Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 - bit-tech.net Forums

Tim S · 3rd Dec 2007, 08:43

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200..._ma790fx-dq6/1

Four PCI-Express x16 lanes, AM2+ Phenom support and triple, quad phase power management are all key features from the latest Gigabyte DQ6 board built around the AMD 790FX chipset. But... does it make us want to switch back to AMD?

djDEATH · 3rd Dec 2007, 12:04

looks good.

As an AM2 owner, and stalwart AMD supporter, i'm hoping that these shape up and will provide a good upgrade route for my current rig. I think getting a phenom in the new year then upgrading to one of these is the way forward, however, i'm really not ready to move to AMD/ATI graphics. I want an 8800GT, and unless the nforce 7 series for AMD from nvidia is really crappy, i think its going to be an SLI capable system rather than crossfireX.

Whatever happened to the glory days of AMD/Nvidia working together? In my opinion, thats where the money is at, given Nvidias dominance of the graphics market, and if AMD want us AM2 owners to stay with AMD processors, a real nvidia friendly SLI solution needs to appear quicksmart, or we'll all be buying Core2 Quads and going blue.

Spider looks appealing, and two HD3870s together sounds fun, but gonna be expensive just to beat a single 8800GT, and as the 790fx doesn't support SLI, its not appearing too highly on my wish-list.

Good through review though, looking forward to how it shapes up against the Nforce chipsets, and finally how Phenom compares against C2Q with the same chipsets.

trig · 3rd Dec 2007, 16:05

i know you guys are busy, but why even bother to review this board if you aren't going to review the area that sets it apart? not including a quad gpu game bench session, even if it was only one or two games to give us an idea of performance gains, makes no sense to me. i got absolutely nothing out of this review that i didn't already suspect. any chance of a quad gpu redo?

Bindibadgi · 3rd Dec 2007, 16:34

OK: 1) There is no CrossFire-X yet - no drivers still until January 2) This board has been out a month already 3) We only just got a Phenom today and people have been asking for an AMD review since Spider was released as we've only done Intel for MONTHS. I could have done yet another X38 board and got accused of being even more Intel fanboish :P

I respect that you personally didn't get much out of it, but you can barely buy a Phenom, still, so most people will be looking to drop in their current AM2 CPUs for a while and might want to know if there's any performance benefit over the most popular AMD chipset of last year.

Ninja Edit: How many people will actually use four cards? I suspect close to zero - at least I used Gen-2 PCI-E cards

Tim S · 3rd Dec 2007, 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by trig

i know you guys are busy, but why even bother to review this board if you aren't going to review the area that sets it apart? not including a quad gpu game bench session, even if it was only one or two games to give us an idea of performance gains, makes no sense to me. i got absolutely nothing out of this review that i didn't already suspect. any chance of a quad gpu redo?

As Rich has stated, CrossFireX drivers aren't arriving until (I suspect, the end of) January... does that mean we should wait until then to review the board?

AMD has said "January" for drivers, but I'm expecting it to be closer to the end than the beginning.

ChiperSoft · 3rd Dec 2007, 16:46

I would have liked to have seen your performance graphs also include a comparably equipped intel setup. As you say in the first page, this is AMDs first interesting offering in a while. Some comparison figures would be nice.

Bindibadgi · 3rd Dec 2007, 16:56

I appreciate that

and we're preparing a Spider platform versus Intel equivalent article specifically to address that.

This was just a board review

Jipa · 3rd Dec 2007, 18:16

Seems like I don't have to lose my good night's sleep because of these boards. Luckily you had the old allmighty M2N32-SLI there and the difference doesn't seem too radical. In real-world tests more than on the synthetic though...

No upgrade atleast before Phenom. And what's this Gigabyte anyway

(j/k, I'm not a fanboy)

trig · 3rd Dec 2007, 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

OK: 1) There is no CrossFire-X yet - no drivers still until January 2) This board has been out a month already 3) We only just got a Phenom today and people have been asking for an AMD review since Spider was released as we've only done Intel for MONTHS. I could have done yet another X38 board and got accused of being even more Intel fanboish :P
Ninja Edit: How many people will actually use four cards? I suspect close to zero - at least I used Gen-2 PCI-E cards

ah...i did not know that. could have sworn i saw a quick review of crossfire-x posted somewhere, not with quad, but with different gpu's, but i didnt have time to read it. my bad. but i could swear i saw it. so anyway, that is why i didn't get anything out of it and was disappointed when i read everything only to get to the end and not see the crossfire-x results. just more of the same from amd...lots of promises, but havent really delivered anything yet.

BUFF · 3rd Dec 2007, 19:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by djDEATH

and as the 790fx doesn't support SLI

it almost certainly does if nVidia releases SLI drivers that don't look for an nVidia chipset before enabling SLI ...

Personally 790X looks more interesting atm to me (esp. when SB700 appears) as I don't run multi GPU & the mobos are 1/2 the price going by the MSI.

Bindibadgi · 3rd Dec 2007, 19:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by BUFF

it almost certainly does if nVidia releases SLI drivers that don't look for an nVidia chipset before enabling SLI ...

Personally 790X looks more interesting atm to me (esp. when SB700 appears) as I don't run multi GPU & the mobos are 1/2 the price going by the MSI.

I have a 790X MSI in that I'm doing atm - from the looks it's fantastic value but the feature set is really thin - rear I/O for example. Haven't tested it yet mind

Oh and SLI on non-SLI boards will arrive when the Devil wears ice skates to go to work.

Woodstock · 3rd Dec 2007, 20:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Quote:

Originally Posted by BUFF

it almost certainly does if nVidia releases SLI drivers that don't look for an nVidia chipset before enabling SLI ...

Personally 790X looks more interesting atm to me (esp. when SB700 appears) as I don't run multi GPU & the mobos are 1/2 the price going by the MSI.

I have a 790X MSI in that I'm doing atm - from the looks it's fantastic value but the feature set is really thin - rear I/O for example. Haven't tested it yet mind

Oh and SLI on non-SLI boards will arrive when the Devil wears ice skates to go to work.

or when someone hacks a driver

Cupboard · 3rd Dec 2007, 21:17

IMO, the layout on this board seem a bit ridiculous. Should you want 2 graphics card, then a raid card (as I am sure many people here might) it would be possible because the 2 spare "x16" slots are limited to only x1. It would have made a lot more sense to have at least one of them x4 surely? It is a step backwards in terms of layout compared to my NF4 board, I can do SLI (theoretically, money limited) and have a x4, x1 and old PCI left over, meaning i can use a x4 RAID card should I want to. Not having that option seems to be a really big mistake, especially when the board is aimed at enthusiasts!

To me, it seems to appeal more to the "ooh, shiny" crowd rather than most enthusiasts who wont be spending money on 4, slower graphics cards. Sorry, I'll shut up now.

IccleD · 3rd Dec 2007, 21:27

Quote:

Box Contents
Four orange 90 degree SATA 3Gbps cables
One eSATA to SATA cable
One Molex extension cable
One blue IDE cable
One blue floppy cable
One PCI bracket with two eSATA ports and one molex socket
Metal rear I/O bracket
Manual, Quick Reference guide and drivers and utility CD

Not being picky of yet again another excellent review, but do you get 4 or 6 SATA cables?

Your own picture only shows 4, but two are clearly NOT 90 degree ones.

Bindibadgi · 3rd Dec 2007, 21:45

Fixed

Bindibadgi · 3rd Dec 2007, 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cupboard

IMO, the layout on this board seem a bit ridiculous. Should you want 2 graphics card, then a raid card (as I am sure many people here might) it would be possible because the 2 spare "x16" slots are limited to only x1. It would have made a lot more sense to have at least one of them x4 surely? It is a step backwards in terms of layout compared to my NF4 board, I can do SLI (theoretically, money limited) and have a x4, x1 and old PCI left over, meaning i can use a x4 RAID card should I want to. Not having that option seems to be a really big mistake, especially when the board is aimed at enthusiasts!

To me, it seems to appeal more to the "ooh, shiny" crowd rather than most enthusiasts who wont be spending money on 4, slower graphics cards. Sorry, I'll shut up now.

No, those two blue x16s would drop down to x8, and then they would also roll back from Gen-2 to Gen-1 so you'd only get 1/4 of the bandwidth. It's not made for such cards, it merely supports them.

You can either have: x16-x1-x1-x16 or x8-x8-x8-x8.

I can't say there are that many people using such cards mind, although I'll happily be reeducated but from personal experience I can count the amount of people that use one on a single hand.

I do very much agree about the "ooo shiny" or marketing tick box that is, CrossFire-X, however those sorts of people looking to spend money on FOUR cards will also probably have invested in a watercooling solution to match it and get the absolute most out of it.

Spaceraver · 4th Dec 2007, 04:51

Hmm, unless Asus comes up with anything better than this or a board with a better layout this looks interesting. Asus has always been my favourite motherboard manufacturer, but their support and driver side of the website is slow as hell. I chose Gigabyte for the last build i made for some family and it looks like I may do that again. I haven't had an AMD system since thier revered K6-2 went out of mainstream. Ah, those were days. I have been wanting an AMD system ever since. I so hope that it matures right, but the DS5 looks more like my wallet size. Heck, even if i wanted SLI it would not get 2x GPU's due to cost and the price of running them too.

BUFF · 4th Dec 2007, 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Woodstock

or when someone hacks a driver

the important bit is encrypted by nVidia now which is why you haven't seen a hacked driver for 8xxx series.

3rd Dec 2007, 08:43	#1
Tim S Pewlius Caesar bit-tech Staff Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ascot, Berks Posts: 18,021	Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200..._ma790fx-dq6/1 Four PCI-Express x16 lanes, AM2+ Phenom support and triple, quad phase power management are all key features from the latest Gigabyte DQ6 board built around the AMD 790FX chipset. But... does it make us want to switch back to AMD? __________________ Tim on Twitter \| Tim's Blog \| Tim's Flickr The bit-tech Blog \| bit-tech on Twitter \| Join the bit-tech & Custom PC folding team (#35947)

3rd Dec 2007, 12:04	#2
djDEATH gert rubbish or summat Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: BRISTOL Posts: 370	looks good. As an AM2 owner, and stalwart AMD supporter, i'm hoping that these shape up and will provide a good upgrade route for my current rig. I think getting a phenom in the new year then upgrading to one of these is the way forward, however, i'm really not ready to move to AMD/ATI graphics. I want an 8800GT, and unless the nforce 7 series for AMD from nvidia is really crappy, i think its going to be an SLI capable system rather than crossfireX. Whatever happened to the glory days of AMD/Nvidia working together? In my opinion, thats where the money is at, given Nvidias dominance of the graphics market, and if AMD want us AM2 owners to stay with AMD processors, a real nvidia friendly SLI solution needs to appear quicksmart, or we'll all be buying Core2 Quads and going blue. Spider looks appealing, and two HD3870s together sounds fun, but gonna be expensive just to beat a single 8800GT, and as the 790fx doesn't support SLI, its not appearing too highly on my wish-list. Good through review though, looking forward to how it shapes up against the Nforce chipsets, and finally how Phenom compares against C2Q with the same chipsets. __________________ BEASTIE Lian-Li PC-07b ASUS M2N-E nForce 570 Ultra OCZ StealthXtreme 600W PSU Phenom X3 8750 BLACK EDITION @ 3.103 Ghz (14.5 x 214 FSB, HTT @ 1070 Mhz) Gainward 8800GT Golden Sample @ 730/1825/1000 Mhz 4GB (2x2GB) OCZ Blade PC8500 CL5 Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB WD Caviar SE 250GB

3rd Dec 2007, 16:05	#3
trig sweet sweet hangin joben Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: cardboard box outside of sears Posts: 1,638	i know you guys are busy, but why even bother to review this board if you aren't going to review the area that sets it apart? not including a quad gpu game bench session, even if it was only one or two games to give us an idea of performance gains, makes no sense to me. i got absolutely nothing out of this review that i didn't already suspect. any chance of a quad gpu redo? __________________ I love me some me e8400 @ 4.45 ghz..ac freezer 7..2 gigs patriot extreme 1150 mhz..abit ip35-pro..xfx 4770 with asus top bios @ 926 core/1077 memory..antec p182b..corsair hx620..seagate 500 gb 32mb cache THE best site ever...1600 signatures under the same avatar...time for a new one

