With the A890GXM-A2, ECS has a well equipped AMD 890 based motherboard in its portfolio. The board itself comes with a nice design and a well thought layout. Also the feature list is quite long and therefore let's see what this thing is capable of.
This review is unfortunately not complete. It lacks comparisons with previous motherboards, this is due to the changes in the test setup. We cannot compare the results of this review with previous reviews. However, we will redo the reviews of other AMD motherboards as soon as possible and add the results with the new test setup and the results of future tests.
ECS' latest high-end AMD board belongs to their the Black Series. Based on the current high-end chipset from AMD, the 890GX. It differs from the 890FX in it's integrated graphic part and a smaller manufacturing process (45nm instead of 55nm). This board supports all recent technological innovations such as CrossFire, Hybrid CrossFire High Definition Audio 7.1 and SATA3/USB3
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Specifications
| CPU Support | AMD AM3 Phenom II AMD AM3 Athlon II AMD Sempron 140 / 145 |
| Chipset | NortBridge: AMD 890GX SouthBridge: AMD SB850 |
| IGP | ATI Radeon HD 4290 (DirectX 10.1) up to 512MB shared memory |
| Memory Support | Dual Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR3, 1800(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered |
| Multi-GPU | ATI CrossFireX (8x, 8x, 4x) ATI Hybrid Graphics |
| Slots | 3 x PCI Express Gen 2,0 x16 (16x, 0x, 4x) (8x, 8x, 4x,) 1 x PCI Express x1 1 x PCI |
| Audio | Realtek ALC829 8 Channel High Definition |
| Storage | 5 x SATA3 (SATA 6Gb/s) 1 x eSATA2 (SATA 3Gb/s) RAID 0,1,5,10 |
| LAN | 2 x Realtek 8111DL 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet |
| Back panel I/O |
|
| Internal Connectors |
|
| BIOS |
|
| Form Factor | ATX 305 x 244mm |
| Bundle |
|
Software
| eJIFFY | Little OS (to install on the HDD), accessed after the POST. It allows use to brows the web, to chat, and to watch pics from an HDD or an USB stick. |
| eOC | Overclocking and monitoring (voltages and temperatures) software from Windows. |
| eBLU | Allows us to check and update the latest available BIOS directly from ECS website. |
| eDLU | Allows us to check and update the latest available drivers directly from ECS website. |
| eSF | Fan regulator under Windows. |
| eGS | Using eGS you can reduce the consumption of the system. |
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Presentaion / Layout / I/O / Bundle
Presentation
The ECS A890GXM-A2 comes on a black PCB with grey, white and one black expansion slot. Furthermore the different coolers are kept in the same colors which creates a very homogenous look that is pleasing for ones eye.
Layout
For
once we find a single heatsink that takes care of cooling both mosfets as well
as northbridge.
It's pretty rare that a single block is taking care of mosfet and northbridge
cooling. Normally this is done via two distinct heatsinks.
On the following picture we can see the four DDR3 Slots that come arranged in
pairs. The board supports Dual-Channel and the memory will be plugged into the
DIMM-Slots one directly by another without any space inbetween. This might
affect the memory temperature especially when one plans to overclock them.
Definitely a plus point for the layout is the fact that the first two PCI-e
slots are quite far from eachother. This is very useful for a CrossFire setup
where the two cards can become really hot when they're right next to eachother.
Furthermore there is also one PCI-e x1 which can be use for additional expansion
cards.
Reset and power button are also very well placed. You can access them in almost every situation. What would have been very useful too is a CLR_CMOS button to erase the BIOS.
I/O
The rear panel is very well equipped. It has got a digital as well as an analogue video connector. Furthermore you'll even find an HDMI connector and a display port. So there really is everything you could possibly need. For high-end's sake, we find a button clear_cmos available directly outside the box. The rest is pretty standard, there are 4 USB2, 2 USB3, a Firewire connector, two ethernet ports and an audio panel with an optical out.
ECS equipped the A890GXM-A2 with a total of five SATA3 connectors but unfortunately there are no USB3 ports for a front panel. But never the less there are four internal USB2 connectors.
At this point one can see the three different fan connectors. Normally there are at least four fan headers on a gaming motherboard. Not that you would use all of them the reason is also that the different fans can be connected easily.
