Wednesday 6th August 2008

AMD launches 790GX chipset

Promises better Phenom overclocking headroom

Posted at: 1:40pm 6th August 2008 by Antony Leather

From today, retailers will start receiving stock of AMD 790GX motherboards, featuring AMD's latest Socket AM2+ chipset and SB750 Southbridge combination. This new pairing promises additional features and a performance improvement over its predecessor, the 780G.

AMD claims the chipset will allow for better overclocking with its Phenom CPUs, making it easy to increase core frequencies beyond 3GHz. AMD was less bullish about providing details to us on what new features or settings will actually make this possible, although AMD did say that the Overdrive overclocking utility should apparently now offer more settings to fine tune the system within Windows.

The upgraded SB750 Southbridge brings the introduction of Advanced Clock Calibration, a more direct link between the Southbridge and the CPU.

Anandtech has a piece further exploring this technology, though AMD didn't confirm with us any details of how the direct link between a Phenom and SB750 will enhance overclocking potential. AMD does claim a 100 – 400MHz boost to clock frequency is possible, so Phenoms clocked beyond 3GHz may become more common.

SB750 also brings support for RAID 5, along with RAIDxpert, a Windows based RAID setup utility that should allow for easier setting up of a RAID array. The integrated graphics processor (IGP) has also been upgraded to a Radeon HD3300, from the HD 3200 found on 780G motherboards.

The 790GX chipset will come with side-port memory as standard, an integrated bank of GDDR3 memory dedicated to the Northbridge and designed to boost performance of the Radeon HD 3300 IGP.

Sideport was previously an optional addition to 780G motherboards, but is standard on 780GX motherboards. It gives the IGP a minimum of 64MB of GDDR3 memory to act as a local frame buffer, rather than have the IGP use system memory. AMD claims this new IGP will perform 30-40% better than the HD 3200.

As with the 780G chipset, the 790GX supports Hybrid Crossfire, which allows the IGP to work with a discrete GPU. However AMD admits there is little performance to be gained from the IGP when combined with a powerful discrete GPU such as the Radeon HD 4870.

The 790GX borrows a feature from the more high-end 790FX chipset with CrossfireX support, though it can only provide enough PCI-E 2.0 lanes for two graphics slots with eight lanes (8GB/sec) bandwidth each.

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@Crazy

Well if most of us here agree, then you must be the one on crack!!

Comment by NikoBellic at 9:53pm 11th August 2008

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Are you all smoking crack?

No one in their right mind would consider building any kind of AMD system with current and topic named product. Price is bound to be expensive as all of the AMD releases are, their accountants just wont let it go for any less. Performances have let's be honest been pretty poor considering the Q6600 is STILL doing a lot of damage to AMD top line CPU's. Overclocking has been an absolute joke. If you are on a tight budget you still couldn't justify building an AMD system as the lower down the line you go, the worse it just gets. Media Centre PC would potentially be the only thing you could build an AMD system for, other than that is just a waste of time. Of course if you really are considering an AMD build then obviously you either have more money than sense and you can send some of it my way if you like or you really do not know what you are doing. If you don't have a clue then stop what you are doing and ask for help on the forums here.

Comment by crazyceo at 11:42pm 10th August 2008

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after doing a little more indepth research on this I have to agree with Edarch, I might just try and upgrade my Mobo before I give up completely on AMD.

Comment by NikoBellic at 6:48pm 8th August 2008

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I'd disagree with Niko to a point. A good m/b and chipset can make a huge difference to a CPU's performance and o/c ability, back when I had my 754 3200 on an MSI board with a via chipset, I couldn't get past 2.35GHz, when I got an A-bit...something (can't remember, but it had a different chipset as well), I could get 2.8GHz comfortably. If this new chipset/board combo can make the 9950BE as good as the 5000BE was then it'll be more than worth it. I'm sure everyone agrees that AMD do still have a bit of work to do as far as clock-for-clock work is concerned, but if this is as good as reported then it would be a huge step in the right direction.

Comment by EdArch at 2:39pm 8th August 2008

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Remember

Phenom chips don't need nearly as much cache as Intel chips. The hypertransport link is so efficient that a huge onboard cache is not of a great benefit. Intel chips need plenty of cache because the FSB is such a huge bottleneck.

Comment by Zhaoman at 10:50pm 6th August 2008

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The Phenom is not bad.

The Phenom is is plenty good enough for todays aps. Its just a case of getting one that can take on the 6600 2.4ghz and can OC to 3.6 and still only cost less than £116.50 inc vat. This new chipset will help with that its all to the good. Overclocks dont just come from the cpu the board has a huge impact to but must agree AMD do need a fast chip there max is 2.6 with 4mb of cache and intel entry level is 2.4 8mb cache

Comment by Cool_CR at 10:07pm 6th August 2008

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Nice, but i'm still waiting for...

High end 790FX/SB750 boards to show up. I can already get a stable 3Ghz with only a minor bump in voltage with my 9950 on a SB600 DFI 790-DK. With most early previews getting 3.4-3.5Ghz quite easily it's looking up for AMD owners.

Comment by D_Cypher at 8:47pm 6th August 2008

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Hmmmm...

The phenom is just not good enough to start focusing on the chipsets just yet... when they make a CPU which can compete , then it would make sence to develop a chipset which could enhance its performance... the only thing that would interest me in the AMD CPUs again (to do with chipsets) would be if they could develop a 790FX beater, which would enable you to Overclock to much higher clock speeds... but right now AMD is a no go area for CPUs sadly :(

Comment by NikoBellic at 4:53pm 6th August 2008

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Looks very promising

No it still won't provide competition in terms of performance, but pair it with a low TDP Phenom it will make a cracking home/office multimedia PC.

Comment by Zhaoman at 4:54pm 6th August 2008

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