Dragon Coming - Motherboard Review ECS A890GXM-A
Just a few weeks ago, the announcement of a new AMD chipset - 890GX. The OCClub.ru team is ready to share with you impressions of communication with the motherboard on the AMD 890GX chipset - ECS A890GXM-A. This product belongs to the Black Edition series, which should give us a guarantee of quality and high performance.
For a long time I didn’t have to meet ECS products on the Russian market. I hope that the release of the new chipset will help to break the stereotypes of most users and prove that the ECS 890GXM-A motherboard is worthy of a place in your computer.
')
On the front side of the package is a list of supported technologies and processors. The AM3 socket motherboard supports AMD Phenom II, Athlon II, Sempron processors, support for the new six-core AMD processors is also announced, the announcement of which will take place soon.
The technical characteristics of the board are described in more detail on the back:
- AMD890GX + SB850
- HT 3.0
- Dual DDR3 1800 (OC)
- Dual Gigabit LAN
- 3x PCI-E X16
- SATA III
- 8-channel HD Audio
The 890GX chipset was the first to be introduced from the eight hundredth AMD chipset line. Its distinguishing feature is the presence of integrated graphics, which is what the G letter in the chipset abbreviation Integrated G raphics Product tells us. And the combination of this chipset with the south bridge SB850 allows users to get the best performance of the integrated graphics core, the presence of two gigabit network adapters, and most importantly - support for SATA III.
The work of the chipset is clearly demonstrated on the above slide.
The motherboard is positioned in the price segment of 100-150 USD, so do not count on a rich package. Inside you will find everything you need - a user manual, installation instructions, a driver CD, 4 SATA cables, and a plug in the case.
The back panel features connectors: VGA, DVI, HDMI, Display Port, 6x USB, 1x eSATA, firewire, 2x Gigabit Ethernet LAN, and built-in 8.1 audio. Also there is a small pink button to reset the BIOS. The disadvantages can be attributed to the absence of a PS / 2 connector, due to which I had to go broke on a USB keyboard.)
The board has a fairly massive power cooling system. This was not done in vain, because during work I could not hold my fingers on the radiator for more than five seconds. Hence we can conclude that the temperature of the battery rises above the mark of 60-70 degrees Celsius. But on the other hand, this is explained by the integrated graphics core, so you shouldn’t be surprised at the board’s heating.
The color scheme of the board is chosen quite well. Two red and yellow memory slots for DDR3 standard remind us how to set the memory bars correctly in order to activate the dual channel mode. Let me remind you that, unlike Intel platforms, the memory strips are not important in the near or far slots they are inserted. For dual channel mode, memory bars must be installed in the same color slots.
On the motherboard, there are 5 SATA III ports capable of providing data rates up to 6 Gbit / s. One of the ports is pointing up, but when connected, it does not block the video card with a dual-slot cooling system.
The south bridge SB850 is hidden from our view by an aluminum radiator. The design of the radiator is typical, and there was no point in inventing something new. The heating of the south bridge is quite low, so the installed radiator is enough.
The board features three PCI-E x16 expansion slots, two PCI-E 1x, standard PCI slot and PCI-E x4 in orange. When installing one video card, the slot will work in PCI-E x16 mode, when installing two cards - PCI-E 8x + 8x, when installing three cards - 8x + 8x + 4x.
Test bench:
- AMD Phenom II processor 42 TWKR Black Edition
- cooling Xigmatek Achilles
- PowerColor HD5870 graphics card
- RAM 2x2Gb DDR3 Corsair Dominator GT 2000 MHz CL8
- hard drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500Gb
- power supply Enermax Revolution 1250W
The processor was overclocked to 3.6 GHz. The memory worked at 1600 MHz with CL7 7-7-21 1T timings at 1.6V.
Results:
Super Pi1M is a popular processor benchmark that calculates Pi numbers up to 1 million decimal places by the CPU. 19,329 with - for so many coped with the task our system.
WinRar archiving test gives a heavy load on the memory controller, which very well allows you to check the system for stability. The result - 2350 Kb / s
CrystalMark - a comprehensive benchmark system, it reflects the performance of the entire system as a whole. The result is 208212 points. For the AMD platform, I did not see more results in this test.
Well, slowly move on to the weaknesses. The read / write speed of memory on Intel platforms with their three-channel controllers on AMD systems is still far away.
3DMark Vantage has always been the domain of Intel, so you shouldn’t be surprised at the poor results in this test.
In 3DMark06, the result is quite natural. Slightly less than 20k parrots, but overclocking a video card will help to easily overcome this milestone.
But in real gaming benchmarks, the situation is completely different. The average FPS in Heaven 2 (the only benchmark with DirectX11 support) was 46.3. On a similar top-end system from Intel, you can get approximately the same result. Just calculate the cost of both platforms.)
Well, literally a couple of tests integrated graphics. On the Radeon HD4290 you can safely play the games of 2005 with the maximum settings in the resolution of 1280x1024.
And in current applications, the integrated core is very hard.
Although, I think that you will agree with me that no one plans to play on such a graphics core in Crysis or Dirt2.
Conclusion
As a result, it is worth noting that the ECS product turned out to be productive and practically does not cause any complaints. The only downside that can stop a user when buying this board is the price. Judging by the European sites, the cost of the board will be from 100 euros, which is undoubtedly expensive for a motherboard with integrated graphics. Nevertheless, in Russia I have already found several 890GX boards on sale, and they are even more expensive. So it's too early to talk about prices. But in terms of functionality and equipment, everything is fine with the ECS motherboard, so we award the board the “Editor's Choice” award from the OCClub.ru team.
For a long time I didn’t have to meet ECS products on the Russian market. I hope that the release of the new chipset will help to break the stereotypes of most users and prove that the ECS 890GXM-A motherboard is worthy of a place in your computer.
')
On the front side of the package is a list of supported technologies and processors. The AM3 socket motherboard supports AMD Phenom II, Athlon II, Sempron processors, support for the new six-core AMD processors is also announced, the announcement of which will take place soon.
The technical characteristics of the board are described in more detail on the back:
- AMD890GX + SB850
- HT 3.0
- Dual DDR3 1800 (OC)
- Dual Gigabit LAN
- 3x PCI-E X16
- SATA III
- 8-channel HD Audio
The 890GX chipset was the first to be introduced from the eight hundredth AMD chipset line. Its distinguishing feature is the presence of integrated graphics, which is what the G letter in the chipset abbreviation Integrated G raphics Product tells us. And the combination of this chipset with the south bridge SB850 allows users to get the best performance of the integrated graphics core, the presence of two gigabit network adapters, and most importantly - support for SATA III.
The work of the chipset is clearly demonstrated on the above slide.
The motherboard is positioned in the price segment of 100-150 USD, so do not count on a rich package. Inside you will find everything you need - a user manual, installation instructions, a driver CD, 4 SATA cables, and a plug in the case.
The back panel features connectors: VGA, DVI, HDMI, Display Port, 6x USB, 1x eSATA, firewire, 2x Gigabit Ethernet LAN, and built-in 8.1 audio. Also there is a small pink button to reset the BIOS. The disadvantages can be attributed to the absence of a PS / 2 connector, due to which I had to go broke on a USB keyboard.)
The board has a fairly massive power cooling system. This was not done in vain, because during work I could not hold my fingers on the radiator for more than five seconds. Hence we can conclude that the temperature of the battery rises above the mark of 60-70 degrees Celsius. But on the other hand, this is explained by the integrated graphics core, so you shouldn’t be surprised at the board’s heating.
The color scheme of the board is chosen quite well. Two red and yellow memory slots for DDR3 standard remind us how to set the memory bars correctly in order to activate the dual channel mode. Let me remind you that, unlike Intel platforms, the memory strips are not important in the near or far slots they are inserted. For dual channel mode, memory bars must be installed in the same color slots.
On the motherboard, there are 5 SATA III ports capable of providing data rates up to 6 Gbit / s. One of the ports is pointing up, but when connected, it does not block the video card with a dual-slot cooling system.
The south bridge SB850 is hidden from our view by an aluminum radiator. The design of the radiator is typical, and there was no point in inventing something new. The heating of the south bridge is quite low, so the installed radiator is enough.
The board features three PCI-E x16 expansion slots, two PCI-E 1x, standard PCI slot and PCI-E x4 in orange. When installing one video card, the slot will work in PCI-E x16 mode, when installing two cards - PCI-E 8x + 8x, when installing three cards - 8x + 8x + 4x.
Test bench:
- AMD Phenom II processor 42 TWKR Black Edition
- cooling Xigmatek Achilles
- PowerColor HD5870 graphics card
- RAM 2x2Gb DDR3 Corsair Dominator GT 2000 MHz CL8
- hard drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500Gb
- power supply Enermax Revolution 1250W
The processor was overclocked to 3.6 GHz. The memory worked at 1600 MHz with CL7 7-7-21 1T timings at 1.6V.
Results:
Super Pi1M is a popular processor benchmark that calculates Pi numbers up to 1 million decimal places by the CPU. 19,329 with - for so many coped with the task our system.
WinRar archiving test gives a heavy load on the memory controller, which very well allows you to check the system for stability. The result - 2350 Kb / s
CrystalMark - a comprehensive benchmark system, it reflects the performance of the entire system as a whole. The result is 208212 points. For the AMD platform, I did not see more results in this test.
Well, slowly move on to the weaknesses. The read / write speed of memory on Intel platforms with their three-channel controllers on AMD systems is still far away.
3DMark Vantage has always been the domain of Intel, so you shouldn’t be surprised at the poor results in this test.
In 3DMark06, the result is quite natural. Slightly less than 20k parrots, but overclocking a video card will help to easily overcome this milestone.
But in real gaming benchmarks, the situation is completely different. The average FPS in Heaven 2 (the only benchmark with DirectX11 support) was 46.3. On a similar top-end system from Intel, you can get approximately the same result. Just calculate the cost of both platforms.)
Well, literally a couple of tests integrated graphics. On the Radeon HD4290 you can safely play the games of 2005 with the maximum settings in the resolution of 1280x1024.
And in current applications, the integrated core is very hard.
Although, I think that you will agree with me that no one plans to play on such a graphics core in Crysis or Dirt2.
Conclusion
As a result, it is worth noting that the ECS product turned out to be productive and practically does not cause any complaints. The only downside that can stop a user when buying this board is the price. Judging by the European sites, the cost of the board will be from 100 euros, which is undoubtedly expensive for a motherboard with integrated graphics. Nevertheless, in Russia I have already found several 890GX boards on sale, and they are even more expensive. So it's too early to talk about prices. But in terms of functionality and equipment, everything is fine with the ECS motherboard, so we award the board the “Editor's Choice” award from the OCClub.ru team.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/88911/
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