Bundle
The A890GXM-A2s delivery includes everything you need to put our configuration in place. Therefore you find a manual (available only in English, even on the manufacturer's website), an installation guide (available in all languages), four SATA3 cables, eSATA bracket cable, cover for the rear panel and four plastic covers for all rear video connectors. Although it lacks a CrossFire bridge you might forgive ECS because of the boards very competitive price.
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BIOS
The following settings are used in the whole test except in the overclocking section.
The BIOS is
almost complete, and is quite good for aircooling and/or watercooling overclocking.
However we notice two huge negative points:
- The different frequencies are not synchronised with the bus. For example if we have a bus of 200 mhz and the processor at 2000 mhz (the multiplier is 10). But if you increase the bus at 280MHz, the processor will always be written running at 2000 MHz and yet it will be at 2800 MHz (10 x 280 MHz). It's the same for the RAM and Northbridge HT.
- You cannot save settings in profiles. So if you miss overclocking or if the BIOS crash, we must all act together without exception.
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Test Setup
Hardware |
|
| Motherboard |
|
| Processor
Cooling System Thermal compound |
AMD Phenom II 1090T BE Noctua NH-D14 Artic Silver Ceramique |
| Memory | 4 GB Mushkin Redline PC3-12800 6-8-6-24 1600 Mhz 8-8-8-24(Default) 1333 Mhz 8-8-8-24(SuperPi) 1333 Mhz 7-7-7-21(SuperPi) |
| Graphic card Driver |
Nvidia GTX 285 2x nVidia GTX 275 OC 197.45 |
| Hard Disk | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500 Go |
| Power supply | Corsair HX850 (850 Watt) |
| Case | Sunbeam Ultra-Tech Station Acrylic Case |
The
ambient temperature during the tests was: 24°C
Benchmarks:
- 3DMark06: Default settings
- 3DMark Vantage: Default settings
- SiSoft Sandra: Sandra Lite 2011a (17.20) Default settings
- SuperPi: 1M and 32M
- WPrime: 32M and 1024M
Crysis (Benchmark CPU and GPU) |
|
| Quality | Low |
| Resolution | 800x600 |
| AntiAliasing | No AA |
| Demo Loop | 3 |
| Time of Delay | 9 |
| DX9 | Enable |
Street Fighter IV |
|
| Display FPS | Disable |
| AntiAliasing | Without |
| Resolution | 800x600 |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| V-Sync | Disable |
| Frame Rate | Variable |
| Aspect Correction | Auto |
| Brightness | 50 |
| Parallel Rendering | Enable |
| Texture Filter | Disable |
| Model Quality | Low |
| Background Quality | Low |
| Soft Shadows | Disable |
| Self Shadows | Disable |
| Motion Blur | Disable |
| Particles | Low |
| Extra Touch[/en | [en]Disable |
Resident Evil 5 |
|
| Resolution | 800 x 600 |
| Display Mode | Full Screen |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz |
| V-Sync | Disable |
| Frame Rate | Variable |
| AntiAliasing | Without |
| Motion Blur | Disable |
| Shadow Detail | Low |
| Texture Detail | Low |
| Overall Quality | Low |
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Futuremark
3DMark06
3DMark 06 is getting older these days. Therefore if you are using really powerful graphic cards you will hit CPU limitation which means that the graphic card isn't the bottleneck in the system. This is also the reason why in recent high-end desktop systems 3DMark 06 scales nicely with the CPU and the graphic card has much less influence on the scores.
Total
| 3DMark 06 Total | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 17'156 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 17'054 | 99.40 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16'866 | 98.31 % |
| Higher is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark 06 CPU | Marks | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 5'693 | 100.81 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 5'663 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 5'647 | 99.71 % |
| Higher is better | ||
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.
Total
| 3DMark Vantage Total | Percent | |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 12'920 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 12'884 | 99.72 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12'792 | 99.01 % |
| Higher is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | Marks | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16'390 | 101.01 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 16'286 | 100.37 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 16'226 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 1
SiSoft Sandra is a theoretical multi purpose benchmark suite which is able to show differences in CPU architectures. We split the tests with SiSoft Sandra into two parts. Therefore on this page you'll find Arithmetic-, Multimedia- and Cryptography-benchmarks.
