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3D test msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 3DMark Vantage CPU SCORE => 91380 FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 4707 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 305.85 FPS The scores of 3DMark Vantage on CPU SCORE is incredible high, it’s contributed by Intel 6C12T without question. Other 3D Game test software do not take many advantages on multiple cores, they would get higher scores based on CPU. Basically, it’s rarely for game to support up to CPU of 4 cores therefore the rendering ability of CPU structure is highly important. Power Consumption test There is no required software to open CIE power saving technology, 77W, under OS desktop. There is no required software to open CIE power saving technology, 177W, under OS desktop. To operate LinX to full speed CPU - 364W The power consumption of 3960X 6C12T CPU over-clocking 4.7GHz It is more to say that C1E is a outstanding power saving choice, which you can save around 100W when you open C1E technology under stand by mode. The power consumption when the CPU full speed is 364W which is no difference compared to the previous combination of X58 and 980X OC 4GHz. The above theory is as same as high-end VGA. The next high-end VGA generates much more performance but with no difference on power consumption compared to the previous same product level. It is proved that Sandy Bridge-E possess higher clock and more progress on power saving. Temperature (Room temperature is around 21? When system standby- 33~37 To operate LinX to full speed CPU - 61~66 One minute afte the end of LinX operation - 36~38 Core i7-3960X is the highest Intel CPU specification. It’s suggested to use much higher-end cooler under over-clocking. The temperature performance of both standby and full speed under OC4.7 GHz over-clocking is quiet excellent. In order to avoid the gap between the temperature-measured software and actual temperature, the heat pipe of water cooling is just warm but hot. Whether you are using CORSAIR Hydro Series H80 water cooling when test or CPU high-end cooler, when CPU is extreme over-clocking, it is the one and only way to pay attention to thermal.

Installable application software Too bad that there is no AEGIS PANEL software Over-clocking testing CPU 100 X 47 => 4700MHz 1.286V DDR3 2400 CL10 11-11-27 2T 1.55V Hyper PI 32M X 12 => 11m 39.521s CPUMARK 99 => 719 x264 FHD Benchmark => 37.6 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 52.36/25134 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 464186 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 13.74 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.90 pts PCMark Vantage => 28771 It only requires about 1.28V of 3960X OC 4.7GHz to steadily operated above testing software. Since the thread of Sandy Bridge-E3960X/3930K is up to 6C12T, above testing performance is higher than 50% compared to 2600K /2700K 4C8T under the same clocking, which is at the same time one of the featured highlight even though the price of CPU is higher than the market. DDR3 is using the United States CORSAIR high-end DOMINATOR-GT series, which the style# is CMT16GX3M4X2133C9 Clock is 2133?parameter is CL9 11-10-27 1.50V?capacity is 4 X 4GB Quad channel DDR3 chipset is another X79 primary featured new technology which first one ever supports DeskTop. It supports the latest 1.3 version at Extreme Memory Profile(XMP) automatically over-clocking. In other wards, you would not able to enable XMP if your DDR3 is not the latest XMP 1.3version. To enable XMP DDR3 2134.4 CL9 11-10-26 2T test ADIA64 Memory Read - 21702 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 50428 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 17733 MB/s Over- clocking DDR3 2400 CL10 11-11-27 2T 1.55V ADIA64 Memory Read - 22692 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 54348 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 18144 MB/s Both ADIA64 and MaXXMEM do not make any obvious effort under the structure of Duad channel; however the memory bandwidth of Sandra and above test CrystalMark is higher than two times than LGA 1155 platform. It seems the software technology of supporting quad channel will plays an critical role on performance gap of DDR3. CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT could steadily up to DD3 2400 under QUANTUMIAN1 default voltage. The performance of over-clocking is pretty amazing, which is partly contributed to the scope of over-clocking of DDR3 in X79 chipset.

