OC Review: The Gigabyte GA-990FX-Gaming

The buying of a new 990FX motherboard for gaming right now is the height of stupidity. So while this board does offer bells and whistles like Killer Ethernet, M.2, USB 3.1 and an upgraded audio section I will ignore them since these features change absolutely nothing about the fact that 990FX is terrible platform for everything except benching AM3+ CPUs. While this is a "gamer" focused board is does also offer some overclocker goodies like post code LEDs and onboard buttons. As such I'm hoping for it to be a strong alternative as a benching board to the 990FX Sabertooth R2.0 and Crosshair V Formula-Z both of which actually lack some key overclocking features that this board offers. It also helps that Gigabyte's GA-990FX-Gaming comes in at a significantly lower price than the Sabertooth and the Fomula.

VRM

CPU VCore

- International Rectifier 3564 4+1 phase controller

- 4 phases using IR doublers to make 8

- low side Renesas K0393 rated at 40A @ 25C°(ambient)
- high side Renesas K03B7 rated at 30A @ 25C°(ambient)

- 680nH Inductors
- 12 5K rated 6.3V 560uF capacitors

- 200KHz to 2MHz 
- large VRM + NB + PCH heatsink with 2 heatpipes

CPU NB

- 1 phase using a doubler to make 2

- Renesas K03B7 rated at 30A @ 25C°(ambient)

- 200KHz to 2MHz 
- shares main heatsink

RAM

- 2 true phases

- Same MOSFETs as CPU core - No heatsink

- Unknown minimum to unknown maximum KHz

Verdict: 7/10
The VRM on the 990FX-Gaming is strong offering 320A to the core and 80A to the CPUNB as long as you keep the VRM cool. On LN2 that is not a problem as the LN2 pot will be cooling down the entire motherboard. However on air and watercooling the VRM will need some extra cooling because during my short testing with minimal airflow the VRM heatsink was reaching into the 90s with core voltage at 1.55V. Direct airflow from a fan quickly got the temperatures under control however without it I'd expect the IR 3564's OTP to kick and either throttle the CPU or shutdown the VRM. So if you plan to bench this board with an air or water cooler I recommend you stick a fan on the VRM heatsink(which recommend for most AM3+ boards anyway). You might also want consider attaching some small heatsinks on the back side of the PCB in this area:

BIOS

Maximum Voltages: 

- VCC: 2.3V

- CPUNB: 2.1V

- VDDR: 2.1V
- HTlink: 1.8V
- PCIe: 2.435V
- PLL: 3.135V
- NB: 1.735V 
- 5 Vcore LLC settings

CPU:

- NB clock from 400 to 6300

- 1 core per CU mode as well as 2 4 and 6 core mode

DRAM:

- XMP Support

- All timings and settings available

- Supports per channel timing settings
- maximum ratio of 10.66X for 2133mhz at 200mhz FSB
 Extras:
- core unlocking on Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs 
- 8 onboard BIOS profiles and option to store profiles on USB stick or SATA drive

Verdict: 9/10

The BIOS uses the standard Gigabyte layout. All the voltage limits are high enough that even with LN2 cooling you can kill anything and everything you could install on this motherboard. The VRM settings however are a little lack luster. There are no switching frequency, response time or current limit settings like you would find on an ASUS board and you only have LLC settings for the core voltage. The core voltage LLC settings are also pretty bad with Everything but the medium and extreme setting dropping far too much voltage to be useful. The medium setting is perfect for daily usage and even benchmarking since it idles at the voltage you set and drops only 20mv going under load. The extreme LLC setting on the other hand provides a huge amount of voltage boost going under load and as such is useless for daily use and I wouldn't use it even when benchmarking just because of the 80mv voltage spread it has. Memory overclocking on the 990FX-Gaming is on the tedious side especially when pushing above 2133mhz as the board does not have a 12x ratio. So in order to get any memory clock above 2133mhz you need to start messing with the FSB. That's not really a major issue if the board showed you the impact of FSB on the NB and HT link speeds but it doesn't so regardless of your FSB setting you will only ever see the NB ratio * 200. Of course you need to run your NB above your memory clock so you just need to use the 11x NB ratio when using the 10.66X memory ratio but it would still be nice to see what the actual NB speed is going to be. Other than that memory overclocking on the board works perfectly well and the board recovers from crashes quickly without trashing your settings so you don't even have to save overclock profiles every time you change something even though I do recommend doing that just in case the board doesn't manage to recover properly from an extra bad mix of settings that require a BIOS wipe. Overall the BIOS on the 990FX-Gaming has everything I want and need when overclocking and is easy to navigate after you get used to Gigabyte's layout.

