Concerning the TUF series, to which the Sabertooth 990FX from ASUS belongs, the manufacturer promises durability thanks to the use of high quality components. Furthermore this thing comes with a camouflage look, which in an elegant way, addresses a certain niche of gamers and in general users who demand quality. 
The Sabertooth 990FX belongs to ASUS' TUF-series motherboards regarding which the manufacturer focuses on the boards durability. As always we're very curious what this thing is capable of from a layout and design perspective.
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Specifications / Delivery
| CPU | AMD AM3+ FX/Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron 100 Series Processors |
| Chipset | AMD 990FX/SB950 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR3 1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz |
| Multi-GPU | Supports NVIDIA Quad-GPU SLI Technology Supports AMD Quad-GPU CrossFireX Technology |
| Slots | 3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual x16 or x16, x8,
x 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) 1 x PCIe 2.0 x1 1 x PCI |
| Audio | Realtek ALC892, 7.1 Channel |
| Storage | 6 x SATA 6Gb/s port (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) 2 x SATA 3Gb/s port 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s port 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s port |
| I/O internal / Connectors | 1 x USB 3.0 2 x USB 2.0 1 x COM port 6 x SATA 6Gb/s 2 x SATA 3Gb/s 1 x IEEE 1394a 1 x CPU Fan connector 4 x Chassis Fan connector 1 x Optional Fan connector 1 x S/PDIF out header 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x Front panel audio connector 1 x System panel 1 x MemOK! button 1 x Clear CMOS jumper |
| I/O external | 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port(s) 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s 1 x Power eSATA 3Gb/s 1 x IEEE 1394a 1 x LAN (RJ45) port 2 x USB 3.0 10 x USB 2.0 1 x Optical S/PDIF out 6 x Audio jack |
| Formfactor | ATX (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm) |
| BIOS | 64Mb Flash ROM, EFI AMI BIOS GUI |
| Warranty | 3 years |
Regarding the delivery you find everything you need. Next numerous manuals there is a SLI bridge, SATA cables, a Q-connector as well as an I/O shield. The one thing we mess is the CrossFire bridge.
Features
| TUF Thermal Armor | The TUF Thermal Armor is a thermal design for the entire motherboard, not just for selected critical areas. It safeguards the system against hot air generated by connected cards and components, keeping temperatures low. With its integrated shunt design, the Thermal Armor improves air circulation, directing it towards important components. It effectively conducts hot air away and out of the case through special airflow channels, contributing to enhanced system stability and extending component lifespan. |
| TUF Thermal Radar | The TUF Thermal Radar monitors temps in critical parts of the motherboard in real time, automatically adjusting fan speeds to make sure the system maintains high stability without overheating. It consists of multiple sensors for various components on the motherboard, giving users the ability to monitor each one individually. The Thermal Radar automatically calculates ideal fan speeds based on different parameters selected by users for each component, keeping everything cooler and longer lasting. |
| Digi+ VRM | Meanwhile ASUS also provides its boards with digital power designs. Using the the right software, in this case ASUS DIGI+ VRM Utility it is not only possible to adjust voltages whilst being in Windows on can now also control impedances. |
| ASUS Update | Allows us to check and update the latest available BIOS directly from ASUS website. |
| ASUS FAN Xpert | FAN Xpert allows you to adjust both the CPU and chassis fan speeds according to different ambient temperatures and your PC's system loading. The various fan profiles affer flexible controls of fan speed to achieve a quiet and cool system environment. |
| ASUS MyLogo | Allow you to change the POST Logo at system startup with any pic you want. |
| ASUS TurboV EVO | Allows you to overclock the bus frequency, CPU voltage, IMC voltage and DRAM Bus voltage in Windows and takes effect in realtime without exiting and rebooting the OS. |
| ASUS DIGI+ VRM | Meanwhile ASUS also provides its boards with digital power designs. Using the the right software, in this case ASUS DIGI+ VRM Utility it is not only possible to adjust voltages whilst being in Windows on can now also control impedances. |
| ASUS TPU | As soon as one activates the TPU this chips monitors all possible voltages and clock speeds using the according software. The difference to the EPU is that TPU will provide as much performance as possible. Therefore it can increase clock speeds and voltages. |
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[pagebreak]
Layout
The Sabertooth 990FX comes in the typcial military look ASUS provided their TUF series motherboards with. Therefore the manufacturer uses colors like olive-green, black and grey. Generally it is the goal to achieve a look that automatically suggests that this is a high quality and "tough" product. The different cooling blocks also consist of ceramic. Altogether ASUS succeeded in generating a homogenous look but one really needs to like the color scheme and we think that not everybody will enjoy the military looks.
