ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard review

This editor was particularly eager to review an ECS Elite Group motherboard – especially their Black Series – because of their fine reputation for solid motherboards. We especially wanted a good look at their new AMD AM3 890GXM-A which was said to be very overclocking friendly. It is also a potential replacement for my Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P which was the basis for the Phenom II Value system which we reviewed against Intel’s high performance Core i7/x58 platform here. The ECS 890GXM-A is currently priced $120 at NewEgg.com

Our Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P motherboard is an excellent overclocker with many adjustments available and since it is a 790X chipset, it is natural that we will compare our new ECS 890GXM-A which is the updated version of the chipset that we have been using to overclock our Phenom II CPUs. It has been just over two years since AMD launched its 700 series chipset and the 800 series is being ushered in. We are going to look at the performance of this DDR3-supporting 890GXM chipset paired with a SouthBridge 850 which supports SATA 3.0 for AMD’s popular AM3 series of motherboards. This 890GX series is an “all purpose” motherboard and it is useful for both low- and high-end consumers.

AMD’s new 890GX chipset supports DDR3 memory and it has also upgraded the IGP (integrated graphics processor) to what AMD calls its Radeon HD 4290 which compared to the previous generation, brings new media capabilities and potentially better gaming performance. USB 3.0 support is available although it’s not built into the chipset itself but must be added in although the Southbridge 850 supports SATA 3.0. There are three 16x PCIe slots of which two supports AMD’s CrossFire and the third is 4x PCIe. You will have to wait until the 890FX chipset later this month to use full 16x + 16x PCIe CrossFire bandwidth simultaneously; our chipset is limited to 8x + 8x PCIe when both slots are populated.

Due to the lack of available PCI-Express bandwidth with Intel’s H55/P55 motherboards, neither USB 3.0 nor SATA 3.0 connections can experience their full bandwidth potential if a device from both connections are used simultaneously. In contrast, thanks to AMD’s SB850 Southbridge, there is enough bandwidth to handle all six possible SATA 3.0 ports along with USB 3.0 devices. We won’t see that kind of support from Intel’s motherboards until at least Sandy Bridge.

The new Southbridge is a very nice update over our older SB7x0 series. The Southbridge ASIC is used for peripheral connectivity for SSDs and HDDs, USB, audio, etc. We notice that this motherboard has implemented SATA 6G (SATA3) to increase the bandwidth on the SATA controller from 3 to (theoretically) 6 GBit/sec. For regular HDDs this is not really very necessary, but with the increasing popularity of fast SSD drives this is quite an attractive feature.

Since we do not have a SSD to test these transfer rates, we will rely on synthetic benchmarks to compare the two motherboards and we can tell you if it is worth an upgrade or not. It would be very logical to pair this motherboard with an Athlon II on the low end or a Phenom II on the high end and we shall focus on midrange gaming performance with the HD 4870 and our Phenom II 955-x4 which we run at its stock 3.2 GHz clock.

The ECS 890GXM-A is also a much more full-featured than the ECS A-785GM-AD3 AM3 motherboard which ABT senior editor Karan reviewed here. Although they share much in common, the one we are reviewing is intended to be particularly overclocking-friendly. Both motherboards include an integrated HD 4200 series graphics chipset (although the A890GXM-A’s integrated HD 4290 at 700 MHz is much faster) which is ideal for powering that second monitor or for use as a home theater PC (HTPC). It also means that you don’t need a separate video card for smooth BluRay playback. Eight-channel RealTek ALC892 7.1CH High Definition audio is also onboard with Content Protection for Blu-Ray.

The ECS 890GXM-A allows the integrated graphics to be paired with an HD 5450 for CrossFire-X to harness the power of both GPUs to work in tandem for more performance than either of them could muster by themselves. We were able to test the stock performance of the HD 4290 integrated graphics although we did not bother to overclock it as most end users do not buy it for that purpose. We also tested the performance of the stock HD 4870-1GB video card in our older 790X motherboard and we compared it to the performance in the ECS 890GXM-A to see if there is any difference or not.