Arithmetic Benchmark
| Dhrystone | GIPS | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 76.17 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 74.49 | 97.79 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 70.58 | 92.66 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| Whetstone | GFLOPS | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 55.79 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 55.56 | 99.59 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 55.35 | 99.57 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Multimedia
| Integer | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.2 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 83.20 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 82.86 | 99.59 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 135.56 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 135.38 | 99.87 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 135.34 | 99.84 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Crytography
| AES 256 | Mo/s | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 974 | 100.41 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 971 | 100.10 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 970 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| SHA 256 | Mo/s | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 879 | 100.92 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 878 | 100.80 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 871 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 2
At this point we deliver the values regarding Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency as well as Memory and Cache Access.
Memory bandwidth
| Integer | Go/s | Percent |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13 | 132.11 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12.7 | 129.06 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 9.84 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | Go/s | Percent |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13 | 132.11 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12.75 | 129.57 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 9.84 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Memory latency
| Memory latency | ns | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 76.2 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.0 | 106.57 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 85.9 | 88.71 % |
| Lower is better | ||
Memory and cache access
| Memory and cache access | Go/s | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.87 | 103.41 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 81.10 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.14 | 100.05 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Super Pi 1M / 32M, wPrime
Meanwhile Super Pi even in its latest version has become pretty old. Never the less it is able to show scaling to the clock speed nicely. Following we will also run Super Pi with different memory frequencies as well as different latencies. This shows the influence of the memory subsystem.
1* : DDR3 1600Mhz, 8-8-8-24 / DDR2 1066Mhz, 5-5-5-15
2* : DDR3 1333Mhz, 8-8-8-24 / DDR2 800Mhz, 5-5-5-15
3* : DDR3 1333Mhz, 7-7-7-21 / DDR2 800Mhz, 4-4-4-12
Super Pi 1M
| SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS 1M | 1* / 2* / 3* | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 21.606s / 21.621s / 21.591s | 100.00 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 21.590s / 21.699s / 21.637s | 100.16 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 21.653s / 21.700s / 21.653s | 102.34 % |
| lower is better | ||
wPrime 32M
wPrime is based on a multithreaded algorithm to calculate the square root to up to 32 billion digits. Therefore it is possible to put 100 percent load on every core or thread and to see differences between architectures.
| WPrime v1.55 32M | 1* / 2* / 3* | Percent |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 8.143s / 8.190s / 8.190s | 96.54 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 8.237s / 8.580s / 8.362s | 100.00 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 8.656s / 8.221s / 8.858s | 102.28 % |
| lower is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Games
Crysis DX9 800 x 600, low details
Crysis is still one of the games which has very high system requirements. Therefore developer Crytek implemented Direct3D-10-API, High-Dynamic-Range-Rendering, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Soft Shadows, Motion Blur, Depth of Field as well as Soft Particles. We test Crysis by using DirectX9 as well as DirectX10 to show CPU-sacaling especially which low resolutions. If we look at the high resolutions we are able to spot that the CPUs influence compared to the graphic card becomes much less important.
| Crysis DX9 800 x 600, low details | GPU / CPU | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 117.05fps / 160.01fps | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 111.22fps / 150.51fps | 94.54 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 113.25fps / 140.68fps | 92.31 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Resident Evil 800 x 600, low details
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX9 as well as the DirectX10 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.
| Resident Evil 800 x 600, low details | Average | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 130.9 fps | 107.29 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 124.3 fps | 101.88 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 122.0 fps | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Street Fighter 4 800 x 600, low details
Street Fighter 4 comes with an extra benchmark version which makes testing you system childrens play. At low resolutions the system requirements are pretty low and we can see CPU-scaling in the results. At high resolution the graphic card becomes more important and the CPUs clock speed has less influence on the fps.
| Street Fighter 4 800 x 600, low details | Average | Percent |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 544.85 fps | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 516.37 fps | 94.77 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 503.59 fps | 92.47 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Software ECS
Note: The following softwares has been installed from the disc supplied in the box and it has not been updated.
eJIFFY
eJIFFY is ECS' little OS (to install on the HDD), accessed after the POST. It allows use to brows the web, to chat, and to watch pics from an HDD or an USB stick
This OS works good, fast and fluid,
is effective if you have a disk drive (HDD) with a heavy Windows installation.
But for one who has got an SSD eJIFFY it becomes useless because it will provide the same loading
time and offers fewer features than Windows.
eOC
Software for overclocking and monitoring voltages and temperatures within Windows
This software is very effective, it changes the voltage of the following components: CPU, RAM, Northbridge, Southbridge as well as SidePort and of course, the bus frequency.
It also allows an efficient monitoring of both voltages and temperatures for all critical elements of the system.
In addition it also integrates the profiles and you can load them when you start Windows.
eBLU
Allows us to check and update the latest available bios directly from ECS website
This software is very easy to use. You just have to click ''check for update'' and it connects to ECS to check if there is a new BIOS available. For example, here it has found one. The BIOS update was run without any problems.
eDLU
Allows us to check and update the latest available drivers directly from ECS website
It is very trivial, but effective. This application just opens the download page of A890GXM-A2 on the ECS site and shows you the latest drivers and software.
eSf
Allows you the regulate fan speeds within Windows
With this application you can regulate fanspeeds. Different presets and modes make the software look quite complicated. It is also important to know that you have to activate the "Smart Fan" option in the BIOS to make this work properly.
eGS
Using eGS you can reduce the consumption of the system.
There are 3 modes avaiable for this application, auto, normal and GreenSaver.
| Mode | idle | Load under WPrime | WPrime Score |
| Auto | 96 Watt | 188 Watt | 8,596s |
| Normal | 96 Watt | 189 Watt | 8,596s |
| GreenSaver | 96 Watt | 188 Watt | 8,58s |
Unfortunately we haven't been able to see any effect at all (even loading default settings in the BIOS).
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Temperatures
The following temperatures are maximum values while running 3DMark Vantage Performance.
- A: Ambient temperature
- B: The probe is between 2 MOSFets
- C: The probe is betweent 2 fins of the MOSFETs heatsink
- D: The probe is between 2 fins of the NorthBridge heatsink
- E: Temperature of the NorthBridge according to HWMonitor (same with eOC)
| Motherboard | A | B | C | D | E |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Stock | 24°C | 44.2°C | 40.7°C | 40.7°C | 37°C |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 Stock | 24°C | 49.3°C | 36.6°C | 40.6°C | 40°C |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) Stock | 24°C | 52°C | N/A | 39.4°C | 40.1°C |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 OC | 24°C | 61°C | 40.8°C | 43.1°C | 43°C |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) OC | 24°C | 65°C | N/A | 43.1°C | 43°C |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 OC | 24°C | 63°C | 50°C | 44.9°C | 45°C |
| lower is better | |||||
The following temperatures were recorded by FurMark after three minutes of stability test. Both fans of the graphics cards have been set to 70 percent of their maximum rotation speed.
| Motherboard | GTX 275 on slot 1 | GTX 275 on slot 2 |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 87°C | 88°C |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 88°C | 88°C |
| lower is better | ||
The slot 1 is the 1 just below the socket. We can see that both cards has same temperatures, which is very good.
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Overclocking
Bus frequency overclocking
For
the following tests we started with the memory set to 1066 MHz with 8-8-8-24
timings at 1.65 Volt. To determine wether the system was stable or not we were
using the CPU test of Futuremarks 3DMark 06. To enter the different setting we
use both the BIOS as well as eOC from ECS (more info on the review's Thread in
the forum).
| Motherboard | CPUFreq | BusFreq | NBFreq | HTFreq | RamFreq |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Bus OC | 1'380 Mhz | 345 Mhz | 2'070 Mhz | 345 Mhz | 690 Mhz |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 Bus OC | 2'480 MHz | 310 MHz | 1'860 MHz | 620 MHz | 826 MHz |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) Bus OC | 1'355 Mhz | 271 Mhz | 1'084 Mhz | 271 Mhz | 452 Mhz |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 Bus @ Stock | 1'600 MHz | 200 MHz | 1'400 MHz | 200 MHz | 533 MHz |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) Bus Stock | 1'000 Mhz | 200 Mhz | 800 Mhz | 200 Mhz | 333 Mhz |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Bus Stock | 800 Mhz | 200 Mhz | 1'200 Mhz | 200 Mhz | 400 Mhz |
| Higher is better | |||||
Even with higher northbridge, Southbridge and memory voltages and further decreasing the NB and memory ratio, the board didn't pass the 310MHz. But never the less 310 MHz is an excellent result.