ASUS provided their latest TUF board with a digital power design, whereas the CPU gets eight phases and the memory gets two phases. Looking at the capacitors themselves you'll find ML caps around the CPU socket. These multilayer polymer capacitors offer advantages over ceramic capacitors. Therefore super ML caps remain stable under regular as well as AC voltage, doesn't have an aging mechanism and are resilient under thermal shock.
Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX. Officially supported are DDR3 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz with up to 32 GByte capacity. There is plenty of space to install even big aircoolers and they shouldn't interfere with memory.
The current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The southbridge got a passive cooling block which has not been integrated into the heatpipe loop of northbridge and VRM. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks and their weight which is quite immense.
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Anschlüsse und I/O
Totally ASUS equipped the Sabertooth 990FX with eight angled SATA ports which should be enough for any office PC or gaming system. Unfortunately you won't find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons. ASUS also didn't equip the Sabertooth 990FX with a debug display which would have been useful if you should once have issues with one of the components in your system. It is quite common that the last PCI-Express x16 slot is also the expansion slot the closest to the bottom edge of the board. That has the consequence that the connectors at this place aren't accessible anymore. With the Sabertooth 990FX you find this very scenario.
Totally you'll find six fan headers on the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped midrange or even a high-end-system with fresh air. The fanheaders are located around the CPU and their also spread over the whole board which makes them easily accessible from any position in an enclosure.
Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the Sabertooth 990FX with two USB 3.0/2.0 ports, ten USB 2.0 port, two eSATA 3 Gbps ports, one gigabit ethernet port, one firewire port and an analogue audio panel as well as an optical out.
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[pagebreak]
BIOS
What you're meanwhile getting with every single board that can be use for overclocking is the feature to save and afterwards reload different BIOS profiles. Once again ASUS succeeded in creating another very well structured BIOS. Furthermore all the new ASUS boards come with a graphical UEFI-BIOS which allows a navigation via mouse. These day one can undoubtedly say that ASUS is setting the standard when it comes to BIOSes which can be configured easily. Other manufacturers can only try to catch up at the moment.Discuss this article in the forums
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Test Setup
Hardware |
|
| Motherboards |
|
| 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) |
| Graphic card | nVidia GTX 285 |
| Hard Disk | Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500 Gigabyte |
| Power supply | Corsair HX850 (850 Watt) |
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 |
| 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 | 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 Crosshair IV Extreme | 17'471 | 101.83 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 17'421 | 101.54 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 17'267 | 100.65 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 17'262 | 100.62 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 17'256 | 100.58 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 17'164 | 100.05 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 17'156 | 100.00 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 17'053 | 99.40 % |
| 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 |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 5'835 | 103.04 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 5'803 | 102.47 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 5'802 | 102.45 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 5'792 | 102.28 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 5'746 | 101.46 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 5'693 | 100.81 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 5'663 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 5'663 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 5'657 | 99.89 % |
| 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 | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 13'009 | 100.69 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 12'960 | 100.31 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 12'945 | 100.19 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 12'924 | 100.03 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 12'920 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 12'884 | 99.72 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 12'862 | 99.55 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 12'857 | 99.51 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12'792 | 99.01 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 12'760 | 98.76 % |
| Higher is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | Marks | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 16'747 | 103.21 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 16'724 | 103.07 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 16'657 | 102.66 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 16'592 | 102.26 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 16'543 | 101.95 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 16'527 | 101.86 % |
| 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 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 16'194 | 99.80 % |
| 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 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 75.15 | 98.56 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 74.56 | 97.88 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 74.49 | 97.79 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 74.08 | 97.25 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 72.47 | 95.14 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 70.58 | 92.66 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 65.33 | 85.77 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 65.30 | 85.73 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 63.00 | 82.71 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| Whetstone | GFLOPS | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 56.00 | 100.38 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 56.00 | 100.38 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 55.86 | 100.12 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 55.79 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 55.76 | 99.94 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 55.74 | 99.91 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 55.62 | 99.70 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 55.56 | 99.59 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 55.50 | 99.48 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 55.35 | 99.57 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Multimedia