BIOS Main FOXCONN hasn’t imported UEFI interface which is much more artistic and controlled by mouse compared to traditional BIOS. However, it takes time to power on and the frequency of crash shutdown is comparably high. Quantum BIOS CPU selection menu When over clocking, if you don’t CPU clock to be fluctuated downwards, you need to adjust the following selection. CPU C1E Enhanced Halt State closing To higher IA Core Current MAX and Power Limit 1/2 Value, the following example is to adjust to 2000 Power Technology is requested to be closed so that CPU clock won’t be fluctuated when over-clocking above 4.5GHz DDR3 parameter setting selection which provided various DRAM to slightly adjust parameter and steadily utilize it. The following setting is DDR3 2400 CL10 11-11-27 2T Voltage menu CPU PLL Voltage 1.80~2.43V CPU VAS Voltage Offset +10~+630mV CPU Core Voltage Offset +10~+630mV CPU VTT (Uncore) Voltage 1.005~2.011V Patsburg PCH Core Voltage 1.005~2.011V DRAM Voltage (VDIMM1 & VIDMM2) 1.005~2.307V DRAM Voltage (VDIMM3 & VIDMM4) 1.005~2.307V Hardware Monitor Above is the over-clocking of both raising CPU multiplier and DDR3 clock. The voltage of both CPU and DDR3 has to be paid attention and so as the optimal of DDR3 parameter. If you want to over-clock to above DDR3 2133, except for DDR3, CPU VAS Voltage Offset plays another critical role. Voltage+100mV has to be setup. Above is the over-clock setting by windwithme, which is the reference for x79 platform. Testing platform CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X MB: FOXCONN Quantum Force QUANTUMIAN1 DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMT16GX3M4X2133C9 VGA: msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II HD: CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 128GB POWER: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H80 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit FOXCONN software setup menu Full screen and outer space background are shown up after power on.

Ever since Intel officially launch Sandy Bridge-E new platform in 2011 November, several motherboard companies successively roll out new motherboard based on X79 chipset to support Intel next generation high-end platform. Due to the continuous effort of self-own brand management made by FOXCONN, Quantum Force series still dominant high-end motherboard. FOXCONN X79 QUANTUMIAN1 still provides various choices for the market though the quantities of Quantum Force series are not as various as they are in the past time. Soon after the release of Intel X79 chipset, FOXCONN promptly roll out corresponding X79 motherboard. Quantum Force was naming in a special way which the Intel code won’t be shown on the models. This time, QUANTUMIAN1 which belongs to the series of Quantum Force still follows the high-end style both in material and design. The patterns shown on exterior packing of high-end product are always different which exhibits the great efforts on art design. The full picture of FOXCONN QUANTUMIAN1 Quantum Force is common to use black and red to create contrast visual sense. Currently, there are more and more motherboard brands adopt these two colors to match. It is known that the market segment of QUANTUMIAN1 X79 is positioned as high-end product line. Besides, the corresponding specification, design and featured over clocking function have also been highly highlighted. Accessories Product manual, easy guide, nVIDIA SLI 3Way bridge, CD and IO shield SATA connectors and cables both in red and yellow DC power cable SATA The lower left side of motherboard 4 X PCI-E 2.0 X16?supports 4Way CrossFireX / 3Way nVIDIA SLI Bandwidth X16+X8+X16+X8?PCI-E slot is using X16 1 X PCI-E X1 1 X PCI Dual Gigabyte Lan, Realtek 8111E and Intel 82975V Audio, Realtek ALC892, supports up to 7.1 channel and High Definition Audio The lower right side of motherboard 2 x red SATA3, provided by x79 chipset 4 x black SATA2, provided by x79 chipset Above could mix to establish RAID0, RAID1, RAID5 and RAID 10. The maximum performance could be determined by installed SATA 2 x red SATA3, provided by ASM1601 chipset Dual BIOS?1 X front panel header and 1 X USB 2.0 device slot The upper right side of motherboard The color of DDR3 DIMM slot is also red in order to be consistent to the other parts, from which we can see that FOXCONN pays a lot of attention on minor design as well. The upper black part is 24-PIN power input. The right black parts are front USB3.0 expansion slots. The upper side of motherboard LGA 2011 CPU adopt 14 phase digital PWM, heat sink on upper side of motherboard could heat dissipation for MOSFET Both left and right side, 4 X DIMM DDR3 which supports up to 32GB of system memory Quad channel DDR3 2400(oc*)/2133 (oc*)/1866(oc*)/1600/1333/1066, supports Extreme Memory Profile IO 1 X PS2 keyboard port 6 X USB 2.0(black) 1 X Clera CMOS button(black triangle) 1 X S/PDIF out port 2 X Gigabit LAN 2 X USB 3.0(blue) 2 X eSATA(orange) 6 ports audio jacks OC Switch Button In the OC mode, pressing the OC_SW2 button will increase the CPUclock by 1MHz per step, and the debug led code will increase 0.1 at the same time. The debug led code “0.1” means the CPU clock is101MHz. A row of sliver small round dot means PCB Voltage Sensor which users could directly measure voltage.

AS SSD Benchmark - 1482 Seq Read - 927.59 MB/s Write - 598.25 MB/s 4K-64Thrd Read - 487.57 MB/s Write - 433.79 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark performance is not double but several items and total score are over 1.9 times more. IOMETER 2008 4KB Test - 100% Write / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second 122020.57 SiSoftware Sandra Write 604.177 MB/s 100% Random 4k Write reaches 122K IOPS. It’s helpful for small files processing. SiSoftware Sandra Write is also steady. The average is around 600 MB/s. Performance Pro 128GB installs Windows7 Ultimate 64bit to test booting time. Installing all hardware drivers and Intel Smart Response Technology. BootRacer Time to Logon 6 seconds Time to Desktop 12 seconds The booting speed doesn’t improve. It may be caused by clean system can be handled by single SSD already. If I get the chance, I will install more software and compare the booting speed again. SSD cannot support TRIM mode in Raid 0. It’s waiting Intel to provide new Raid TRIM software in the future. Performance Pro web page shows the background garbage collection can support TRIM command to solve performance drooping issue in Raid mode. It needs to be approved after long time usage. Anyway, it’s a great news for SSD Raid users. Finally, I use NoteBook to test performance. Due to NoteBook Raid 0 supported models are over 16 ~17 inches , after consideration, I choose acer TimelineX 3830TG for single SSD performance test. 3830TG color is very eye catching. The upper cover is aluminum. It’s also slim design. It is built-in individual graphics and 6Cell battery. The price is very affordable. No doubt it’s hot selling model. CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 128GB install in SATA3 as system drive. HD Tune Pro 4.60 Benchmark Read - Average 469.4 MB/s Access Time 0.078ms ATTO DISK Benchmark max read is 507.6 Mb/s and write is 335.1 MB/s. File Benchmark over 2048k read test is over 450 MB/s. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 437.3 MB/s Write - 316.5 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark - 795 Seq Read - 460.55 MB/s Write - 293.41 MB/s 4K-64Thrd Read - 269.23 MB/s Write - 229.08 MB/s NoteBook SATA transfer rate is a little bit slower than DeskTop, especially in 4K. However, in 3830TG SATA3 transfer rate, the performance is still acceptable. BootRacer Time to Logon 8 seconds Time to Desktop 14 seconds Booting speed compares with former shared SSD and HDD reviews. TOSHIBA MK6461GSY 640GB 7200 time to Desktop is 42 seconds. CORSAIR Force GT 120GB(SandForce SF-2281) time to Desktop is 16 seconds. CORSAIR Performance Pro 128GB(Marvell 88SS9174) time to Desktop is 14 seconds. It’s all test in same NoteBook and installed same drivers and software. Two SSD are much faster than HDD. Performance Pro is even faster than Force GT. Normally, SSD key performance role is controller. This SSD also shows the importance of NAND FLASH. Previous Marvell 88SS9174 bundle with other brands NAND FLASH spec is as below: Read is 450 MB/s, Write is 210 MB/s and 4K Write is 14000 IOPS. CORSAIR Performance Pro uses same Marvell 88SS9174 but NAND FLASH changes to TOSHIBA. The spec change to 500MB/s read, 340MB/s write and 60000 IOPS 4K write. You can see no matter read/write performance is improved. Even 4K write also improves 2~4 times. It’s really excellent performance. Native SATA3 has been launched a year. The SSD performance is breakthrough. SSD Read/write performance is over 400~550 MB/s and 4K performance is over double as SATA2 stage. Performance Pro built-in advanced garbage collection solves Raid mode performance dropping after long time used. CORSAIR SSD product line has SandForce SF-2281 with Force GT and Marvell 88SS9174 with Performance Pro. They are both highest performance controller so far. After combining high performance synchronized NAND FLASH, the transfer rate is even higher. As SSD brands tough competition stage, besides SSD performance, users also need to consider brand awareness, warranty, price and stability. Windwithme share this latest technology SSD as your reference guide. Wish all of you can find the best C/P value hardware in coming year. Happy New Year 2012 and Gong Xi Fa Chai. Thanks:) This article is also post in my blog WIND3C Any comments are welcome.

