ASRock AOD790GX/128M

Everybody knows that if you're number 2, you try harder, What if you're number 3 or number 4, what do you do then? You look for the Golden Opportunities to prove to the world that you have first class products. If you can deliver a class-leading product during a technology shift or market expansion, you can gain new customers. ASRock did just that during the rise of the Core2Duo era, when overclocking nearly became a household word. ASRock built a stellar reputation with LGA775 motherboards that survived (and thrived) at the high Front Side Bus clock speeds that were required to get those Intel CPUs singing soprano.

ASRock has a new opportunity for market expansion, with the release of the AMD Phenom II CPUs; they once again have a chance to show the world that their products are second to none in supporting the latest and greatest CPUs, with an eye towards the enthusiast market. Just as in the Core2Duo era, value is a significant factor. The Intel E21x0 CPUs cannibalized the sales of faster more expensive processors, as long as you had an enthusiast-class motherboard that could run up the FSB clock. With the new Phenom II chips, value is once again the word of the day. Although you need a more sophisticated approach to overclock AMD CPUs, there are certainly some brand new reasons to start looking at AMD-based motherboards again.

The new ASRock AOD790GX/128M motherboard uses all the latest support chips from AMD: the 790 series Northbridge and the SB750 Southbridge. In this case, the 790GX version is supplied, providing integrated graphics processing with an ATI 3300 GPU inside the Northbridge. We'll look at this chipset in more detail later, as it is part of AMD's "Dragon" Platform, launched this year.
Let's take a good look at what ASRock has brought to the latest AMD party with their new AOD790GX/128M motherboard.

About ASRock Inc.

ASRock Inc., established in 2002, target at entry to mainstream segment MB business, is an energetic company with the combination of technology and humanity. Devoting efforts to bring customers the innovative and reliable motherboards with the design concept of 3C, "Creative, Considerate, Cost-effective", ASRock has successfully established a well-known leading brand of the best price-performance motherboard in the industry. ASRock products' high recognition stems from company's devotion to bring the most cost-performance products to users.

Besides creative features and solid products, ASRock engineers also pay special attention to EMI, thermal, acoustics and details to achieve complete customer satisfaction. In addition to price-performance, creative and considerate features, ASRock also pay special on the issue of eco-environmental protection with the released of ROHS products and energy saving functions to save the environment.

To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, ASRock provides great products with speed-to-market, cost and service to customers. Facing the constantly changing technologies of motherboard, ASRock will always keep the vision of the future and develop future-proof products upon our 3C design concept to our customers.

It is the commitment to our customers and products, like the spirit presented in our maxim: "Motherboard, We Master It!"

More information about ASRock is available by visiting their website, https://www.asrock.com/

ASRock AMD 790 Features

No first tier, or even second tier motherboard manufacturer would introduce a product to the market without some differentiating features. Many times, the marketing hype outshines the real features and benefits provided, but if you need and/or want to take advantage of those features, it helps to see them prominently displayed, instead of buried in Chapter 7 of the User Manual. Most enthusiasts buying this type of product, do their research on sites like Benchmark Reviews, and know exactly what they are buying and why. ASRock includes a sizeable number of real and significant features in the AOD790GX/128M motherboard:

• Support for Socket AM2+ / AM2 processors: AMD Phenom^TM FX / Phenom / Athlon 64 FX / Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core / Athlon X2 Dual-Core / Athlon 64 / Sempron processor
• Supports CPU up to 140W
• ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
• AMD 790GX + SB750 Chipsets
• AM3 CPU Ready!
• FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s)
• Supports AMD OverDrive^TM with ACC feature (Advanced Clock Calibration)
• Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology
• Supports Dual Channel DDR2 1066 with AM2+ CPU, and DDR2 800/667/533 with AM2 CPU, with 4 DIMM slots, maximum capacity up to 16GB
• Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3300 graphics, DX10 class iGPU, Pixel Shader 4.0, Max. shared memory 512MB
• Integrated 128MB side port memory for iGPU
• Supports ATI^TM CrossFire^TM and Hybrid CrossFireX^TM
• 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (green @ x16 mode, blue @ x8 mode)
• 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
• 1 x eSATAII 3.0 Gb/s connector
• 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board)
• PCIE Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
• Three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI with DVI-to-HDMI Converter
• Supports HDCP function
• Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback
• 1 x USB/Wi-Fi header
• Supports Instant Boot
• Supports Smart BIOS, ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver, Extra ESD Protection
• 7.1 CH Windows Vista^TM Premium Level HD Audio,
• 110dB dynamic range DAC (ALC890 Audio Codec)

AOD790GX Specifications

Time to give your eyes a break from all these specs and take a closer look at the actual product: the ASRock AOD790GX/128M in all its unmasked glory.

Closer Look: AOD790GX

First impressions count. Whether it's an aura of understated elegance, the flashy glitter of the fashion runway, an overwhelming display of technology, or a down home sense of comfort, presentation is the first chance we have to evaluate and discover what a new product is all about. The ASRock AOD790GX/128M takes somewhat of a no-frills approach to design and implementation. That's not to say that it looks like a stripped down model without any features, it just doesn't scream "Look at ME" in an effort to stand out amongst the competition. It looks like a capable performer, but it doesn't go over the top to look good while doing it.