3rd Dec 2007, 16:34	#4
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,264	OK: 1) There is no CrossFire-X yet - no drivers still until January 2) This board has been out a month already 3) We only just got a Phenom today and people have been asking for an AMD review since Spider was released as we've only done Intel for MONTHS. I could have done yet another X38 board and got accused of being even more Intel fanboish :P I respect that you personally didn't get much out of it, but you can barely buy a Phenom, still, so most people will be looking to drop in their current AM2 CPUs for a while and might want to know if there's any performance benefit over the most popular AMD chipset of last year. Ninja Edit: How many people will actually use four cards? I suspect close to zero - at least I used Gen-2 PCI-E cards __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek! Last edited by Bindibadgi; 3rd Dec 2007 at 17:51.

3rd Dec 2007, 16:56	#7
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,264	I appreciate that and we're preparing a Spider platform versus Intel equivalent article specifically to address that. This was just a board review __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

3rd Dec 2007, 16:46	#6
ChiperSoft Minimodder Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: San Diego, CA, USA Posts: 46	I would have liked to have seen your performance graphs also include a comparably equipped intel setup. As you say in the first page, this is AMDs first interesting offering in a while. Some comparison figures would be nice.

3rd Dec 2007, 18:16	#8
Jipa Licenced idiot. Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Tampere, Finland Posts: 3,063	Seems like I don't have to lose my good night's sleep because of these boards. Luckily you had the old allmighty M2N32-SLI there and the difference doesn't seem too radical. In real-world tests more than on the synthetic though... No upgrade atleast before Phenom. And what's this Gigabyte anyway (j/k, I'm not a fanboy) __________________ Abit IP35 - E6750 - 8800GT 1024 MB - 2 GB 800 MHz - enough HDDs - 750 W Silverstone - CM Storm Sniper Asus P5Q-VM - Q9450 - 4 GB - 400 W Silverstone - Fortress FT01 AllTheMods - MetkuMods - LedCalc

3rd Dec 2007, 21:17	#13
Cupboard I'm not a modder. Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Bury St Edmunds/Durham Uni Posts: 1,845	IMO, the layout on this board seem a bit ridiculous. Should you want 2 graphics card, then a raid card (as I am sure many people here might) it would be possible because the 2 spare "x16" slots are limited to only x1. It would have made a lot more sense to have at least one of them x4 surely? It is a step backwards in terms of layout compared to my NF4 board, I can do SLI (theoretically, money limited) and have a x4, x1 and old PCI left over, meaning i can use a x4 RAID card should I want to. Not having that option seems to be a really big mistake, especially when the board is aimed at enthusiasts! To me, it seems to appeal more to the "ooh, shiny" crowd rather than most enthusiasts who wont be spending money on 4, slower graphics cards. Sorry, I'll shut up now. __________________ i7 920, 8800GTS 512, 6GB Corsair all in an Intel DX58SO; 3*320GB RAID5; CM Stacker Samsung Q45.

3rd Dec 2007, 21:45	#15
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,264	Fixed __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

4th Dec 2007, 04:51	#17
Spaceraver Weekend Junkie Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Kolding, Denmark Posts: 1,307	Hmm, unless Asus comes up with anything better than this or a board with a better layout this looks interesting. Asus has always been my favourite motherboard manufacturer, but their support and driver side of the website is slow as hell. I chose Gigabyte for the last build i made for some family and it looks like I may do that again. I haven't had an AMD system since thier revered K6-2 went out of mainstream. Ah, those were days. I have been wanting an AMD system ever since. I so hope that it matures right, but the DS5 looks more like my wallet size. Heck, even if i wanted SLI it would not get 2x GPU's due to cost and the price of running them too. __________________ "Faith: not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche. "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca Last thing I remember, I was drinking this glowing green sht out of a test tube and dancing like a bstard.