ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard review

Test Configuration & Specifications

• Phenom II 955 X4 at 3.2 GHz
• ECS A890GXM-A (02/24/2010 BIOS; PCIe 2.0 Specification; CrossFire 8x+8X)
  

• Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 8x+8x).
• 4 GB Kingston DDR3 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at PC XXXx speeds)
• ATi Radeon HD 4290 integrated graphics with ECS motherboard only
  
• ATi Radeon HD 4870 (1 GB, reference clocks 750/900) by ASUS
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives
• OCZ 850 watt power supply

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 10-2; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX February 2010.
• All games are patched to their latest versions.

• vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
• 4xAA enabled in all games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3; all in-game settings at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• All DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths

Specifications

Here are the motherboard specifications as they appear on the ECS A890GXM-A product page:
CPU

• Socket AM3 socket for AMD Phenom™ II processors
• High-performance HyperTransport 3.0 CPU Interface
• Support transfer rate up to 5200 mega-transfers per second
• Note: This board supports CPU up to 140W TDP ; you can refer to AMD website to check your CPU.

CHIPSET

• AMD® 890GX & AMD® SB850
• North Bridge: AMD® 890GX
• South Bridge: AMD® SB850

GRAPHICS

• On Chip (AMD 890GX-based with ATI™ Radeon HD4290 graphics )
• Integrated DirectX10.1 graphics processor
• Share Memory: Maximum up to 512MB
• AMD SidePort Memory : DDR3-1333 (64Mx16=128MB)

MEMORY

• Dual-channel DDR3 memory architecture
• 4 x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM socket support up to 32 GB
• Support DDR3 up to 1800(OC)/1600(OC)/1333/1066 DDR3 SDRAM
• *(Due to the DRAM maximum size is 4GB at present, the memory maximum size we have tested is 16GB)
• *(Due to AMD CPU spec limitation, memory OC figure (1600+) is not guaranteed, please refer to Memory QVL for more information)

EXPANSION SLOT

• 3 x PCI Express Gen 2.0 x16 slots
• 2 x PCI Express x1 slots
• 1 x PCI slot
• *The third PCIEX16 only support bandwidth x4

STORAGE

• Support by AMD® SB850
• 5 x Serial ATAIII 6.0Gb/s devices
• RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 10 configuration
• 1 x eSATA

AUDIO

• Realtek ALC892 8-Ch High Definition audio CODEC
• Compliant with HD audio specification

LAN

• Dual Realtek 8111DL 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet Controller

REAR PANEL I/O

• 1 x D-sub(VGA)
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x DVI Port
• 1 x Display port
• 2 x RJ45 LAN connectors
• 1 x Audio port (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in)
• 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 1 x Clear_CMOS button
• 1 x eSATA
• 6 x USB ports

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS

• 1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector
• 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power Connector
• 1 x 4-pin CPU_FAN connector
• 1 x 3-pin PWR_FAN connector
• 1 x 3-pin SYS_FAN connector
• 1 x Power on button
• 1 x Reset button
• 1 x Speaker header
• 1 x Front panel switch/LED header
• 1 x Front panel audio header
• 1 x SPDIF out header
• 1 x 4-pin power connector for VGA card
• 1 x Clear CMOS header
• 5 x Serial ATAIII 6Gb/s connectors
• 4 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 8 USB ports
• 1X Stand by LED (Red Light)
• 1X Power on LED (Green light)
• 1 x Chassis intrusion header

SYSTEM BIOS

• AMI BIOS with 8Mb SPI Flash ROM
• Supports Plug and Play, STR (S3) / STD (S4) , Hardware monitor, Multi Boot
• Audio, LAN, can be disabled in BIOS
• F11 hot key for boot up devices option
• Support over-clocking
• Support eJIFFY
• Support Page Up clear CMOS Hotkey
• Support ECS M.I.B III Utility
• CPU voltage adjustable
• Memory voltage adjustable
• NB Chipset Voltage Adjustable
• HT Voltage Adjustable
• External Clock Adjustable
• Multiple Frequency Adjustable by CPU

FORM FACTOR

• ATX Size, 305mm*244mm

Let’s head right for the tests. We will begin with the synthetic testing.