There is a good reason that AMD did not include a HD “5290” as DX11 requires a rather beefy graphic processor to take advantage of tessellation and the extra details. This one is really intended for relatively low resolution and we tested the HD 4290 IG at 1440×900 to see how it does. The integrated graphics of ECS 890GXM-A is aimed squarely at Intel’s most powerful integrated graphics so as to blow it away for less money. AMD has succeeded but for more powerful integrated graphics, we shall have to wait until next year for AMD’s first iteration of their Fusion – a CPU core integrated with a fairly powerful DX11 graphics processor. Of course, if you do want DX11 now, you can pair the HD 4290 IG with an inexpensive HD 5450 in CrossFire-X and harness the power of both GPUs rather inexpensively.

Before we get into the benchmarks and performance figures, let’s take a look at this very aesthetically pleasing motherboard which is black as befits the ECS Black Series:

About ECS:

ECS, Elitegroup Computer Systems, was established in 1987. Over the last two decades, they have expanded their operation to not only motherboards, but also desktop and notebook computers, graphics cards and many mobile products. ECS was the first motherboard maker in Taiwan to be listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1994.

Headquartered in Taiwan with business partners and distributors in over 60 countries, ECS has ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001:2004 certified manufacturing facilities in China, capable of producing over 2.5 million motherboards and 200,000 notebook computers every month. The company currently has branch offices throughout the world in Americas, Europe and the Pacific Rim. To further extend its quality products and services, ECS plans to open additional branch offices in the new emerging markets including Brazil, India and Russia.

So let’s get better acquainted with the ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard.

Packing and Contents

The ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard comes in a standard-sized ATM motherboard box with all the usual protective packing including the non-static bag. Since it is for an AMD CrossFire platform, we see a dragon displayed on the box along with all of the information showing what it is for; that it supports Phenom II X-4 AM3, that it is “green”, that it has the 890GX chipset that includes integrated HD 4290 and CrossFire-X and CrossFire technology.

You can also see AMD’s Vision logo on the box and we read that the ECS A890GXM-A motherboard features special 15 micron gold contacts. We also note that it will boot almost instantly with a custom Linux-based operating system called eJiffy so that you can immediately begin using your PC to connect to the Internet with its superfast Dual-Giga LAN. This dual LAN allows two single connections to act as one for double the bandwidth. In this way you can immediately begin some tasks with your PC far quicker with eJiffy than by booting into Windows 7 which it also fully supports.Here is the box from another angle:

On the back we see many more details and the features of this motherboard. We see the Qooltech III is a passive cooler with dual copper pipes to help keep the motherboard cool for testing and running your CPU overclocks. Also, note the featured 4most Display which includes onboard HDMI, DVI, D-Sub and Displayport for excellent multi-media support and visual performance. ECS’ 15 micron Gold Contact consists of relatively thick gold plating on CPU pins, memory sockets and PCI-E x16 slots that allow for superb contact and long-lasting durability.

Opening the box, we see the Manual, the CD and the Quick Installation guide. Using the automatic installation for the drivers is really easy and it will do most of the work for you. After you reboot, you can install the included utilities including eJiffy which can get you online in as quickly as ten seconds.

Now on to the goodies. This is what you are greeted with upon removal of the cardboard separator. We see the SATA connectors and the I/O panel cover atop the static bag that covers the motherboard.

Let’s take everything out of the box except for the motherboard.

Take a look at the I/O shield and a SATA connector.

The instructions are very clear and the manual is well written.

Finally here is the motherbard. It is beautiful, well arranged and offers good features. As you can see it is well-marked and everything is clearly identified:

It is a very good-looking Black PCB as befits ECS’ Black Series; check out the reverse and note the plastic backplate for the AMD CPU.

Let’s look from another angle and check out the I/O connections. Everything you could want is here including VGA, HDMI, DVI, D-Sub, DisplayPort and even a Dual-Giga LAN that allows for two connections to act as one for high bandwidth and faster transfers. Look very carefully at the little red button. It is clear CMOS and it is a great feature that keeps you from having to open your case if you mess up your overclock. It is also small enough so that you will not reset it accidentally. However, you will find no legacy of any kind including no PS2 mouse, no firewire, and no IDE.

Now from another angle you can see the QoolTech III with its dual copper heatpipes passively cooling the MOS, NB and SB to focus on silent cooling. In addition the SB850 features 5x SATA 6G ports and 1x eSATA, with RAID 0,1, 5&10 configurations, and proprietary ECS BIOS tweaking through the M.I.B III Overclocking utility.

Sharp-eyed readers might notice that ABT has an early revision of this MB; the caps for the reset buttons are missing on ours (above and below left) but will be on your retail MB (below right).

Everything we see looks really good so far. Let’s head for our testing setup and the specifications.

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.

Synthetic Tests

CrystalDiskMark

Crystal DiskMark version 2.2 is an excellent way to test your motherboard/HD’s performance. CrystalDiskMark is primarily a HDD benchmark utility for your hard drive that enables you to measure sequential and random read/write speeds.

Here are two key features of “CrystalDiskMark”:

· Sequential reads/writes

· Random 4KB/512KB reads/writes

First we test with our older 790X chipset and we see decent performance.

Next up is our ECS A890GXM-A motherboard and we note all the performance figures are solidly up over the older motherboard.

CustomPC Benchmark

CustomPC benchmark use widely available open-source applications to carry out the tasks that most of us perform on a regular basis. There are three tests, each of which measure different aspects of a PC’s performance. These tests themselves are not synthetic benchmarks but instead they use real world image, video and multi-tasking tasks to test the performance of your computer.

The tests are:

• GIMP Image Editing
• H.264 Video Encoding
• Multi-tasking

As usual we test with the Gigabyte GA-MA790X, our older chipset first.

Now let’s look at this same bench also running a HD 4870 on our ECS A890GXM-A motherboard. We notice these tests will translate to doing video, image and multi-tasking tasks significantly faster on the newer motherboard.

Now lets look at the ECS A890GXM-A motherboard using the integrated graphics. We see the integrated HD 4890 does a fine job of image and video editing as well as multi-tasking compared to our same system with the HD 4870 installed and it is still faster than with our older 790X motherboard. You will not need a discrete video card to do photo editing, video transcoding or multi-tasking.

Everest

Everest is a complete benchmarking/stress test for your PC.

Just a part of Everest Benchmark will measure the raw performance of:

• Transfer Rate
• Access Time
• CPU Usage
• Burst Rate
• Random Access test
• Write benchmark
• Hard Disk information which includes partition information, supported features, firmware version, serial number, disk capacity, buffer size, transfer mode
• Hard Disk Health
• S.M.A.R.T. Information (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)
• Power On Time
• Error scan and Temperature display

However, the most important difference in motherboards that Everest will measure is with the Cache & Memory Benchmark. First we look at our 790X older motherboard.
Now we look at the ECS A890GXM-A memory and cache performance. The RAM runs at a different speed and timing in each motherboard since the older board uses DDR2 and the ECS A890GXM-A uses DDR3.
We can generally see big improvements in the Everest benches of the new chipset over the old. Of course, we cannot compare performance exactly as the DDR3 runs at a much faster speed than DDR2. We wonder if the newer chipset and motherboard will improve hard drive performance. Read on.

HD Tune 3.50

HD Tune is a hard disk utility. We are using the default setting of 64KB blocks for testing

First we run the standard benchmark of our older 790X Gigabyte motherboard with the HD 4870:

Now we run the same standard benchmark with the HD 4870 and our new ECS A890GXM-A.

Finally we test the new 890GXM motherboard with its integrated graphics on the standard benchmark.

As you can see there is little to no difference with the HD 4870 installed or with integrated graphics, so we will continue to show you only the benches with our HD 4870 installed in both motherboards for brevity as this trend is repeated all throughout the benchmarks. Of course, it should be this way as graphics subsystems should not affect HD performance.

In fact, we see very little performance improvement in the new motherboard over the older one except with faster minimums and also in the burst rate.

Now let’s look at the HD Tune’s file benchmark of our older 790X motherboard with the HD 4870 installed.

And now the file benchmark with HD 4870 and A890GXM-A

We can see that with a regular hard drive, there is very little difference.

Now the Extra benchmark with the HD 4870 and our older Gigabyte mother board with chipset 790X.

Now the Extra benchmark with the HD 4870 and A890GXM-A show that the transfer rates have improved.

We can see advantages to using the newer chipset for a regular hard drive that would surely be magnified by using a SSD.

Hyper-Pi (Super Pi)

Hyper-Pi is a program that is often used by overclockers to test the stability of their computer. From Wikipedia:

Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point – up to a maximum of 32 million. It uses Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of the program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute Pi to 232 digits.

First, here is the standard benchmark of Hyper-Pi with our Gigabyte 790X motherboard with our HD 4870 installed:

Now we run Hyper Pi with the HD 4870 and our A890GXM-A motherboard:

It doesn’t really prove anything, but calculating Pi is a bit faster with our newer motherboard.

PCMark Vantage

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista that offers one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts. A PCMark Vantage score is a rough measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security tasks.

First we run the standard PCMark Vantage benchmark suite using our older Gigabyte 790X motherboard with the HD 4870 installed

Now we run the same benchmark suite with HD 4870 and our ECS A890GXM-A.

And now let’s compare by using our ECS motherboard with the integrated graphics only.

In all cases, the newer motherboard is faster with PCMark Vantage.

SANDRA 2010 SP1

SANDRA, short for the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant is an information and diagnostic utility. It provides a tremendous amount of information about every hardware and software component in your PC. It also provides various benchmarks. First we run the arithmetic benchmark of our Gigabyte 790X motherboard with the HD 4870:

Now we test with the HD 4870 and our ECS A890GXM-A motherboard and notice the very slightest decrease in Drystone ALU and the Aggregate Arithmetic Performance.

Let’s check out the memory bandwidth benchmark of A890GXM-A with HD 4870.

Finally the multi-media benchmark with our HD 4870 and A890GXM-A:

We have already seen improvements in video editing and multi-tasking, but will it also translate to improved performance in gaming? We will look at it now that we are finished with the synthetic benchmarks.

Gaming & IG Performance

Vantage

Without a doubt, Vantage is a synthetic test. However, it fits in well with gaming as it also benches two mini-games and gives their comparative framerates. Vantage is Futuremark’s latest test. It is really useful for tracking changes in a single system – especially driver changes. There are two mini-game tests, Jane Nash and Calico and also two CPU tests, but we are still focusing on the graphics performance. Here is a scene from Vantage’s second mini-game.

Let’s go right to the graphs and first check the basic tests with the default benchmark scores with our HD 4870 in our older Gigabyte 790X motherboard.

We notice that the overall score is a bit higher with the older motherboard because of the GPU score; the CPU score is higher with the newer motherboard.

Things are pretty sad when we try to run the stock tests with HD 4290 integrated graphics.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is an air combat video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was released in United States on March 6, 2009. You have the opportunity to fly 54 aircraft over real world locations and cities in somewhat realistic environments that are created with satellite data. This game is a more of a take on flying than a real simulation and it has received mixed reviews.

The game story takes place during the time of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. H.A.W.X. is set in the year 2014 where private military companies have replaced government-run military in many countries. The player is placed into the cockpit as an elite ex-military pilot who is recruited by one of these corporations to work for them as a mercenary. You later return to the US Air Force with a team as you try to prevent a full scale terrorist attack on the United States which was started by your former employer.

Let’s check out H.A.W.X. at 1920×1200:

Let’s look now at ‘medium’ details and 1440×900 and add our 890GX IG into the mix:

We see a very slight edge go to the HD 4870 in our newer motherboard but we would not think of using the integrated graphics to play this game except at much lower details and resolution than we used.