Air Testing Results:

Max RAM speed (FX 9590 + 1 4GB stick): DDR3-2603 13-16-16-36-2T 1.75V
PSC best settings(FX 9590 + 2 2GB sticks): DDR3-2500 8-12-8-28-2T 1.83V
1600mhz low timings(Phenom II X2 555BE): 1600 5-7-5-18 1.9V
Max FX 9590 validation clock 2 cores with 1.65V: 5222mhz
Max CB11.5 core clock with 1.55V: 4950mhz
Max FSB: 320mhz
Verdict: 9/10

Gigabyte may only rate the board to do 2000mhz on the RAM and the highest RAM multiplier is only 10.66x however with a bit of tweaking I got the RAM as high as 2603mhz. More is probably possible however with AM3+ compatible CPUs your NB clock needs to be equal or greater than the RAM clock and as such maximum frequency ended up limited by the North bridge which needed to be on a 11X ratio to stay ahead of the RAM speed. This is not ideal as it forces your NB clock to be a few 10s of mhz higher than the RAM speed which makes you run into NB stability problems that much sooner.
My FX9590's Norhtbridge showed just how bad it is when I did my PSC testing. The kit is capable of doing 2600 8-12-8-28-1T on a little over 1.86V. My FX 9590 on the other hand is absolutely incapable of dealing with much more than 2400mhz with such low timings without giving the north bridge a lot of voltage. In the end I managed to get the system to just barely finish SuperPi 32M with 2500 8-12-8-28-2T with 1.83V on the RAM and 1.45V(too much to be safe on air or water) on the North Bridge. Since it's my CPU that's holding the RAM back I'm gonna say that the board handles high performance RAM just fine you just need a capable CPU.
Now some of you maybe wondering about why I do a 1600mhz low timing test. The test exists because most Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs can't go much beyond 1600mhz RAM clock so to get good memory performance it is important to be able to get really low timings at speeds between 1450 and 1650mhz. I'm happy to say that the 990FX-Gaming didn't have any problems doing 5-7-5-18 timings however the board can't go bellow 5 so if you have a kit of RAM that can pull of 1600 at CL4 you're out of luck.
The 990FX-Gaming manages the same maximum core clock at 1.65V as my Sabertooth did. However the software for the Gaming is a lot more painful to work with. Gigabyte's Easy Tune require's Gigabyte's App Center software which requires .NET 4.5 and really didn't like my stripped down win 7 install. So I had to go and make a new install of windows to get Easy Tune to work. Considering that I remember having similar issues with AIsuite so it's not like Gigabyte's obnoxious OC software is anymore obnoxious than ASUS's I'd still prefer a stripped down utility however I do understand that since no one really cares about AM3+ any longer that there isn't a slim OC utility for it.
For cinebench clocks the 990FX-Gaming matches the Sabertooth exactly so again no complaints from me.
Maximum FSB varies from motherboard to motherboard and maxing it out completely is very time intensive. A high maximum FSB is very important when benchmarking CPUs with locked multipliers like the Athlon II X3 460 or a Sempron 145. The Gaming getting an easy 320mhz is inline with what the Sabertooth does which is inline with most 990FX boards. They generally start having issues going above 330mhz on the FSB and as such the Gaming is not inferior to any of them in this department either.
Unfortunately even with the great overclocking results I can't give the 990FX-Gaming a 10/10 here because I've never tested any of the boards that are priced above the Sabertooth and they may deliver better results than this board.

