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Hardware Asus Sabertooth 990FX Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Baz, 8 Aug 2011.

  1. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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  2. DeX

    DeX Mube Codder

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    I ask this on every motherboard review, but no one seems to know the answer. Why are there two scores for SATA performance and what is the reason for the difference between the two?
     
  3. Lizard

    Lizard @ Scan R&D

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    If you mean the two bars for each motherboard, it's because we measure the transfer rate when reading and writing. The graph has a colour code at the bottom showing which is which.
     
  4. Killbz

    Killbz I havent got a dremel

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    I know you are comparing AMD mobos here but I think it would be interesting with a performance comparison between this and a similarly priced sandybridge mobo. Doesn't need to be the whole range of SB boards just one or two well known boards.
    I have been with Intel since I started building my own computers but I would like to see how they compare to AMD as they are much better priced (in my mind).
     
  5. jakobfrimmel

    jakobfrimmel What's a Dremel?

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    motherboard manufactures are putting alot of attention on the 990 chipset.. this may hint at a powerfull cpu in the future... (im no fan boy so please dnt attack me)
     
  6. Material

    Material Soco Amaretto Lime

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    It's pretty easy to compare as we run the same tests on all our motherboards, we even us all the same test kit, apart from the processor obvioulsy. Just open a P67 review in another tab and flick between the two comparing numbers.
     
  7. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

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    Or, given how easy it is to compare, you could just chuck a P67 board into the results here.....
     
  8. KiNETiK

    KiNETiK What's a Dremel?

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    Why are there so many motherboard reviews on Bit-Tech compared to everything else?
     
  9. DeX

    DeX Mube Codder

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    No I mean the two different scores for the same board. I.e. Asus Sabertooth 990FX (SATA 6Gbps) and Asus Sabertooth 990FX (JMicron JMB362).
     
  10. Material

    Material Soco Amaretto Lime

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    That's because motherboard manufacturers occasionally add extra SATA ports to a board via an onboard SATA controller, in this case a JMicron JMB362. As a result you'll sometimes see extra results on the SATA speeds graph. As you can see from the graph though, these extra SATA ports are usually pretty useless and normally just a lazy way of differentiating a board against the competition.
     
  11. Quavr

    Quavr Minimodder

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    This is because the SATA ports are not all the same. The 6Gbps ports I assume are through the 990FX chipset whilst the other ports are through the JMicron chip, so the speeds of the two are not the same, so if you only had a couple of drives to plug in you could just use whichever was the fastest performing.

    EDIT: Beat me to it ^^
     
  12. SlowMotionSuicide

    SlowMotionSuicide Come Hell or High Water

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    I see Asus has chosen to forego the "Thermal Armor" nonsense on this board. Very nice.
     
  13. DeX

    DeX Mube Codder

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    That's interesting. How would one know which were the JMicron ports and which were the 990FX ports on this board?

    Edit: Never mind, I see that the JMicron ports are in fact labelled as SATA 3Gbps which explains the lack of performance :)
     
  14. Material

    Material Soco Amaretto Lime

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    The ports from different controllers will usually use different coloured ports. If they don't then the manual should always say which are which.
     
  15. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    Wow, a solid performer :thumb:

    Because there are so many different ones out there. And they're not even testing the cheaper boards ;)
    Also (at least for AMD) there seems to be quite a difference in performance, so there is an actual "result".
    While the return on testing 5 different say. GTX570's would probably be quite the same.
     
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  16. tonyd223

    tonyd223 king of nothing

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    Gotta say, money spent on a good motherboard is the very best choice you can make. These reviews let us know what's worth buying, and why.

    Go Bit-tech / custom pc!
     
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  17. Farfalho

    Farfalho Minimodder

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    Commentating on something that was said in the article: I believe Sabertooth series (being either Intel or AMD based) will eventually gain some attention from water blocks manufacturers and be given the same treatment, full cover blocks, which, give the situation, is well deserved and about time. Why spend so much in a CH V Formula when you can have similar or better performance for some less with the Sabertooth?!

    I bet if the stock heat sinks were changed to water blocks, this sucker could break the current record for this AMD chip. Of course bit-tech doesn't have the resources and time to do that (I don't mean as an insult but as understating that your job is time consuming and exhausting even though you love it).

    What about reviewing water blocks being cpu, gpu, motherboard and ram? It's up to manufacturers to send you the items and having more days to do something like this and the man power and day time as well.

    Good work BT
     
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