DiRT 2 Demo – (DX9c)

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is a racing game that was released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. It includes many new race-events, including stadium events as your RV travels from one event to another in many real-world environments across four continents. Dirt 2 includes five different event types even allowing you to compete at new locations. It also includes a new multiplayer mode. Dirt 2 is powered by an updated version of the EGO engine which was featured in Race Driver: Grid. This updated EGO engine also features an updated physics engine.

First we test our two motherboards with the HD 4870 at 1920×1200:

Now we test at at 1440×900 (not 1449×990) and with “medium” details but still we like to use 4xAA/16xAF. We note the relatively poor showing with the integrated HD 4290 graphics.

Again we see the newer chipset solidly beat the older one and this is unusual. The faster memory and sub-systems should not account for such a large difference. Again, the integrated graphics are not suited for 1440×900 but would meet the game’s minimum requirements at a lower resolution and detail setting.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat became a brand new DX11 benchmark for us after GSC Game World released a another story expansion to the original Shadows of Chernobyl. It is the third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. All of these games have non-linear storylines which feature role-playing game elements. In both games, the player assumes the identity of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; an illegal artifact scavenger in “The Zone” which encompasses about 30 square kilometers. It is the location of an alternate reality story surrounding the Chernobyl Power Plant after another (fictitious) explosion.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat features “a living breathing world” with highly developed NPC creature AI. Call of Pripyat utilizes the XRAY 1.6 Engine, allowing advanced modern graphical features through the use of DirectX 11 to be fully intregrated. Call of Pripyat is also compatible with DirectX 8, 9, 10 and 10.1. It uses the X-ray 1.6 Engine one outstanding feature being the inclusion of real-time GPU tessellation– a Shader model 3.0 & 4.0 graphics engine featuring HDR, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, motion blur, weather effects and day-to-night cycles.

As with other engines using deferred shading, the original DX9c X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled, although the DX10 and DX 11 versions do. We are using the stand-alone “official” benchmark by Clear Sky’s creators. Call of Pripyat is top-notch and worthy to be part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s universe with even more awesome DX11 effects which help to create and enhance their game’s already incredible atmosphere. As with Clear Sky before it, DX10 and now DX11 comes with steep hardware requirements and this new game still really needs multi-GPU to run at its maximum settings.

We present our settings for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat benchmark at 1920×1200 resolution:

First the results at 1920×1200 with the HD 4870 and our older 790x motherboard:

Now at 1920×1200 with 4870/790x we see very little difference.

So let’s look at our setup for 1440×900:

Now we see the results of our HD 4870 in our older motherboard:

So now let’s look at our ECS A890GXM-A and the HD 4870 at 1440×900; notice a subtle performance increase over the older motherboard when the emphasis is shifted away from the video card.

Finally, let’s see if the integrated graphics can handle Call of Pripyat at just 1440×900 and medium details:
It’s not really playable with the HD 4290 IG. You would really have to drop the details or the resolution – or both. However, when we use our HD 4870, we see almost no difference at 1920×1200 but we do see some improvement with the newer motherboard at 1440×900.  This is logical as at higher resolutions we can expect more work to be shifted to the graphics card.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror third-person shooter developed and published by Capcom that has become the best selling single title in the series. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil series and it was released for Windows in September 2009. Resident Evil 5 revolves around two investigators pulled into a bio-terrorist threat in a fictional town in Africa.

Resident Evil 5 features online co-op play over the internet and also takes advantage of NVIDIA’s new GeForce 3D Vision technology. The PC version comes with exclusive content the consoles do not have. The developer’s emphasis is in optimizing high frame rates but they have implemented HDR, tone mapping, depth of field and motion blur into the game. Re5‘s custom game engine, ‘MT Framework’, already supports DX10 to benefit from less memory usage and faster loading.