There are a variety of colors used for the various electrical connectors; I count nine different hues, including black and white. It's a very tame appearance, and several of the colors are a darker, muted version of the colors most commonly used by others. The muted colors aren't as easy for me to differentiate in the dark; because I keep my PC under the desk, I actually appreciate the bright, gaudy colors that seem over-the-top to most people. The color coding does look functional and well thought out; all the non-descript beige and black connectors are for things that I rarely have to change once the motherboard is installed, or won't use at all: COM, FDD, PCI, ATX-2x12, and ATX-12V-2x4. All the bright colors are used to highlight connections that I may need to access on a more regular basis.

The AOD790GX/128M offers two PCI-Express (2.0) slots with CrossFireX support. The first PCI Express slot offers 16 lanes of bandwidth, and the second offers 8 lanes. Used together for multiple video cards, the first one throttles back to 8x, to accommodate the 16 lane limit of the 790GX Northbridge. While not the most powerful solution out there, it will work well with all mid-level ATI CrossFireX configurations. Hardcore gamers will wish for 16x out of each slot for their dual 4870X2 cards, but I dare say they will not be looking too closely at a mid-level board like this, anyway. There are three standard PCI slots and one PCI Express 1x slot, right in line with the Northbridge chip. Only very small expansion cards will fit here.

The thermal cooling solution for the chipset is pretty low-key. There are two separate heatsinks for the Northbridge and Southbridge; both are gold anodized with fairly routine fin designs and there are no heat pipes. Both heatsinks are anchored with basic plastic push pins. Neither of them got more than warm during some pretty abusive testing. There are no heatsinks on any of the power transistors that provide voltage regulation for the major components.

The AOD790GX/128M features ASRock DuraCaps, with a claimed 2.5 x longer lifetime. They are all solid, 100% Japanese manufactured Conductive Polymer Capacitors and are used throughout the board, at every location. They contain a solid organic polymer, have a low equivalent series resistance (ESR), and their service life rating means they will likely last as long as the rest of the components on the motherboard. All are through-hole mounted types; a couple of them are mounted on the extreme edges of the board, and they got bent over a bit during packaging. That's not unusual or particularly harmful for radial through hole mounted components. The good news is that through-hole components are a lot easier to replace than surface mount devices (SMD). It's not common, but people have experienced board failures when a SMD capacitor gets knocked off accidentally. I think bent is decidedly better than broken.

Two pairs of DDR2 DIMM sockets are available, color-coded yellow and orange, and they are located a good distance away from the CPU socket. I was pleased to see this, as some boards have the DIMM sockets too close to the CPU and the first set of DIMMs is tight up against the CPU cooler. This happens less often on full size ATX spec boards, but it still happens too often, IMHO. On this board I'm going to look at some of the most over-the-top RAM and CPU cooling schemes and see how they fit together.

The power connections on the AOD790GX/128M are standard ATX 24-pin and 8-pin sockets, but ASRock has labeled them with small stickers that cover the "extra" 4 pins on each connector that embody the transition from the 20 and 4 standard of the past. This is a subtle hint that, verbiage to the contrary, you can use a legacy PSU with its outdated 20+4 plugs. Considering that pins 21-24 were added to the ATX12V 2.0 spec to supply the extra power needed by PCI Express slots, it would be crazy to use an old PSU unless relying solely on the integrated graphics of the 790GX chip for a Home Theater rig. The same goes for the 12V connection for the CPU. If you have to use an old PSU, put a big warning sticker inside the case to keep you (or others) from getting over ambitious with component substitutions.

The back of the AOD790GX/128M has nothing more than a single support brace for the standard AMD-spec heat sink mounting ring. Nothing exciting to look at there...especially after I took it off to mount the CPU HSF with its supplied bolt through mounting kit. Now let's take a look at some of the features on the ASRock AOD790GX/128M in more detail.

AMD 790GX Details

The AMD 700-series chipset covers a lot of bases; as one leg of AMD's new Dragon^TM platform, it has a pretty strong team backing it up. The fusion of the AMD Phenom^TM II processor, ATI Radeon^TM HD 4800 series graphics, AMD 7-series chipsets, and AMD software should yield seamless integration between all the major PC subsystems and the highest possible level of performance at the lowest cost. If that sounds like a tall order, it is, and the success of companies like NVIDIA put a wrinkle in that perfect picture.

The 700-series integrated chipset solution buys you the following capabilities and features:

It's a very strong platform, and gives Intel and NVIDIA plenty of competition as the basis for high-definition gaming, video processing and home entertainment PCs. AMD claims that it is "... the only company in the world that can deliver all the essential technologies for an amazing gaming experience and breakthrough video processing speeds with our world-class processors, graphics, and chipsets." True enough... The AMD 700-series chipsets are produced by the giant Taiwanese semiconductor foundry TSMC, and in the case of the 790GX, the latest chip in the series, uses the latest 55nM fabrication process. 55nM was a direct, linear die shrink from the 65nM process, so AMD didn't have to do any architecture or device redesign for the 790GX. They just took advantage of their partner's technology progress, when TSMC rolled out the improved process in May 2007. I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thing AMD hopes to do more of in the future, now that they've sold off all their production wafer fabs to a third party.

The AMD 790FX Northbridge offers 42 available PCI-E lanes, which explains some of the monster motherboards featuring 4 PCI-E 16X expansion slots. If you use all four, they have to throttle back to 8X bandwidth, but when you can pick up four ATI 4830 cards for about $300, the possibilities look pretty interesting. The ASRock AOD790GX/128M uses the newer 790GX Northbridge, which supports 26 PCI-E 2.0 lanes, limiting it to 8X bandwidth in dual Crossfire mode. You might ask, "Can I run 3-8X cards; that only consumes 24 lanes of the 26?" Unfortunately, the answer is no, since four of the 26 lanes are consumed by the chipset interconnects, leaving only 22 lanes available for onboard peripherals and expansion slots.

The ASRock AOD790GX/128M has an ATI Radeon 3300 integrated graphics processor, 128MB of sideport memory hooked directly to the NB, and can run in Hybrid CrossfireX mode with Radeon 3400 series video cards, as long as you are running Vista. This is an excellent component set for general office use or a HTPC, however it's largely irrelevant to enthusiasts or gaming users. BTW, the sideport memory is being called a "Performance Cache" by some vendors; don't be fooled, its sole function is to act as video memory for the IGP. It doesn't interface with the rest of the Northbridge, nor offer any performance benefit unless you are using the built-in video capability, where it does do an excellent job of speeding up the integrated graphics.

The SB750 Southbridge caused quite a stir when it was introduced in 2008, as it introduced Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) to the world, a feature that is now built in to the Phenom II class of CPUs. How that functionality ended up in a Southbridge is anybody's guess, the whole story seems shrouded in secrecy. But, if you've got a Phenom CPU that needs a new mobo, pick one that has a SB750 Southbridge if you want to overclock it. Additionally, if you want to take advantage of the ACC feature within AMD OverDrive^TM, you also need the SB750. In case you're wondering, that's what the "AOD" in the product name, AOD790GX/128M refers to.

Surrounding the processor socket there are the usual power supply components: switching transistors, capacitors and chokes. ASRock offers its own version of power-saving design, calling it Intelligent Energy Saver. Like most power saving schemes, it reduces clock speed and voltage in tandem. They've also focused on the design of the voltage regulators and are claiming a 16% increase in efficiency. This is a smart approach, because even though the components draw less current when you feed them less voltage, the "extra" voltage has to be dissipated by the voltage regulator; the power supply is still putting out 3.3, 5, and 12 volts.

Going from left to right on the I/O panel, there is not an overabundance of connections available, but a reasonable set, at least. PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are still supplied, which is handy when starting up a new system, if the MB has trouble connecting to a USB KB and mouse. A total of six High-Speed USB 2.0 ports populate the I/O panel, with another four available on two motherboard headers, for connection to the case I/O panel.

There is one IEEE-1394 Firewire ports on the I/O panel; the larger, 6-pin version which is commonly used on larger, stationary devices, such as 3.5" external HDDs. There is also an additional motherboard header available to connect to an IEEE-1394 port on your computer case I/O panel, if one is supported. One Ethernet LAN connections is supplied, with activity and link speed indicators at the corner of the RJ-45 port. ASRock includes the high-definition Realtek ALC890 audio controller on the AOD790GX/128M with support for Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback. S/PDIF digital audio OUT is available on the motherboard, and can be used for internal connection to a video card for full HDMI compatibility.

The external eSATA connector on the rear I/O panel is not hardwired to the board; it requires a cable connection, jumpered from the sixth SATA connector near the bottom of the board, which is specifically designated to support this function. The first five SATA connectors only support regular SATA II connections; the sixth can function as a normal SATA II port, or as the pass-thru for the external eSATA port. ASRock conveniently color coded the two SATA sockets that need to be connected differently from the other sockets; it's the brown one.

In the next section, component layout is examined, an area that is all too often an unexpected weakness for some motherboards.

AOD790GX Component Layout

The first thing I look for on any new MB is the spacing between the CPU socket and the memory slots. I'm strictly an air-cooled guy (yeah, Porsche 911 FTW...!!), so I want to make sure the CPU cooler doesn't interfere with the DIMM sockets. For this build, since I knew I wanted to explore the overclocking boundaries of the new Phenom II CPU, I chose a fairly heavy duty CPU cooler, the Cooler Master Hyper Z600. It's actually marketed as a passive cooler, but it has fan mounting points and we've had good results with it on the Core 2 Duo CPU family here at Benchmark Reviews. But.... did I mention that it's HUGE?

In this image you can see that it hangs over the first two DIMM sockets, and even though the fins have been cut away in this area, it still a struggle to fit a Corsair DHX-style memory module in there. The OCZ Reapers don't fit in the first two slots at all. For the duration of the testing, I used 2 DIMMs in slots 3 & 4, which is the location recommended in the manual, if only using two slots. There was no way the fan would fit on this side of the Z600; one down, three to go.

If using a more traditional CPU cooler, you will likely have more flexibility in fan placement. The Hyper Z600 is 127mm x 127mm x 160mm tall. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler I've used in the past is fairly wide, at 73mm; and the Xigmatek HDT-S1283 is only 50mm wide; a MUCH smaller footprint. These products, and many other detailed in the Best CPU Cooler Performance articles here on Benchmark Reviews, will give excellent performance. So don't worry that you have to give up good cooling just for the sake of compatibility. Just because I built it with a monster-sized CPU cooler doesn't mean you have to.

The second thing I look for is the cooling solution for the Northbridge. Most overclocking involves increasing the FSB clock, and upping the voltage in some cases. You want to make sure the NB stays cool, but again, you have to watch out for interference with the CPU cooler. On the AOD790GX/128M, there was plenty clearance between the NB and the CPU heatsinks; good enough that I was able to mount the 120mm fan on this side of the Hyper Z600. With two adjacent sides of the Hyper Z600 unavailable for fan mounting, due to clearance issues, a push-pull fan setup was not in the cards. Fortunately, it wasn't needed, as we'll see later in the results section.

The location of the two full length 8X/16X PCI-E slots is straightforward; they're right next to one another, just below the Northbridge. The green colored 16X slot is closest to the NB and the 8X slot is two doors down. They are double-spaced, so no trouble fitting the majority of cards in there. The space between has an unusual looking connector and card located there, looking like a mutant SO-DIMM memory slot. This is actually a switch connection, used to configure the PCI-E data lanes as either 1 - 16X or 2 - 8X. I'm sure there are easier ways of making this configuration change, but this might be the simplest, cheapest and more robust solution. I left it in the default setting, 1 - 16X connection, since I was only using a single video card.

There is only one dedicated PCI-E 1X slot, and it's in line with the NB. If the blue slot is not set up as 8X, it does alternate duty as another 1X slot. The Southbridge heatsink is a very low profile unit that is unlikely to interfere with anything. It seems adequate for the task, as it never got past warm during the tests. One aspect of component layout that seems to trip some manufacturers up is the placement of the SATA connectors. I'm happy to say that the AOD790GX/128M avoids this trouble by locating them at the bottom edge of the board. The only thing that could possibly interfere with them is a monster, full length PCI card in the last PCI slot. This is an unlikely situation, given that there are three PCI slots to choose from and the top two are not obstructed by anything else on the MB.

In the next section, Benchmark Reviews takes a look at the BIOS included with the ASRock AOD790GX/128M, and we see how overclocking friendly it is.

AOD790GX/128M BIOS

If you're an overclocking enthusiast, then you need to be aware about capabilities of the motherboard BIOS. The BIOS never makes it onto the front page of the news release, it never gets a mention on the slick product packaging, it never gets displayed at CEBIT, but it has a big influence on how well you are going to get along with your new system. All of the heatsinks and heat-pipes in the world will not have the impact over the ability to achieve a decent overclock, to the same degree as a well designed BIOS will.

The first thing that any hardware enthusiast or overclocker should to do is investigate the latest BIOS available from the manufacturer. In some instances, the latest BIOS will only be found on special support forums, and you won't see any mention of it in the official product documentation on the manufacturer's website. That's just downright cruel, IMHO.

The board I received had the latest officially released BIOS installed, v1.40, which was just released in February 2009. I searched around and found no un-released versions floating in the Ethernet. v1.30 was released in December 2008 and it was the update for AMD Phenom II processors, so I was spared the BIOS flashing routine once more. I haven't seen a socketed BIOS chip in quite a while; usually, it's just an expense the manufacturer wants to avoid. I don't know why ASRock used one, but I assume they have a good reason.

ASRock puts most of its system tuning parameters on the "Advanced" tab of the AMI BIOS. It is well laid out and all the CPU, memory and chipset tuning options are there. There is no special key combination required to unlock certain function, like some vendors have. The AOD790GX/128M BIOS was easy to use for overclocking. I normally avoid the add-on tuning programs, and go straight to the BIOS and fiddle around. This time I tested out the latest version of AMD Overdrive (v2.1.6) and the OC Tuner utility that ASRock supplies with their motherboards. I found both rather easy to use and stable. Several Enhanced Performance Default settings are available on one of the tabs, for those who are unsure or unfamiliar with the nuances of overclocking, but still feel like they're being cheated if they don't get a little something extra.

I freely admit that there are people who know 10-100 times more than I do about BIOS tweaking, yet within an evening or so, I was able to get the Phenom II 720BE up to 3.8GHz. Getting to 3.7GHz was a cakewalk, it took some fine tuning of the reference clock, the HT Multiplier, and CPU, NB, and memory voltages to get a stable 3.8 GHz CPU clock. There's probably a few MHz left on the table, but stress testing got the three cores up to 45C, and since my Intel E7300 also runs 24/7 at 3.8GHz, I thought this was a good place to stop. We'll see in the testing section if I was right.

In the next section, Benchmark Reviews begins testing the AOD790GX/128M and we compare it to the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P that was reviewed in January. The ASRock motherboard is a bit lower in price and features, but performance wise, it should be a good matchup.

Testing Methodology

At the start of all tests, the HDD (or SSD) is loaded with a fresh image of the OS, with standard VGA drivers. Then chipset drivers are loaded and any other drivers needed for the support hardware. Then a known good version of the video card drivers is installed, and all necessary security updates are installed. Finally, all the benchmarking applications are installed, and that's it. This is not your Father's PC, it doesn't need Word, Excel and PowerPoint... Once the hardware is prepared and checked for stability, we begin our testing. With higher-end products we conduct tests at the following resolutions: 1280x1024 (19" Standard LCD), 1680x1050 (22-24" Widescreen LCD), and 1920x1200 (24-28" Widescreen LCD). In the high resolution tests we utilized widescreen monitor resolutions, since more users are beginning to feature these products for their own computing.

Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process is extremely important in the Crysis benchmarks, as the first run serves to cache maps, allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article.

Our site polls and statistics indicate that the over 90% of our visitors use their PC for playing video games, and practically every one of you are using a screen resolutions mentioned above. Since all of the benchmarks we use for testing represent different game engine technology and graphic rendering processes, I feel that this battery of tests will provide a diverse range of results for you to gauge performance on your own computer system. Since most gamers and enthusiasts are still using Windows XP, it was decided that DirectX 9 would be used for all tests until demand and software support improve for Windows Vista.

Although the ASRock AOD790GX/128M has an integrated graphics processor, and can run in Hybrid CrossfireX mode with selected (read low-end) video cards and operating systems, this feature is irrelevant to enthusiasts or gaming users. Thus, we didn't bother running any of these demanding benchmarks with the Radeon 3300 IGP in use.

Test System 1

• Motherboard: ASRock AOD790GX/128M
• System Memory: 2X 1GB OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1150MHz (5-5-5-15)
• Processor: AMD Phenom II 720 Black Edition (Overclocked to 3.8 GHz)
• CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper Z600
• Audio: On-Board ALC890 Audio Codec
• Video: ASUS EAH4850 TOP 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E 2.0
• Drive 1: OCZ Core v2 SSD, 30GB
• Optical Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7190A-OB 20X IDE DVD Burner
• Enclosure: SiverStone Fortress FT01BW ATX Case
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750TX ATX12V V2.2 750Watt
• Monitor: SOYO 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor (DYLM24E6) 1920X1200
• Operating System: Windows XP SP3

Test System 2

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Rev 1.1
• System Memory: 4X 1GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 800MHz (4-4-4-12)
• Processor: Intel E7300 Core2 Duo 2.66GHz (Overclocked to 3.8 GHz)
• CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 RR-CCH-LB12-GP
• Video: ASUS EAH4850 TOP 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E 2.0
• Drive 1: OCZ Core v2 SSD, 30GB (OS and Programs)
• Drive 2: Seagate ST3750330AS 750GB 7200.11 (Cache and Data)

Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark06 v1.1.0 (8x Anti Aliasing & 16x Anisotropic Filtering)
• PCMark05 v1.2.0 System Test Suite for Windows XP
• Crysis v1.21 Benchmark (High Settings, 4X and No Anti Aliasing)
• Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark Demo (Ultra Quality, 8x MSAA)
• CINEBENCH Release 10
• EVEREST Ultimate Edition v4.60.1594 Beta

Support Equipment

• P3 International Kill A Watt EZ (model P4460)

3DMark06 Benchmarks

3DMark is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly named Mad Onion) to determine the DirectX 9 performance of 3D game performance with graphics cards. 3DMark06 uses advanced real-time 3D game workloads to measure PC performance using a suite of DirectX 9 3D graphics tests, CPU tests, and 3D feature tests.

3DMark06 tests include all new HDR/SM3.0 graphics tests, SM2.0 graphics tests, AI and physics driven single and multiple cores or processor CPU tests and a collection of comprehensive feature tests to reliably measure next generation gaming performance today. Some enthusiasts may note that Benchmark Reviews does not include CPU-bound tests in our benchmark battery, and that only graphic-bound tests are included.

Here at Benchmark Reviews, we believe that synthetic benchmark tools are just as valuable as video games, but only so long as you're comparing apples to apples. Since the same test is applied in the same controlled method with each test run, I believe 3DMark is a very reliable tool for comparing graphic cards against one-another.

More visitors to Benchmark Reviews operate at 1280x1024 resolution than any other, as it represents the native resolution of 19" LCD monitors. Using this resolution as a starting point, the maximum settings were applied to 3dMark06 which for these tests include 8x Anti-Aliasing and 16x Anisotropic Filtering. Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau maximum output performance, which thereby shifts demand onto the system components to keep up. At the lower resolutions 3DMark will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, and is helpful in measuring the maximum output performance in the test results.

Looks pretty flat.....

The 3DMark05 results are dead even across the test systems. All of the motherboard products tested produced nearly identical results. If you want to see variation for this benchmark, I suggest you go look at the video card articles here on Benchmark Reviews. Even comparing apples to oranges, e.g. Intel to AMD, all I got from this benchmark was, "Hey, what kind of video card is that? Check..."

Let's look at how the systems stack up on a more broad-based system test suite - PCMark05.

PCMark05 Results

Using synthetic benchmarks to compare one product to another has some distinct advantages when testing similar hardware, yet I have never found myself completely satisfied by the process. I have come to understand that they're important for comparing "apples to apples", and that the results are usually very consistent. But as with any synthetic benchmark, the numbers can often mean very little more than just numbers. We don't take a high score on a synthetic benchmark to mean that a product will/should perform well, and neither should you. The difference between projected performance and actual performance is the difference between fire and the fire-fly.

PCMark is a series of computer benchmark tools developed by Futuremark. The tools are designed to test the performance of the user's CPU, read/write speeds of RAM and hard drives. We have used these tests to simulate a battery of applications and tasks, which will produce results we can compare to other systems using similar hardware.

After a series of five looped tests, the averages of the results are charted below. Keep in mind that the AOD790GX/128M as well as the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P shared the same GPU and SSD (specified in the Test Methodology section). The idea here was to isolate the motherboard and CPU components to determine if one product and platform performed better than the other. I am also reporting different CPU clock settings for the AOD790GX/128M and Phenom II 720BE to show performance scaling with a typical overclock situation.

The PCMark05 System Suite benchmark results start to show some differences across the test systems. This test shows the influence of the CPU and the memory architecture on system performance. The chipsets and CPU are different, the memory, SSD and video card are the same. In the article on the GA-EP45-UD3P we saw that there's very little difference in performance between motherboards when the same hardware is used with the same settings. Obviously, we're seeing something completely different here. The X3 takes full advantage of its "extra" core to beat up on the Intel Core2 Duo, once it is overclocked to similar CPU speeds. Core-for-core and clock-for-clock, the C2D may be a more efficient computing machine, but $-for-$, the Phenom II X3 wins out.