Conclusion: 25/30 Points, 0.179pts/$(based on Amazon price at the time of writing)
Gigabyte's 990FX-Gaming makes for a great AM3+ overclocking board. Personally I prefer it to my deceased 990FX Sabertooth R2.0 and I'm not saying that just because the Saberooth decided to die on me. The fact is that Gigabyte's BIOS offers more features than the Sabertooth's. All the voltages you need are accessible and can be pushed higher than on the Saber. This is especially true of the Gigbayte's Vcore setting which goes all the way to 2.3V compared to 2.075V on the Saber. That's enough voltage to quickly kill FX chips even with LN2. The Gigabyte board also offers core unlocking on Phenom II and Athlon II chips which the Sabertooth R2.0 nor Formula-Z offer. You also get dual BIOS as well as on-board buttons both features that the Sabertooth lacks. In testing the Gaming managed the same results as the Sabertooth and recovered much more smoothly from bad settings than the Saber ever did. This board is however not perfect. The VRM is slightly weaker than the Saber's and while still plenty power full for water or LN2 cooling it requires direct airflow at high voltages and loads which the Sabertooth doesn't need as long as you just have decent airflow in your case. Overall I like the Gigabyte better than the Sabertooth between the buttons, the dual BIOS, the core unlocking and the lower price the Gigabyte is both less hassle to work with, better featured and cheaper than the Sabertooth and from my aircooled testing you don't seem to lose any performance for any of these benefits. Other than that the 990FX-Gaming also offers a bunch of "gamer" features that the Saber also lacks. Really if this board had been available when I was buying my Sabertooth and I weren't a massive ASUS mobo fan I would have probably taken this instead because it's just better and cheaper. So if you're looking for a relatively cheap motherboard for benchmarking ALL(you can't convert X2s to X3s on the Saber or Formula-Z!) AM3+ CPUs the 990FX-Gaming is one of the best out there. Oh and you can use it to play games I guess... if that's your thing.

As soon as I get my LN2 Dewar topped up again I will do another live-streamed 8+Ghz attempt with the 990FX-Gaming and after that it will be featured for any AMD CPU benching I do until AM4 boards launch.

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Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 Review

Grey and black a color scheme almost as good as black and black. I like it. The board has two 4 pin fan headers one for the CPU and one for a chassis fan. There are six SATA 2.0 ports on the board and 1 IDE connector. Also one internal USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports.




















four USB2.0, one VGA, one DVI, one HDMI, and two USB3.0 along with basic audio.

VRM

CPU VCore

- Richtek RT8868 4+1 phase controller

- 4 true phases

- 2 Renesas K0393 Low side MOSFETs rated for 40A at 25C 
- 2 Renesas K03B7 High side MOSFETs rated for 30A at 25C 

- 680nH inductors
- 38.4g Heatsink

- 270KHz to 330Khz 
- 5K rated capacitors however they are very low capacity
- LLC Auto/Regular/Extreme 
- OCP(around 90A) OVP  

CPU NB

- 1 true phase

- 1 Renesas K03B7 High side MOSFETs rated for 30A at 25C 
- 1 Renesas K03B7 Low side MOSFETs rated for 30A at 25C

- 270KHz to 330Khz
- OCP OVP 

RAM

- 1 true phases

- Same MOSFETs as CPU core - No heatsink

- Unknown minimum to unknown maximum KHz

Verdict: 5/10

40A at 25C is very very little. So to be safe it's best to assume a de-rating of 50% at 100C meaning that there is a total of 160A available on the low side. Luckily the RT8868 features OCP so this motherboard shuts down before it catches fire if you push it too far. When under load the capacitors and inductors get into the 110C area without a fan over them. The MOSFETs them selves are kept in the 75-85C area by the heatsink. I'd recommend putting some heatsinks on the inductors and capacitors and a fan over the entire VRM in order to extend life span. Even a basic 50x50mm fan at 2000RPM would help significantly.