Resident Evil 5 gives you choice as to DX10 or DX9 and we naturally ran the DX10 pathway.
There are two benchmarks built-into Resident Evil 5. We chose the fixed benchmark. Here it is first at 1920×1200 with our HD 4870 and the older 790x motherboard:

Now let’s compare our ECS A890GXM-A with HD 4870 at 1440×900 and also see where the integrated HD 4290 stands:

Again, the integrated HD 4290 is simply not made for DX10 games at this high of a resolution or detail setting. The HD 4870 in the newer motherboard is slightly faster than in the older motherboard at 1920×1200 but pulls further ahead at our lower resolution and detail setting.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3:Terran Conflict (X3:TC) is another beautiful stand-alone benchmark that runs multiple tests and will really strain a lot of video cards. X3:TC is a space trading and combat simulator from Egosoft and is the most recent of their X-series of computer games. X3:TC is a standalone expansion of X3: Reunion, based in the same universe and on the same engine. It complements the story of previous games in the X-Universe and especially continues the events after the end of X3: Reunion.
Compared to Reunion, Terran Conflict features a larger universe, more ships, and of course, new missions. The X-Universe is huge. The Terran faction was added with their own set of technology including powerful ships and stations. Many new weapons systems were developed for the expansion and it has generally received good reviews. It has a rather steep learning curve.

Here is our setup for 1920×1200 resolution:

Here is our HD 4870/780X motherboard combo at 1920×1200 results.

And now our HD 4870/A890GXM-A results at 1920×1200 are slightly stronger.

Now checkout our setup for our HD 4290 as the integrated graphics just cannot handle a high resolution; we still like to apply antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, however:

So here are the HD 4290 1440×900 resolution results with medium details:

It’s not playable at our settings. You would want to disable filtering and/or drop the resolution. Ideally if you are a PC gamer, you would want a discreet video card, but this will do in a pinch for the occasional gamer.

CRYSIS

Next we move on to Crysis, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. It remains one of the most demanding games for any PC and it is also still one of the most beautiful games released to date. Crysis is based in a fictional near-future where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, ‘Nomad’ who is armed with futuristic weapons and equipment.

Crysis uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering. A standalone but related game, Crysis Warhead was released last year. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power Crysis and Warhead and it is an extended version of the CryEngine that also powers FarCry. As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10’s 4.0, CryEngine2 is also multi-threaded to take advantage of dual core SMP-aware systems and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics. However, it is noted that actually playing this game is a bit slower than the demo implies.

GPU Demo, Island

First the results at 1920×1200 show the HD 4870 in the newer motherboard is ever so slightly ahead of the older one. Here our settings are set to the maximum “very high” including 4xAA and we force 16xAF in the control panel. Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmark, first at 1920×1200 resolution:

Now at 1440×900 resolution and medium details we see the HD 4870 in the newer motherboard pull ahead.

We see the very slightest performance increase with DDR3 and the new motherboard at 1920×1200 but a much more noticeable one at lower resolution and details. We will gladly take the performance increase of the new chipset but will eschew playing Crysis with the integrated graphics.

FarCry 2

Far Cry 2 uses the name of the original Far Cry but it is not connected to the first game as it brings you a new setting and a new story. Ubisoft created it based on their Dunia Engine. The game setting takes place in an unnamed African country, during an uprising between two rival warring factions. Your mission is to kill “The Jackal”; the Nietzsche-quoting mercenary that arms both sides of the conflict that you are dropped into.

The Far Cry 2 game world is loaded in the background and on the fly to create a completely seamless open world. The Dunia game engine provides good visuals that scale well. One thing to especially note is Far Cry 2’s very realistic fire propagation by their engine that is a far cry from the scripted fire and explosions that we are used to seeing.

Check out our HD 4870/780x motherboard settings for Far Cry 2 at 1440×900

Here are our results at 1440×900 with our HD 4870 in our older 790x motherboard:

And now we look at the same HD 4870 also at 1440×900 resolution but in the new ECS motherboard. We see a solid increase in the average framerate!