PCMark05 offers a CPU benchmark suite, with several processor intensive tests combined, to focus on raw CPU processing power. The CPU benchmark suite includes the following tests:

• File Compression
• File Decompression
• File Encryption
• File Decryption
• Image Decompression
• Audio Compression
• File Compression
• File Encryption
• File Decompression
• File Decryption
• Audio Decompression
• Image Decompression

Using the combined test performance to create an artificial score, PCMark05 generates a score called CPU Marks. Taking away most of the outside influence from our testing, and concentrating on CPU-only benchmarks, the song remains the same. It's tough for the dual core CPU to compete with the gang of three; at equal clock rates, the Phenom II X3 beats the Core2 Duo by 36%.

Of the many tests inside the CPU suite, lets look at one of the benchmarks with the largest performance difference. The Audio Compression benchmark test measures performance with synthetic encoding, and the Phenom II X3 pulls ahead by 1158 KBps, once again, a 36% lead. If you're encoding a lot of MP3s, this is a nice, useable performance increase.

CINEBENCH 10 Tests

MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. The test procedure consists of two main components: The first two test sequences are dedicated to the computer's main processor and memory, using a 3D scene file to render a photo-realistic image. The scene makes use of various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders. The predefined benchmark included with the software reports the rendering scores for both a single core (1 CPU) and for all cores (X CPUs).

The third test measures graphics card performance and is run inside the 3D editor window. The project file used can test all graphics cards that support the OpenGL standard. In this scene, only the camera was animated. This scene places medium to low demands on graphics cards and tests the maximum speed with which the scene can be properly displayed.

Here we can easily see the higher efficiency of the Intel CPU core. The 1 CPU benchmark is owned by the single Core2 Duo processor. Once all available cores are in the fight, the X3 wins again by 19%. I remember when the triple core Phenom was first being talked about and half the people said, "That's just dumb..." Well, the proof is staring us in the face now, and it doesn't look all that dumb to me.

In the OpenGL test, the GA-EP45-UD3P and AOD790GX/128 and their partner CPUs come to somewhat of a truce. A 1% improvement is not statistically significant. The 2.5% gain by upping the CPU multiplier from 16 to 16.5 on the AOD790GX/128M is real, though.

Let's look now at one of the most demanding benchmark application, a program that stresses all elements of the system: Crysis.

Crysis Benchmark Results

Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX10) framework of Windows Vista, but can also run using DirectX9, both on Vista and Windows XP.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged.

Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau its maximum output performance, which thereby shifts demand onto the other system components. At the lower resolutions Crysis will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, and is helpful in creating a baseline for measuring maximum output performance in the next few test results. At the 1280x1024 resolution used by some newer 17" and most 19" monitors, all of the video cards tested performed at very respectable levels.

With no Anti-Aliasing dialed in, we see a little difference between the two systems, favoring the AMD-based system by 1fps. Nothing noticeable, really.

With 4X Anti-Aliasing enabled we see a similar story, i.e. no discernible difference. If you want better results in Crysis, buy a better video card and an i7-X58 combo (in that order).

EVEREST Benchmarks

EVEREST Ultimate Edition is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes EVEREST Ultimate Edition a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC. All of the benchmarks used in our test bed: Queen, Photoworxx, and AES, rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors.

CPU Benchmarks

The EVEREST Queen benchmark puts the ASRock AOD790GX/128M with the Phenom II 720BE 36% ahead of the P45/E7300 Intel solution. Don't let the benchmarks fool you though, because the Queen and Photoworxx tests are synthetic benchmarks that operate the function many times over and over-exaggerate by several magnitudes what the real-world performance would be like. The Queen benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and misprediction penalties of the CPU. It does this by finding possible solutions to the classic queen problem on a chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used. The EVEREST Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

The X3 720BE doesn't do nearly as well in Photoworxx testing, and strangely, the Phenom II running at 3.7GHz gave the highest score. I've seen some unusual scores for this test recently, and suspect it may not be a pure CPU test. The EVEREST documentation hints that this benchmark is highly dependent on memory write speed. The AES integer benchmark measures CPU performance using AES data encryption. It utilizes Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Paulo Barreto's public domain C code in ECB mode and consumes 48 MB of memory. The Phenom II X3 720 smokes the Intel Core2 Duo E7300 again, with a 36% increase in performance.

Memory Benchmarks

Given the major differences in memory architecture between the Intel and AMD systems, it's a good idea to look at a pure memory benchmark. EVEREST Ultimate Edition offers three simple memory bandwidth tests that focus on the basics; Read, Write, and Copy. In order to avoid concurrent threads competing over system memory bandwidth, the Memory benchmarks utilize only one processor core and one thread.

The Read benchmark measures the maximum achievable memory read bandwidth. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD and Intel processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86, MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2 or SSE4.1 instruction set extension. The benchmark reads a 16 MB sized, 1 MB aligned data buffer from system memory into the CPU. Memory is read in forward direction, continuously without breaks.

The Write benchmark measures the maximum achievable memory write bandwidth. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD and Intel processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86, MMX, 3DNow!, SSE or SSE2 instruction set extension. The benchmark writes a 16 MB sized, 1 MB aligned data buffer from the CPU into the system memory. Memory is written in forward direction, continuously without breaks.

The Memory Copy benchmark measures the maximum achievable memory copy speed. The code behind this benchmark method is written in Assembly and it is extremely optimized for every popular AMD and Intel processor core variants by utilizing the appropriate x86, MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2 or SSE4.1 instruction set extension. The benchmark copies an 8 MB sized, 1 MB aligned data buffer into another 8 MB sized, 1 MB aligned data buffer through the CPU. Memory is copied in forward direction, continuously without breaks.

There is clearly a difference between the two systems, with the AMD-based system favoring memory reads and copies, while the Intel system does better on memory writes. It's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison, though. The radically different ways that the two systems achieve their roughly one GHz overclock affects the memory performance. The Intel based system went from a 266 MHz FSB clock and 10X CPU multiplier to a 400MHz FSB clock and 9.5X CPU Multiplier. Since the memory communicates with the CPU through the Northbridge on the Intel system, the FSB clock definitely has an influence on memory performance. On the AMD side, I only raised the reference clock from 200MHz to 230MHz, and the CPU multiplier went from 14 to 16.5. In this case, the CPU connects directly to the RAM, so the multiplier and the reference clock both have an impact. Still, I think the point here is, nobody is going to complain about the AMD memory interface being too slow.

Power Consumption

Life is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as fuel and electrical energy top the list of resources that have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to demand and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped peaks quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards Green.

ASRock offers its own version of power-saving design, calling it Intelligent Energy Saver. Like most power saving schemes, it reduces clock speed and voltage in tandem. They've also focused on the design of the voltage regulators and are claiming a 16% increase in efficiency. This is a smart approach, because even though the components draw less current when you feed them less voltage, the "extra" voltage has to be dissipated by the voltage regulator; the power supply is still putting out 3.3, 5, and 12 volts.

During the test period, four different conditions were examined. For the first, the power supply was plugged in and switched on (the actual ON/OFF switch on the PSU itself). The system doesn't "turn on" at this point, but the PSU is always supplying 5VDC to pin 9 of the ATX 24 pin power connection, so that the front panel power switch can function. This is known in energy management circles as an energy "Vampire", and the U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that this class of devices and operating modes (Instant On Anything, Wall Warts, Docking Stations, and device displays) can suck up 5-10% of an average home's electricity use. Each test was repeated three times, and the averages are displayed (although each test result was identical to the previous).

The second test was to start the system without the video card installed. This gets the motherboard into Power On Self Test (POST) mode, where it stops and does not continue to boot, due to the VGA error. The integrated video capability can't be completely turned off in the BIOS, so this adds some additional load that doesn't show up on most of the motherboards we've tested here at Benchmark Reviews. This condition is really the minimum possible load for an operational system, which include a HDD, a DVD drive, keyboard, and mouse. I unplugged all the extra case fans for these tests, the only fans running were the CPU cooler fan and the GPU cooler for the third and fourth tests.

The third test is a normal boot into Windows. I looked at the power consumption at the login screen and after login, once the OS was finished loading all the programs, processes and services. It turned out to be the same power draw in this case, once the OS settled down to. The fourth test was a synthetic 100% load, created by the System Stability Test in EVEREST Ultimate Edition, with all loads enabled.

Note: all these tests were performed in the base configuration without the Intelligent Energy Saver software installed or operating.

The results are somewhat higher than the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P I tested in January, ranging from 15-25% higher. The results were, however, right in line with the results included in the Gigabyte GA-EP45T-EXTREME Motherboard test, published on Benchmark Reviews in August of 2008. Those results included power consumption of several popular motherboards, with a variety of chipsets:

• ASUS P5K3 Deluxe Wi-Fi-AP (Intel P35 Express Chipset)
• Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 (Intel X48 Express Chipset)
• ASUS Striker II NSE (nForce 790i SLI Chipset)
• Gigabyte GA-EP45T-EXTREME (Intel P45 Express Chipset)

Results for power testing are not completely standardized across our testing platforms, because different supporting hardware (PSU, HDD, SSD, CPU Cooler, Video card, etc.) is used in many of the reviews. Nevertheless, the results for the AOD790GX/128M are very typical of what a mid-level system will require in terms of power consumption, and very consistent with results that others at Benchmark Reviews have obtained with comparable hardware.

AMD 790GX Final Thoughts

I've owned several Gigabyte and Asus motherboards recently. Before that, I used to favor Abit. I've always been leery of budget motherboards, as I had my share of heartaches with them in the olden days; hint, the first computer I built was a 80286. Back then, everything that didn't come from Big Blue was a high risk proposition. I feel better now, knowing that there are some mid-tier suppliers that are putting out a quality product. One good thing about our connected world of today; if you do good things, people will find out much quicker than they could 10-20 years ago.

Brand development mirrors personal development in one aspect, it tends to oscillate between two distinct phases: Enrichment and Enlargement. During the enrichment phase, you improve your performance, honing your current skills and learning new techniques that are more effective at solving your existing challenges. You may also make a lateral move and develop brand new skills. During the enlargement phase, you don't just tackle new problems; you add them to your existing stock of problems. Intel has publicly espoused their version of this strategy, naming it their Tick-Tock Model. Most companies have a similar strategy, but no one outside of the marketing department knows about it, at least explicitly.

In Benchmark Reviews' test of the AMD Phenom II 720BE chip, Olin used the ASUS M3A78-T AM2+, with the same AMD 790GX Chipset, and all the CPU-specific tests I ran on the ASRock AOD790GX/128M confirmed those results. The system-level and GPU-bound tests can't be compared directly, because he used the new OCZ Apex SDD and a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 Toxic Video Card, but there were no wide disparities. The system-level tests were slightly better with the Apex than with the OCZ Core V2 SSD. Most of the tests that purport to measure overall system performance are pretty sensitive to drive performance. That's not a bad thing, it's actually a reflection of reality; replace your 7200 RPM HDD with a 10,000 RPM 2.5" unit or a RAID setup and you can feel the difference. Put a modern SSD in there, or even "last year's" SSD, and you can REALLY feel the difference.

If I had $105 burning a hole in my pocket, would I buy the ASRock AOD790GX/128M? That depends. If I had also just bought a brand new Phenom II and my old motherboard didn't support crossfire, or Advanced Clock Calibration, or eSATA, or RAID 5, or if I needed an IGP, I'd snap it up in a heartbeat. If I could live without those things, and my old motherboard was running fine, I'd probably take advantage of the backward compatibility built into the AMD AM2 platform and just drop the new Phenom II into my old mobo. I don't think the target audience for this product is the person doing an incremental upgrade. For a major system upgrade, it makes perfect sense, for a new system, likewise.

With the new Phenom II chips, you need a more sophisticated approach to overclocking, which is nothing new for AMD. Even with the Black Edition processors and their unlocked CPU clock multipliers, there are potential performance gains to be had by adjusting other clocks in tandem. The ASRock AOD790GX/128M allows this and more. The compatibility with AMDs Advanced Clock Calibration brings additional benefits, both with Phenom and Phenom II CPUs.

Those who enjoy system tweaking will reap the overclocking potential of this motherboard, especially with all the timing options available in the BIOS. This motherboard offers a lot of performance for a little bit of cash. That makes it an attractive option for those who are looking at the AMD platform anew.

AOD790GX/128M Conclusion

The external packaging of the ASRock AOD790GX/128M is a quarter-notch below some of the major players in the universe of motherboards. It's not as bright and catchy, or smothered in diagrams and text describing its outstanding features. It's more subtle, and doesn't try to overwhelm you with twenty reasons why it's better than every other motherboard. I actually appreciate the "honesty sells" approach to marketing. All the features and benefits are shown, but the presentation doesn't scream at you, like a nine year old with ALL CAPS on.

Once the retail package is opened, there are the normal, neatly packaged accessories. They are individually packed; four SATA cables, a color coded I/O panel, a MOLEX to SATA Power adapter cable, a DVI to HDMI adapter, IDE and Floppy ribbon cables, two driver CDs and an eight language manual (36 pages in English). Underneath the divider board, the motherboard quietly awaits its mission; confident, but not cocky, capable, but not flashy. It reminds me of the Pontiac with the Corvette engine...ready to run when you drop the hammer, but without any need to brag about it. ASRock is not asking a premium price for the AOD790GX/128M, consistent with the majority of their product line, which relieves them of the need to convince you that the extra money is worth it.

The AOD790GX/128M is based on the very latest chipset from AMD, which nets you an IGP you're never going to use if you're at all interested in gaming. Furthermore, the 790GX Northbridge only accommodates one full 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 graphics port; once you go to CrossFireX it reduces the bandwidth down to 8x for each card. The trouble with worrying about this is that if you're building to a price point, and who isn't these days, you are really much better off with this very capable, yet inexpensive motherboard and an extra 50 to 75 dollars going into the GPU fund.

Long gone are the days of high-end motherboards costing less than $100, but the good news is that we have some excellent mid-range boards in that same price range. As of early March 2009, NewEgg lists the AOD790GX/128M motherboard for $104.99. If the AOD790G/128M isn't available at NewEgg, use our price comparison tool to shop against other merchants. This is a bargain price for a high level of performance, carrying on the ASRock reputation for quality and value.

Flexibility is another strong suit of this motherboard, as I can see using it for a number of applications:

• HTPC, with its 790GX providing the needed GPU power
• Gaming, with a single slot or CrossfireX GPU configuration
• Enthusiast, with plenty of options for overclocking
• Home/Office PC, with enough capability for any task

Perhaps the only thing that might hold people back from this motherboard is the lack of DDR3 support. Clearly, DDR3 is the memory architecture of the future, but as the old saying goes, "The future is now!" In Benchmark Reviews' analysis of the ASUS P5Q3 LGA775 Intel P45 ATX Motherboard, we saw a slim lead for DDR3 v. DDR2 in the P45 environment. The AMD platform doesn't really reward higher memory speeds the same way that the Intel platform does. Anything over DDR2 800 only gives you some headroom for raising the reference clock on an AMD motherboard.

So, for a brief moment in history, we have a Perfect Storm here. The economy is at the BOTTOM of the tank, prices are still rising on consumer goods, people still need the essentials (try telling anyone these days that their computer is not an essential part of their life...), and voila, like the mythical Genie, up pop two old favorites: AMD with a brand new set of CPUs that renews their dominance in the value market, and ASRock with the high quality, high performance, inexpensive, system platform they are well known for. In the middle of the raging storm, the AOD790GX/128M motherboard provides a steady platform to build on; offering old and new AMD fans alike the opportunity to create a new PC that is loaded with value instead of dollars.

Pros:

+ Excellent value for the features and capability
+ Latest AMD chipset delivers high performance
+ High quality construction, without overfill
+ Supports latest AM3 processors
+ Radeon 3300 IGP performs well for non-gaming tasks
+ Full featured BIOS - suitable for overclocking
+ 55nM 790GX Northbridge only needs modest heatsink
+ Compatible with massive CPU coolers

Cons:

- Hybrid CrossfireX is a paper tiger (Radeon 34xx + Vista??)
- No cooling of power devices for voltage regulation
- Quirky eSATA connection scheme
- 3 PCI slots, 1 PCI-E X1 slot

Ratings:

• Presentation: 8.50
• Appearance: 8.50
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 9.75

Final Score: 8.95 out of 10.

Quality Recognition: Benchmark Reviews Silver Tachometer Award.

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