4 640x480 - Ref. System --> Phenom 9950 @3.0GHz / Base System --> Phenom II 940 @3.0GHz


RealStorm2006 - Test5 640x480 - Ref. System --> Phenom 9950 @3.0GHz / Base System --> Phenom II 940 @3.0GHz



Generic CPU Bench - Phenom 9950 - 21.366KB/s



Generic CPU Bench - Phenom II 940 - 21.489KB/s



Phenom 9950 - mBench v1.0 memory test
Access latency - 55.9 ns (146 clocks) wrong value calculated from 2.6GHz startup CPU speed. In reality CPU 3012MHz.

Read datarate (INT) 4702 Mb/s
Write datarate (INT) 3355 Mb/s

Read datarate (MMX) 6334 Mb/s
Write datarate (MMX) 4019 Mb/s

Read datarate (SSE) 6481 Mb/s
Write datarate (SSE) 5032 Mb/s


Phenom II 940 - mBench v1.0 memory test
Access latency - 53.7 ns (162 clocks)

Read datarate (INT) 5403 Mb/s
Write datarate (INT) 3773 Mb/s

Read datarate (MMX) 6986 Mb/s
Write datarate (MMX) 4427 Mb/s

Read datarate (SSE) 7063 Mb/s
Write datarate (SSE) 6485 Mb/s


KMB v0.57x64 Fractal Benchmark
Link to executable ---> 0.57x64.zip
Results ---> results.txt



GAMES:


Phenom 9950 - Crysis x64 1280x1024x32 noAA - Avg. 26.93FPS



Phenom II 940 - Crysis x64 1280x1024x32 noAA - Avg. 33.26FPS (sorry for wrong label)



Phenom 9950 - Crysis x64 1680x1050x32 noAA - Avg. 25.45FPS



Phenom II 940 - Crysis x64 1680x1050x32 noAA - Avg. 29.26FPS (sorry for wrong label)




Phenom 9950 - PT Boats DX10 High 1280x1024x32 noAA - Avg. 39.1FPS



Phenom II 940 - PT Boats DX10 High 1280x1024x32 noAA - Avg. 45.7FPS



Phenom 9950 - PT Boats DX10 High 1680x1050x32 noAA - Avg. 38.1FPS



Phenom II 940 - PT Boats DX10 High 1680x1050x32 noAA - Avg. 43.1FPS



Phenom 9950 - Quake II 1280x960x32 noAA

Demo1.dm2 / Demo2.dm2
Run 1 - 785FPS / 776FPS
Run 2 - 770FPS / 779FPS
Run 3 - 775FPS / 775FPS



Phenom II 940 - Quake II 1280x960x32 noAA

Demo1.dm2 / Demo2.dm2
Run 1 - 847FPS / 834FPS
Run 2 - 831FPS / 845FPS
Run 3 - 852FPS / 837FPS

Demo2.dm2


Phenom 9950 - Quake II 1600x1200x32 noAA

Demo1.dm2 / Demo2.dm2
Run 1 - 782FPS / 786FPS
Run 2 - 766FPS / 790FPS
Run 3 - 775FPS / 762FPS



Phenom II 940 - Quake II 1600x1200x32 noAA

Demo1.dm2 / Demo2.dm2
Run 1 - 839FPS / 845FPS
Run 2 - 848FPS / 826FPS
Run 3 - 824FPS / 850FPS


Phenom 9950 - Quake III Arena 1280x1024x32 noAA

Demo FOUR.DM68
Run 1 - 596FPS
Run 2 - 611FPS
Run 3 - 603FPS


Phenom II 940 - Quake III Arena 1280x1024x32 noAA

Demo FOUR.DM68
Run 1 - 680FPS
Run 2 - 672FPS
Run 3 - 680FPS



Phenom 9950 - Quake III Arena 1600x1200x32 noAA

Demo FOUR.DM68
Run 1 - 586FPS
Run 2 - 596FPS
Run 3 - 601FPS


Phenom II 940 - Quake III Arena 1600x1200x32 noAA

Demo FOUR.DM68
Run 1 - 662FPS
Run 2 - 672FPS
Run 3 - 668FPS



----> SUMMARY<----




First impression is very positive! Just look at LOAD power consumption between Phenom 9950 and 940. What's amazing is that at 3GHz old CPU needs as much juice in IDLE as new one FULL LOAD!
Then there is undervolting and another big surprise. This CPU can reliably operate at only 0.8V 1.2GHz. I have tried 1.4GHz but this ended up by BSOD.
In my short performance review I've tried to use applications different than rest of my colleagues. But even old games like Q2/Q3 and applications improved IPC by 5-15%! Newer applications which are designed with SSE and larger caches in mind can extract even greater boost from tweaks AMD did to Phenom II!
I'm really happy with my new CPU and finally I can utilize this great motherboard in a way I was intending from beginning.

Quick few words about OC. HTT clocking is much easier with new Phenom II, I've struggled to get 230HTT on older CPU, but 267HTT was quite easy with new processor. AOD is working great, except a bug with false clock reading, but this can be fixed by loading BIOS defaults. I'm still exploring limits of my sample on AIR, but so far 3.8GHz CPU 2.9GHz NB looks to be stable. 3.93GHz Cinebench stable for now and finally 4GHz+ only for SuperPi or other single threaded apps.

I hope you enjoyed my tests and that it will help few people make their minds!

[BertM]

argh 40 links :p
no problem with me if you show all the pics in this thread, im to lazy at saturday evening
how much power consumption does it take less if you bench the deneb at 1.3 volt at 3ghz?
ah k your still editting. 3 watt less, didnt expect that. cpu probably takes 95-85 watt there.

here is another stock voltage from me
( overdrive showed wrong values in its right colomn so i put cpuz over that to prevent confusion.

[crazydiamond]

can you get all cores @ 3.7 stock v's stable?

[BertM]

no i cant get them all there but 3410 seemed good for 30 minutes prime
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=949
im interest for now only in stock voltage oc's or little above or below stock voltage.
atm im priming 3410 at 2200 northbridge. this resulted in 20.234 superpi.
edit: ah bah error after 4 minutes, enough for today.

Special for BertM
Phenom II 3GHz/1.32V after 40min. full load - 233Watt
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4...z233w13pb3.png

[Lightman]

no i cant get them all there but 3410 seemed good for 30 minutes prime
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=949
im interest for now only in stock voltage oc's or little above or below stock voltage.
atm im priming 3410 at 2200 northbridge. this resulted in 20.234 superpi.
edit: ah bah error after 4 minutes, enough for today.

I've done 1h OCCT @3.4GHz NB2.2GHz stock volts




Now it's time to clock this baby!
I will report shortly ...

[BertM]

did you use more voltage on the northbridge ?
i upped the nb core a notch, the nb vid seems stuck.

[Lightman]

did you use more voltage on the northbridge ?
i upped the nb core a notch, the nb vid seems stuck.

No, not yet. I've just changed NB multi to 11x in BIOS.

[BertM]

ah yes that seems longer stable now.
i used 10 multi and higher htt 215 or something. that was not stable.

edit: i could be mistaken but cpu seems to be cooler at htt around 200.
im now priming 3535mhz with 2222mhz nb and 202mhz htt.
this was 19.6 seconds superpi.
it could also be that this mobo doesnt like to be high htt stable. i noticed that with the 5000be.

[Lightman]

Before I went to bed I've did quick OC session and managed:
220HTT / 3740MHz(1.46V) cores / 2420MHz(1.225V) NB - 15min stable (played Crisis, CB2003x64, CB R10x64, SuperPi, etc...)
200HTT / 3820MHz(1.46V) cores / 2212MHz(1.225) NB - 10min stable (played same games as above )

Then as a final move before leaving to bed I've looked for 1.46V clock limits and set CPU to 4070MHz - 5 sec. and reboot
Looks like I will need more volts for 4GHz ...
Will see tomorrow

[-= rtz =-]

Lightman, nice work, keep it coming
Only one thing missing, I either dont see it cause its 2 AM or its really not there, your type of cooling? And some temps would be nice too

[G0ldBr1ck]

Thanks Lightman. Good work

[Stuen4y]

Lightman, all I can give you is a and a for the good work.
P.S. Can you do some WinRAR tests with both cpus?

[Lightman]

Lightman, nice work, keep it coming
Only one thing missing, I either dont see it cause its 2 AM or its really not there, your type of cooling? And some temps would be nice too

Now it's there
Cooling AIR TT120Ultra + 1 120mm FAN 12V (ambient temp 18C-21C, further down the page, warmer in my room )

Thanks Lightman. Good work

Thanks G0ldBr1ck

Lightman, all I can give you is a and a for the good work.
P.S. Can you do some WinRAR tests with both cpus?

Stuen4y


Unfortunately P9950 is already on my desk. Beauty of this runs was exact same system and I have only one DQ6
So for comparing WinRAR too late, but I've selected tests which mAJORD and BenBrown not used in their great comparisons. They did WinRAR .
One thing I can add is CinemaR10 x64 under Vista. ---> Updated in review!