BIOS

Voltages:

- Max VCC: 1.4375V
- VCC LLC Extreme(I+75mv/L+150mv) Regular(I+0/L-30mv) 

- Max VNB: 1.475V

- Max VDDR: 1.9V

CPU:
- 35x maximum CPU multi 

- 20x maximum CPUNB multi

- Full active core cuntrol with support 1 core per CU mode

DRAM:

- No XMP Support

- Missing tertiary sub timings

- No support for asymmetrical timings
- All timings are either automatic or manual 
- Up to 2400mhz support 
EXTRAS
- No Extras 

Verdict: 4/10

This BIOS has many flaws. First of all the CPU voltage setting shows incorrect values until you get the OCP to trip. So when you first boot the board and want to overclock the CPU you will see the option to run 1.7125 Vcore however if you actually set that you only get 1.43V when idling and 1.4V while running regular LLC. Extreme LLC is what it says on the box. It's EXTREME LLC. Giving a ridiculous 75mv Vboost at idle and an even more insane 150mv Vboost under load. I suggest you just don't use Extreme LLC because setting up to not trip the OCP the moment you go under load is really really hard and the low idle voltage will mean stability will always be very very iffy when using it. There are also no OC profiles. The postives of the BIOS are the 1 core per CU mode and the relatively easy navigation and the good responsiveness that some of the overly graphical BIOSs these days lack.

That's 214W on the CPU power line. I tried to push more than that but the terrible LLC options and low maximum voltage setting meant that my attempts always pushed well over 240W(was aiming for 220-230W) to the CPU and tripped the OCP. So if you were really brave and patient you cold maybe get a 9000 series FX to run on this board. But you most likely won't and I don't think it's worth the effort.

Testing Results:

The following hardware ran stable, using Intel Burn Test (IBT) for stress testing.

- G,skill ECO 2x2GB 1333 7-7-7-24 1.35V/max clock: 1866mhz 9-10-9-27-2T 1.65V

- Max CPU clock 8 core: 4444mhz at 1.4375V

- Max FSB clock: 217mhz

Verdict: 5/10

My FX 8320E is not a very good chip. And this boards weak VRM will not give you more 
The OCP on the VRM does it's job however it makes rebooting a pain because it doesn't shut the system down it just kills the CPU VRM which leaves the rest of the system still running. When that happens you need to cut AC power from the system because holding the power button doesn't seem to do anything.

Conclusion: 14/30 Points, 0.233pts/$
Between this board and the 970M Pro3 I think the key to choosing the right one is knowing what you want to do. This board is easy to use and very safe. The Pro3 on the other hand offers much more CPU voltage freedom and can definitely push higher clocks but the only safe guard it has is the temperature related throttling. If you just want a basic AM3+ MATX board to get 4.4-4.6Ghz depend on your CPU this board is enough. The VRM has enough cooling to not catch fire and the OCP will stop you before you kill the MOSFETs. You also have an integrated GPU that can save you if you dedicated doesn't want to work. This board also offers better RAM overclocking however that's not really worth talking about with a board that is limited to 1.4375 Vcore. Either way it's a good board and if you want to run an AMD 8 core in an MATX system but don't plan to overclock very much this board has you covered.

If you want to support what I do here please hammer the various share buttons down below. If you want to keep up with the various things I do follow me on Facebook. I will also be putting a video review up on the Youtube channel sometime soon. It is less for being informative and more for comedic value because I think there aren't enough motherboard jokes on the internet.

As always thank you to CoolerMaster for powering the blog.

The road to voltage Fury.