| Integer | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 83.39 | 100.23 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 83.36 | 100.19 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 83.33 | 100.15 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 83.30 | 100.12 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 83.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 83.10 | 99.88 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 83.00 | 99.76 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 83.00 | 99.76 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 82.86 | 99.59 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | MPixels/sec | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 137.24 | 101.24 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 137.19 | 101.20 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 136.00 | 100.32 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 135.86 | 100.22 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 135.80 | 100.18 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 135.70 | 100.10 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 135.56 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 135.38 | 99.87 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 135.35 | 99.84 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 135.34 | 99.84 % |
| Higher is better | ||
Crytography
| AES 256 | MByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 980 | 101.03 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 979 | 100.93 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 977 | 100.72 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 977 | 100.72 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 976 | 100.62 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 976 | 100.62 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 974 | 100.41 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 971 | 100.10 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 971 | 100.10 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 970 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| SHA 256 | MByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 883 | 101.38 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 882 | 101.26 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 882 | 101.26 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 881 | 101.15 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 880 | 101.03 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 879 | 100.92 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 878 | 100.80 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 878 | 100.80 % |
| 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 | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 14.29 | 145.22 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 14.24 | 144.71 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 13.10 | 133.13 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 12.70 | 129.06 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 9.84 | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| floating point | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 14.30 | 145.33 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 14.24 | 144.71 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 13.00 | 132.11 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 13.00 | 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 Crosshair IV Extreme | 70.40 | 92.39 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 72.50 | 95.14 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 75.60 | 99.21 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 75.50 | 99.08 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 76.20 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 76.30 | 100.13 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 78.20 | 102.62 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 80.20 | 105.25 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.00 | 106.30 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 85.90 | 112.73 % |
| Lower is better | ||
Memory and cache access
| Memory and cache access | GByte/s | Percent |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 85.84 | 105.84 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 85.00 | 104.81 % |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 84.48 | 104.17 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 83.87 | 103.41 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 83.00 | 102.34 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 81.70 | 100.74 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 81.30 | 100.24 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 81.10 | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 81.14 | 100.05 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 80.70 | 99.50 % |
| 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.
Super Pi 1M
| SuperPi Mod 1.5 XS 1M | sec | Percent |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 21.341 | 98.77 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 21.357 | 98.85 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 21.403 | 99.06 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 21.481 | 99.42 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 21.531 | 99.65 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 21.563 | 99.80 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 21.590 | 99.93 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 21.606 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 21.642 | 100.17 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 21.653 | 100.22 % |
| 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 | sec | Percent |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 8.143 | 98.86 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 8.237 | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 8.269 | 100.39 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 8.344 | 101.30 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 8.345 | 101.31 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 8.502 | 103.22 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 8.515 | 103.38 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 8.531 | 103.57 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 8.656 | 105.09 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 8.734 | 106.03 % |