CPU Overclocking
For this test we kept
the previous settings:
- NBFreq : 7 x 200 MHz
- HTFreq : 2 x 200 Mhz
- MemoryFreq : 2.66 x 200 Mhz @ 8-8-8-24, 1.68 V
- CPUFreq : 16 x 200 Mhz
In this test we also used eOC as well as the BIOS to do the overclocking.
| CPU OverClocking | CPU Freq | Percent |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 4'350 | 107.41 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 4'275 | 105.55 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 4'050 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
The highest frequency which we reached stably was 4'275 MHz. Therefore we needed to provide the CPU with 1.5 Volt. To obtain overclocking results which are as comparable as possible we set northbridge and the HT multiplyer to 10. The memory frequency we tried to keep as close to 800 MHz as possible.
| Motherboard | 3DMark06 | 3DMark06 CPU | 3DMarkVantage | 3DMarkVantage CPU | SuperPi 1M | WPrime 32M | Average % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 OC | 20'633 | 7'454 | 13'425 | 21'407 | 16.224 sec | 6.271 sec | 125.45 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 OC | 20'623 | 7'475 | 13'501 | 21'075 | 16.380 sec | 6.287 sec | 124.99 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) OC | 20'135 | 7'026 | 13'383 | 20'130 | 17.285 sec | 6.784 sec | 119.32 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 Stock | 17'054 | 5'647 | 12'884 | 16'286 | 21.653 sec | 8.190 sec | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) Stock | 17'156 | 5'663 | 12'920 | 16'226 | 21.591 sec | 8.362 sec | 99.83 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 Stock | 16'866 | 5'693 | 12'792 | 16'390 | 21.590 sec | 8.656 sec | 99.09 % |
| more is better | less is better | ||||||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Radeon HD 4290
The following section shows you the performance and overclocking potential of the integrated Radeon HD 4290 graphics unit. Therefore we were using the latest Catalyst 10.11 driver. The screenshot below further shows you the different settings which can be change in the BIOS.
Catalyst Settings : Default
Overclocking from the Bios.
| Benchmarks Results | 3DMark06 Total | 3DMark Vantage GPU | Percent |
| HD 4290 900/800 (UMA + SidePort) | 2'575 | 416 | 133.47 % |
| HD 4290 700/800 (UMA) | 2'077 | 291 | 100.00 % |
| HD 3200 725/400 (UMA + 512MB) | 1'995 | 281 | 96.31 % |
| HD 3200 500/400 (UMA + 128MB) | 1'619 | 189 | 71.45 % |
| more is better | |||
Discuss this article in the forums [pagebreak]
Conclusion
| Overall | + | - | |
| The ECS A890GXM-A2 really is good value for money. What you get is a good looking motherboard with a well though layout. Furthermore it is fun for overclocking even the performance is on a good level. As an addition you even get the integrated graphics unit with a complete set of connectors. | - Performance - Design - Overclocking - Price USD 125 |
- BIOS | |
| Layout | + | - | |
| The layout has been very well thought. ECS didn't forget anything. You find for example a power and reset button onboard as well as a clr_coms button at the back. What we also appreciate is that there is a gap between the two PCIe slots. When you plan to set up a CrossFire system this is a big plus because the cards will get plenty of air for an appropriate cooling. | - Buttons - Space between PCIe slots - USB3 / SATA3 |
- No internal USB3 | |
| Performance | + | - | |
| Unfortunatly the changes regarding the test system leave us with values we cannot compare. However we can say that the overall performance is good and it a good basis for a gaming platform. | -
3D Performance - 2D Performance |
||
| Overclocking | + | - | |
| This is where the A890GXM-A2 really can convince. Especially overclocking the bus is quite a lot of fun. Therefore we reach 310 MHz which really is a good result. Additionally, the ECS software is very stable and complete. One can even change the voltage in Windows and it offers a complete monitoring toolset. However, we deeply regret that the BIOS is so unstable. This is the only major downside this board has. The Radeon HD 4290 overclocks pretty well (the average is around 1000 MHz) for the core. | - 310 MHz Reference Clock - Voltages | - BIOS frequencies
aren't synchronised - No profiles - 920 MHz - HD 4290 |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| The A890GXM-A2 definitely is a good choice for a gaming system or ones who wants to start overclocking. Paired up with a CPU that is good value for money one could also assemble a reasonable office PC. | -
Gaming-PC - 24/24 7/7 Overclocking |
- PC-Enthusiasts - Extreme Overclockers |
If the board didn't have such an unstable BIOS it would have well deserved five Stars
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Author :Christian Ney, c.ney@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated : Christian Ney, c.ney@ocaholic.ch & Marc Buechel, m.buechel@ocaholic.ch