So I just made major step towards making the R9 Fury volt mod guide. I have revived the R9 290X Windforce which I killed and managed to get it's VRM under manual control.

Now most of you might be sitting there going DAFUQ How does volt modding an R9 290X have anything to do with volt modding the Fury?
It's simple. The Fury and R9 290X use the same exact voltage controller. If I manage to control the IR 3567B on the 290X it makes taking control of the IR 3567B on the Fury that much simpler.

The first thing I learned about the IR 3567B is that it's pretty smart. So smart, that the damn thing will not let the card run if it doesn't sense current on the VRM phases. With most GPU voltage controllers you cut the power sensing lines and they just ignore the fact that the current reading of 0.8A is wrong and continue running the VRM like nothing's changed. Not the IR 3567B, no the IR 3567B shuts the card down if it sense 0A on the phases. So after I tore all the SMD 300ohm ISEN resistors off the card in hopes that I would remove all power limits. I ended up resoldering every single one of the damn things. However I don't have SMD 300ohm resistors and so I improvised to end up with an R9 290X that looks more like a modern art piece than a GPU.

I also managed to under volt mod the card so it ended up running at 0.56V idle instead of the 0.968V that it should idle and boot at and so naturally it didn't work. I managed to fix that too and the card now boots and runs. At least on stock voltage I haven't tried overvolting it yet because the Windforce cooler no longer fits and I've run out of Seidons to ziptie on to it(it might sound like a terrible idea but the Seidon 120V rev2.0 can keep the 290X sub 70C even with 1.4V and at 55C when running stock volts and clocks).
Either way after this volt modding adventure modding the Fury will be a walk in the park.... I hope.

PS I'm very much aware that the AMD 125W CPU heatsink can't cool an R9 290X however I needed a cooler that could keep the GPU running long enough for me to get to the BIOS and it did that so you can keep the comments about me being an idiot to yourselves thank you very much.


Thank you to Cooler Master for powering this blog by giving me a V1000 PSU.

The RAM and FAN test bench overview

 Built on an IKEA pine wood wine rack. For low weight.

 With WiFi for easy screenshot uploading and maximum portability.  (Mounted with zipties)

 Based on the Gigabyte F2A88X-D3H I reviewed ages ago.
(Also mounted with zipties)

 Insulated for use with LN2.

and with a crocodile clip for reading CPU core voltage directly

Running an Athlon II X4 750K cooled by a cooler master Seidon 120V closed loop cooler.
(The rad really is just sitting there)

With video provided by my modified R7 260X
(The cooler is mounted with zipties)
(If I get a bigger PSU and another CPU cooler I will replace it with the water cooled GTX 590)







 The RAM currently in this beast is the G.skill ECO 2x2GB 1333 7-7-7-21 1.35V kit I previewed some time ago.







 The HDD is a 350GB WD blue.
(Mounted with even more zipties)

The PSU is an EVGA 430W 80+ unit.
(Held in place by zipties)

This is built from scrap parts from other projects(GPU MB and CPU Cooler) and my friends old PC(wifi and HDD). The reason why I built this is that my 3960X is never ever going to boot with RAM above 2500mhz so I can't use it for RAM reviews. This 750K already managed to boot 2520mhz on these G.skill sticks so it can do a better job with RAM than my main system. Ideally this would be a Z97 system but good Z97 boards cost about 1.5-3X what this board cost and an i5 4690K is about 3X the price of the 750K. Yes I know there is the Pentium G3258 but IMO pairing a 3000czk MB with a 1700czk CPU is stupid. Plus AMD CPUs are funner to OC.
The idea for using the wine rack from IKEA is that. It can hold as much stuff as a full tower, cost only 199czk(10$) and weighs less than any other case you can buy.
I used the cooler master Seidon for cooling because it allows me to easily swap fans for fan reviews.
If I had to change any things I would get a better PSU(750W Seasonic/EVGA) and a better MB(Crossblade Ranger).