| 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 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 | Percent | |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 120.40 fps | 102.86 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 123.32 fps | 105.36 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 119.21 fps | 101.85 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 118.78 fps | 101.48 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 118.68 fps | 101.39 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 118.61 fps | 101.33 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 118.30 fps | 101.07 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 117.05 fps | 100.00 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 111.22 fps | 95.02 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 113.25 fps | 96.75 % |
| 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 DX9 800 x 600, low details | Percent | |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 134.0 fps | 109.84 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 133.2 fps | 109.18 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 130.9 fps | 107.29 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 130.1 fps | 106.64 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 129.5 fps | 106.15 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 127.9 fps | 104.83 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 124.3 fps | 101.88 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 122.0 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 121.5 fps | 99.59 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 120.4 fps | 98.69 % |
| 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 | Percent | |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 596.11 fps | 109.41 % |
| Asus Crosshair IV Extreme | 566.52 fps | 103.98 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 544.85 fps | 100.00 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 527.78 fps | 96.87 % |
| Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P | 518.49 fps | 95.16 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 517.81 fps | 95.04 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 516.37 fps | 94.77 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 515.90 fps | 94.69 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 503.59 fps | 92.47 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 491.83 fps | 90.27 % |
| Higher is better | ||
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Overclocking
Bus frequency overclocking
| CPU Overclocking | CPU Freq | Percent |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 4'362 MHz | 107.70 % |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 4'350 MHz | 107.41 % |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 4'350 MHz | 107.41 % |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo | 4'306 MHz | 106.32 % |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 4'275 MHz | 105.55 % |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 4'100 MHz | 101.23 % |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 4'090 MHz | 100.99 % |
| ASUS M4A78T-E | 4'050 MHz | 100.00 % |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2) | 4'050 MHz | 100.00 % |
| Higher is better | ||
| Motherboard | SuperPi 1M | Average % | |
| ASUS M5A99X Evo OC | 16.209 sec | 93.77 % | |
| DFI LanParty DK 790FXB-M3H5 | 16.224 sec | 93.86 % | |
| ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme | 16.256 sec | 94.05 % | |
| ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 16.284 sec | 94.21 % | |
| ECS A890GXM-A2 | 16.380 sec | 94.76 % | |
| ASRock M3A790GXH/128M | 17.203 sec | 99.53 % | |
| ASUS Sabertooth 990FX | 17.273 sec | 99.93 % | |
| ASUS M4A78-HTPC (DDR2-800-CL4) | 17.285 sec | 100.00 % | |
| more is better | |||
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Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| The Sabertooth 990FX generally is an interesting board. In combination with a down-draft CPU cooler this motherboard will be cooled very efficiently. This will, as a consequence, extend the components lifespan. With the "Thermal Radar" the Sabertooth 990FX offers good possibilities to control the temperatures and airflow in your case. Using the corresponding software one can control the fans connected to the board and therefore realize highly efficient cooling. | - Design - Cooling concept |
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| Layout | + | - | |
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Generally the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX layout is well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors. Unfortunately there are no practical power/reset buttons onboard and also for a debug LED you'd be looking in vain. Unfortunately the last expansion slots is a PCI-Express x16 slot, which means that if you choose to install a dual slots graphics card at this place you're going to cover the connectors at the bottom edge of the board. |
- Angled SATA connectors | - No Power/Reset-Button onboard - NoDebug display |
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| Performance | + | - | |
| Only in SiSoft Sandra and there only in the multimedia floating point test this board was able to deliver good performance. In ever other benchmarks the Sabertooth 990FX lacks behind and really hasn't been able to convince. This thing really is one of the few board we've tested so far which simply doesn't offer the level of performance you would expect. | - Futuremark - Sandra - SuperPi - wPrime - Games |
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| BIOS / Overclocking | + | - | |
| Also in the overclocking part the Sabertooth 990FX wasn't a convincing product. We were only able to reach 4'090 MHz with this board whereas other products have been easily capable of running our test CPU with way more than 4'300 MHz. Although it is childrens play to set the different parameters used in the BIOS or comfortably via the delivered software this didn't help to improve the overall result either. | - Well structured BIOS - UEFI-BIOS | - Not even 4'100 MHz CPU clock | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you want to buy a board with a camouflage look and you are not demanding when it comes to overall performance then the Sabertooth 990FX could be worth a thought for a gaming PC. Regarding every other possible scenario wouldn't recommend this board. | - Enthusiast-PC - Desktop-PC |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the Sabertooth 990FX deficient two out of five stars. | |||
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Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch