Hardware Canucks - Return of FX : GA-990FXA-UD7 - OC'd AMD FX 8150 / 6990 Performance Comparison Review

PART I of V : Return of AMD FX, Enter Gigabyte

http://i.imgur.com/3NYyZ.jpg

My System:

AMD FX 8150 @ 4.90 Ghz
Promilatech Genesis Cooler - 3 x 135mm Scythe Kama Flex 100CFM fans
Maingear T1000 TIM
8 Gb DDR3 Team Xtreem 2400 cl9 @ @ 1987 Mhz / CL9
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7
XFX HD 6990 + Accelero Twin Turbo Cooler @ 990/1500 Mhz
RevoDrive 3 x2 - 240 Gb

The first thing that came to mind when I first laid eyes on my new Gigabyte 990FX UD7 board was that it was quite the beautiful board. Much respect for the simple PCIE 16x slot latches, the Crosshair V uses a more traditional type, and sleek heatsink design.

EDIT: It should be noted that I received a revision 1.1 board from Newegg Canada, and that it does have Load Line Calibration (LLC) controls in the bios.

http://i.imgur.com/sM7qe.jpg

The new Team Xtreem DDR3 ram has a cheap but cool looking reflecting sticker, but what is most appealing are the stats: 2400 Mhz @ Cl9, which is only surpassed by Corsair's grossly overpriced and discontinued Dominator GT dual channel flagship memory.

http://i.imgur.com/piGcv.jpg

The memory height is not found online, and could be helpful to potential buyers.

Team Xtreem memory height : 52mm

Promlatech Genesis allowed height: 54mm

So this is awfully close to the tallest ram you could use with this cooler. I have seen Dominator GT ram at a height of 54mm barley fitting underneath the heat sink, found here, and a 53 mm Corsair Vengeance stick here.

Comparison Systems :

AMD FX 8150 @ 4.81 Ghz
Promilatech Genesis Cooler - 3 x 135mm Scythe Kama Flex 100CFM fans
Indigo Xtreme TIM
G. Skill 2200 cl7 @ x 2190 Mhz / CL10
ASUS Crosshair V
XFX HD 6990 + Accelero Twin Turbo Cooler @ 990/1500 Mhz

http://i.imgur.com/H70ns.jpg

Intel Rig

Intel i7 3770k @ 4.7-4.9Ghz
Various 8 Gb DDR3
Various Z77 Motherboards
Various GPUs

Results:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yV4O0s7Bw9...00/PART1-2.png

Sources:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Discussion:

We see that for the benchmarks used in Part I of my review, FX only falls signficantly behind when only a single thread is used. When only one core is being used we see a 25-40% benefit per Ghz for the 3770k over the FX 8150.

When all threads can be used, Bulldozer does a good job of making up for the lost single threaded performance. Scaling for FX outshines the i7 3770k by a significant margin. Most notably with techarp's x264 HD, where my FX 8150 @ 4.9 Ghz beats a 5.0 Ghz 2600k, and narrowly loses to a 4.9 Ghz 3770k. (Check source 19)

In TrueCrypt 7.1a we see a 4.9 Ghz FX 8150 performing slightly better than its 22nm 3770k intel counterpart at 4.7 Ghz.

In 7-Zip we see the FX 8150 jumping 2.7 % percent ahead of its 3770k counterpart at the same 4.9 Ghz clock for Compression, but falling behind 2.7% with decompression.

The temperature of a 3770k is also seen to sky-rocket up to 78C during a SuperPi 32m test, while my FX 8150 doest hit above 59C.

Next week well see how my GPU handles graphically intensive workloads on my new Gigabyte board.

Stay Tuned! I am free to answer any questions and also am willing to take any requests you guys might have!

AMDFX