Finally we test our integrated HD 4290 at the same settings:

Ouch! Get a discreet video card if you want to play Far Cry 2 at any resolution or setting.

Updating the BIOS and other tools

eBLU – BIOS Live Update Utility makes updating BIOS fast and easy. eBLU saves time and hassle of searching for BIOS online and avoid complicated flashing steps. With simple and easy steps it checks for new BIOS version on-line and safely guides the user to flash the system BIOS. When we updated to the new 02/25/2010 BIOS, we did not have that option as the ECS website was not as yet updated and instead of the hassle of preparing a bootable flash drive, we used AMI Windows Flash Utility which worked really well.

eJiffy
eJiffy is an interesting utility that allows people in a hurry to almost instantly access the Web and some folders using Linux and bypassing loading Windows altogether. Here, ABT Senior Editor Karan made a video that illustrates eJiffy on his own ECS motherboard. Everything is the same on this one. Enjoy!

ECS includes a Linux based quick booting operating system with this motherboard. The setup can be downloaded from here. Once installed in windows, user can set the BIOS option to enable eJiffy. Then a menu will popup, as seen in the video below, allowing you to choose between booting the operating system or eJiffy. eJiffy provides an easy way to surf the web, view photos or chat without booting up windows. As seen in the video below, you can very easily watch Full-HD videos on youtube.

Overclocking

Thanks to the overclocking-friendly BIOS of the ECS A890GXM-A motherboard, I was able to get exactly and almost instantly the same overclock with my Phenom II 955 X4 that I achieved with my Gigabyte motherboard. Unfortunately, it appears that 3.9 GHz is the limit of the CPU at the over-voltage that we give it. Please see our Senior Editor Karan’s excellent tour of his own ECS motherboard’s BIOS. The only difference appears to be the overclocking screens which we present before we show you his video tour of the BIOS. We also did not have his issues with saving our settings.

ECS uses an AMIBIOS. Here is Senior editor Karan’s walkthrough video of the BIOS which can be watched below.

Conclusion

This ECS A890GXM-A motherboard represents a very good value that has become synonymous with the ECS brand. Continuing on in the tradition of impressive performance and with feature rich products, this motherboard is perfect for the casual gamer. Primarily this motherboard will appeal to anyone looking for an HTPC setup or for a work PC that can also do some gaming. If you add in a discrete GPU and perhaps overclock your CPU a bit, you can seriously game with any high-end video card and even use two AMD video cards in CrossFire. There is still very little performance penalty for using even two HD 5870s in a PCIe 8x+8x CrossFire configuration as compared to using the full 16x PCIe bandwidth.

The ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard is a solid product with good overclocking features and a better performer and a very decent upgrade for us over our Gigabyte 790X motherboard. We are pleased to use this new ECS motherboard as our new reference board for benching our AMD CPUs. Our “pros” are major and our “cons” are quite minor nitpicks for an overall excellently performing motherboard from ECS Black Series. In fact, not having IDE might be a plus for some enthusiasts; for others, that large storage drive is now useless. At any rate, the ECS A890GXM-A is highly recommended and now used by us!

Pros –

• Black PCB is aesthetically pleasing and very functional
• Buttons for start, reset and clear CMOS.
• Good overclocking features in the BIOS and it is stable
• Great connectivity for multi-media

Cons –

• CrossFire is limited to 8x+8x PCIe
• No IDE, legacy of any kind; no firewire; no PS2 mouse.

ECS A890GXM-A motherboard deserves the ABT Editor’s Choice award.

The ECS A890GXM-A motherboard is definitely now my choice for comparing AMD AM3 CPUs and as a standard testbed. The Gigabyte 790x motherboard will now be retired as it has served well but it is time to move to a DDR3 platform.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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«1. Introduction2. Packing & Contents3. Test Configuration4. Synthetic Tests5. Gaming and IG performance6. BIOS updates & eJiffy7. Overclocking8. Conclusion9. View All»