MSI 990FXA-GD80 990FX Chipset Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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MSI 990FXA-GD80 990FX Chipset Motherboard Review - AMD’s new 990FX chipset supports the upcoming Q3 Bulldozer release and now have motherboard manufacturers clamoring to put out new product designed for the Zambezi desktop processors. MSI is no exception and as a result it is introducing its 990FXA-GD80. Sans Zambezi.
 
Great review of this new motherboard. I can't help but feel very disappointed that a motherboard would be released like this in actual beta status. First impressions are always important, even if the actual processors it was designed for a still over a month away. If the first impressions that people have with an AM3+ platform are this negative, that could give the AM3+ platform and the BD processors a bad image that could last for a long time.
 
amdgamer said:
Great review of this new motherboard. I can't help but feel very disappointed that a motherboard would be released like this in actual beta status. First impressions are always important, even if the actual processors it was designed for a still over a month away. If the first impressions that people have with an AM3+ platform are this negative, that could give the AM3+ platform and the BD processors a bad image that could last for a long time.
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Release date for Bulldozer is now the end of september =\
 
Rebadged?

Ok I haven't been following this Bulldozer business for the simple fact, I already know how it plays out in the end. And that is, after all the charts, the benchmarks, the talk ... Intel will still be faster.

That said, I was expecting a new chipset for the new bulldozer line of cpu's.

Guess I was wrong.
 
The ASUS board I have been testing, with Turbo working, is slower as well with the 1100TT. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise and now the boards will get sorted out before Zambezi shows up.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Rebadged?

Ok I haven't been following this Bulldozer business for the simple fact, I already know how it plays out in the end. And that is, after all the charts, the benchmarks, the talk ... Intel will still be faster.

That said, I was expecting a new chipset for the new bulldozer line of cpu's.

Guess I was wrong.
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I'm taking the silence on the stats of Bulldozer on AMD's part so close to launch to basically say, we're not faster.
 
Want to root for AMD so bad but it’s like “Damn it Jim” ........................
 
Wow, that board gave you a sucky overclock. 255mhz. Seems strange it couldn't go higher.
 
jarman said:
Seconded. Any details on the IOMMU love from 990FX?
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It's the same as it was on the 890FX chipset. Again, functionally aside from SLI support the 990FX is the same silicon as the 890FX before it. As for IOMMU, it is in fact supported on the MSI 990FXA-GD80. I saw the setting in the BIOS. No we did not test this feature. I'm not sure it would be of any real benefit to do so. The existing tests we do wouldn't benefit from enabling IOMMU. Sure there are a few individuals that would really like to see testing on that sort of thing, the same as they'd like to see virtualization performance analysis in processor reviews, Unfortunately again these things while vaguely interesting to some aren't really of paramount concern when buying a processor.

At least that's my take on the subject. If we were doing articles on Xeons and AMD's server parts then I could see spending time on such things, but we aren't doing workstation / server / business or enterprise class hardware reviews.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Rebadged?

Ok I haven't been following this Bulldozer business for the simple fact, I already know how it plays out in the end. And that is, after all the charts, the benchmarks, the talk ... Intel will still be faster.

That said, I was expecting a new chipset for the new bulldozer line of cpu's.

Guess I was wrong.
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The only thing that I didn't like is the lack of more PCI-E lanes (in regards to the chipset). Since the memory controller is on-die, we will have to wait and see how much better it is then the current AMD memory controller.

MSI should have seriously fixed some of these issues before sending the board out.
 
Test the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 right now and it is doing a lot better with the benchmarks. Looking like the 1100T should.
 
Dan_D said:
As long as it doesn't make me bust out a PS/2 keyboard to work with the BIOS I'll be happy.
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Hahahaha, a man has his limits Dan?
but that’s their signature and why they gave you the touch bios. :p
 
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marzzez said:
Hahahaha, a man has his limits Dan?
but that’s their signature and why they gave you the touch bios. :p
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It drives me crazy when Gigabyte boards need me to connect a PS/2 keyboard to them because they don't enable USB keyboard support in the BIOS by default. In 2011 that's simply unacceptable. Really that's the only consistent issue I've had with their boards in the last three or four years. Gigabyte has really improved as I wouldn't have touched them 5 or 6 years ago. Now I'd seriously consider using a Gigabyte board in my own machine so long as the layout and feature set were right.
 
Dan_D said:
It drives me crazy when Gigabyte boards need me to connect a PS/2 keyboard to them because they don't enable USB keyboard support in the BIOS by default. In 2011 that's simply unacceptable. Really that's the only consistent issue I've had with their boards in the last three or four years. Gigabyte has really improved as I wouldn't have touched them 5 or 6 years ago. Now I'd seriously consider using a Gigabyte board in my own machine so long as the layout and feature set were right.
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Which is really strange as the 790X-UD4P I had didn't need for me to connect a PS/2 KB to work in the BIOS... USB keyboard entered and navigated the BIOS very well.
 
No problems with this GBT. Funny is came in behind the ASUS in most of the 3D.
 
JMccovery said:
Which is really strange as the 790X-UD4P I had didn't need for me to connect a PS/2 KB to work in the BIOS... USB keyboard entered and navigated the BIOS very well.
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I have had TONS of connectivity issues over the years and I have seen a LOT of GBT boards.
 
My gigabyte board used a USB keyboard to navigate the BIOS. Guess you don't know everything about Gigabyte motherboards....
 
TakeN0Prisoners said:
My gigabyte board used a USB keyboard to navigate the BIOS. Guess you don't know everything about Gigabyte motherboards....
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They sure wasnt able to boot linux from usb! crappy, i asked gigabyte, said it was impossible with award bios, I begged the differ, they cudnt help me, RMA 5 boards.
GG Gigabyte.

That being said, I love what amd does with their SB's, improving them alot, 990FX coulda been better, but intel doesnt bring much to the table either.
790FX-990FX is pretty much the same, newer pci-e spec but otherwise same.
 
Dan_D said:
It drives me crazy when Gigabyte boards need me to connect a PS/2 keyboard to them because they don't enable USB keyboard support in the BIOS by default. In 2011 that's simply unacceptable. Really that's the only consistent issue I've had with their boards in the last three or four years. Gigabyte has really improved as I wouldn't have touched them 5 or 6 years ago. Now I'd seriously consider using a Gigabyte board in my own machine so long as the layout and feature set were right.
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Ya, I know; just had to tease you a bit.
 
Thanks for the honest write up.

Any word on when the Sabertooth and Crosshair V will be up on review? I was planning on buying a Sabertooth when they were released but all this negative talk about Bulldozer and now the ho-hum performance of the 990FX chipset has me SERIOUSLY considering my first Intel build in 10 years. I was waiting on the [H] review first tho.
 
Know it’s early to say but was wondering if you guys are going to test their SATA6 connection speed against Intel’s and would having the BD chip make difference in that regard.
 
Dan_D said:
It drives me crazy when Gigabyte boards need me to connect a PS/2 keyboard to them because they don't enable USB keyboard support in the BIOS by default. In 2011 that's simply unacceptable. Really that's the only consistent issue I've had with their boards in the last three or four years. Gigabyte has really improved as I wouldn't have touched them 5 or 6 years ago. Now I'd seriously consider using a Gigabyte board in my own machine so long as the layout and feature set were right.
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It is pretty amazing how a company can literally turn themselves and their reputation around so significantly. As with you, there was a time where I would have never considered a Gigabyte motherboard. For my current gaming rig build, I gave Gigabyte a chance and was so impressed that I went on to build 2 more folding rigs also running the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R board. Either way, I can't wait to see what you guys come up with after taking a look at the other AM3+ boards. My PII 965 is starting to feel a big aged and not in a good way.
 
I just came away from all three boards that they all needed a lot of BIOS tuning.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037330737 said:
I know its tough to say, but how confident do you feel that it is indeed the BIOS that is the issue (and that they will get around to fixing it)?

My issue right now is that I am stuck with a SFF case and NEED more expansion. I was going to go Bulldozer as soon as it is released but since it is now delayed my intermediate solution was going to be to pick up a cheap AM3 CPU, stick it in a 990FX board and replace it with a BD chip once launched.

You think this is a safe move, or is it better to wait for more mature 990 FX motherboards?
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Thats what Im trying to figure out. I bought this X6 a couple weeks ago planning on doing just that, buying a Sabertooth now and ride with my X6 til the dust settled around BD but with all the negative talk around both BD and 990FX, Im very very leary and worried I just threw $200 down the crapper.
 
Sor’da reminds me of an old pick-up truck I had, came with 8 cylinders but I only had 6 working; but me and that 6 were going places baby!
 
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So, assuming that the issues on this board will be fixed with a BIOS update, I actually like it better than the ASUS TUF board due to it having more expansion slots...

One thing I have been unable to figure out is which PCIe slots to use.

Lets say you were building a 2 way SLI system, but also wanted to use a 3rd party 1xPCIe sound board.

After reading the manual (on MSI's webpage) i can't figure out which would be the optimal slots to use.)

My assumption is that in order to get a 16x16 configuration you'd use the two 16x PCIe slots closest to the CPU socket, thus covering the second PCIe 1x slot, and the legacy PCI slot.

Then, which slot would you put the sound card in without compromising the SLI 16x16 setup? I'm guessing the remaining 1x slot (closest to the cpu) would be the best bet, but this is nothing but a guess...

I used to build a ton of systems back in the AGP days, but more recently I've slowed down a bit, so this kind of stuff escapes me.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037335109 said:
So, assuming that the issues on this board will be fixed with a BIOS update, I actually like it better than the ASUS TUF board due to it having more expansion slots...

One thing I have been unable to figure out is which PCIe slots to use.

Lets say you were building a 2 way SLI system, but also wanted to use a 3rd party 1xPCIe sound board.

After reading the manual (on MSI's webpage) i can't figure out which would be the optimal slots to use.)

My assumption is that in order to get a 16x16 configuration you'd use the two 16x PCIe slots closest to the CPU socket, thus covering the second PCIe 1x slot, and the legacy PCI slot.

Then, which slot would you put the sound card in without compromising the SLI 16x16 setup? I'm guessing the remaining 1x slot (closest to the cpu) would be the best bet, but this is nothing but a guess...

I used to build a ton of systems back in the AGP days, but more recently I've slowed down a bit, so this kind of stuff escapes me.
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The first and third PCIe slots are x16 in dual card configurations. Slots 1, 2, and 3 operate in a 16x8x8 configuration or all four slots operate at x16x8x8x4.
 
Dan_D said:
The first and third PCIe slots are x16 in dual card configurations. Slots 1, 2, and 3 operate in a 16x8x8 configuration or all four slots operate at x16x8x8x4.
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Thank you for that. What about the 1x slots. Can you put something in there without dropping down the 16x16 config?
 
Zarathustra[H];1037337943 said:
Thank you for that. What about the 1x slots. Can you put something in there without dropping down the 16x16 config?
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Uncertain. MSI's documentation says nothing about that. It might be in the manual, but Kyle has that.
 
Dan_D said:
Uncertain. MSI's documentation says nothing about that. It might be in the manual, but Kyle has that.
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I grabbed the manual from MSI's webpage yesterday (they have since pulled it down). Unfortunately it had remarkably few details on this subject.

I couldn't even get the information you had (16x16, 16x8x8, 16x8x8x4) from it.
 
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