Install LAN drivers. BootRacer Time to Logon 6 seconds Time to Desktop 12 seconds After entering OS desktop, LAN will search for a while, it takes 2~3 more seconds after installing LAN drivers. Performance Pro booting speed is very impressive. It takes only 12 seconds under all drivers installed condition. Of course, after you install more daemons, the booting speed will be slower. This number is for a reference. 2nd part is using two 128GB for Raid 0 mode. As Raid 0 experience, Intel chipset has better performance in Raid0 mode. The mainstream is LGA 1155 Z68 or LGA 2011 X79 platforms. Two CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 128GB install at white SATA3. Non OS drive and empty data. HD Tune Pro 4.61 Benchmark Read - Average 947.2 MB/s Access Time 0.155ms Write - Average 608.7 MB/s Access Time 0.039ms Random Access Extra tests Sequential middle Read - 882.489 MB/s Write - 345.845 MB/s File Benchmark over 256k read is over 900 MB/s. ATTO DISK Benchmark achieves read 1025 Mb/s and write 651.5 MB/s. ATTO DISK Benchmark can test SSD best read/write performance and doesn’t take long test time. This part is almost double the official spec. It really shows Raid 0 max performance. ADIA64 Read Test Suite - Linear Read(Middle) 952.7 MB/s SSD Benchmark TOTAL 5388.02 CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 930.3 MB/s Write - 643.1 MB/s Read - 929.9 MB/s Write - 646.2 MB/s Read - 929.7 MB/s Write - 648.6 MB/s ADIA64 Linear Read Average 1659.2 MB/s CrystalMark Sequential Read 932.63 MB/s Sequential Write 616.11 MB/s ADIA64 Linear Read test appears unexpected acceleration sometimes. Every 5 times test cycle, 1 or 2 times will appear extreme high bandwidth. Average performance is around 9xxMB/s.

Single CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 128GB install at white SATA3 Non OS drive and empty data. HD Tune Pro 4.61 Benchmark Read - Average 524.3 MB/s Access Time 0.028ms Write - Average 308.9 MB/s Access Time 0.035ms HD Tune Pro Read and Write are quite steady. Access Time is 0.28~0.35ms which helps for performance. Random Access Extra tests Sequential middle Read - 423.556 MB/s Write - 300.562 MB/s File Benchmark over 1024k read is over 450 MB/s. ATTO DISK Benchmark max read is 506.4 Mb/s and write is 340.1 MB/s. ATTO DISK Benchmark reaches official spec, 500MB/s read and 340 MB/s write. ADIA64 Read Test Suite - Linear Read(Middle) 527.9 MB/s SSD Benchmark TOTAL 3755.72 CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 480.3 MB/s Write - 317.4 MB/s Read - 478.1 MB/s Write - 327.6 MB/s Read - 478.7 MB/s Write - 326.6 MB/s CrystalDiskMark 3 modes performance are similar. Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller stability is excellent. As SanForce controller uses special algorithm, the performance only improve at and . ADIA64 Linear Read Average 534.0 MB/s CrystalMark Sequential Read 455.22 MB/s Sequential Write 312.75 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark - 865 Seq Read - 494.30 MB/s Write - 298.43 MB/s 4K-64Thrd Read - 267.13 MB/s Write - 230.45 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark is the best performance in this SSD 4K is not as good as SandForce SF-2281 controller. However, Seq Write and 4K-64Thrd transferring are excellent. The score is 865. IOMETER 2008 4KB Test - 100% Write / 100% Random 4KB Total I/Os per Second 66941.48 SiSoftware Sandra Write 300.251 MB/s IOMETER 2008 test 100% Random 4k Write also achieves 67K IOPS. This part only loses SanForce 85K IOPS. It’s 2nd best performance so far. Performance Pro 128GB installs Windows7 Ultimate 64bit to test booting time. LAN chip is not installed. The other drivers and Intel Smart Response Technology are installed. BootRacer Time to Logon 4 seconds Time to Desktop 9 seconds

In 2011, Intel and AMD both launched native SATA3 supported chipset. SATA3 strength is 6Gb/s bandwidth that is double of SATA2. It brings Solid-State Hard Drive performance into new competition stage. SSD performance is combination of controller chip and NAND FLASH. NAND FLASH also divides into SLC and MLC. Now the mainstream market is MLC. Nowadays, MLC performance is not much different with SLC. MLC writing life cycle is also improved by new algorithm technology. Of course, MLC market price is much lower than SLC, the future trend still go this way. Last year, best SATA3 controllers were SanForce and Marvell. Intel 510 Series SSD also used Marvell. This SSD is from CORSAIR latest series - Performance Pro Series. It’s different naming with former Performance 3 Series, but the packing seems belong to same product line. Content Upper right is Performance Pro 128GB. Lower is 3.5” adapter and screws. It’s 2.5 inches and 128GB capacity. Max Sequential Read/Write official spec, using ATTO Disk Benchmark, is 500/340 MB/s. Random 4K max writing performance is 60000 IOPS. It’s very high spec in SSD market now. The shell is silver coated with brushed finish. The texture is similar to sleek metal. CORSAIR provides 3 years warranty. It has 128GB and 256GB. I hope they can provide 564GB in the future for more options. Backside material and tone are same as front. You can see 2 silver laser stickers in lower right and left. It’s for warranty and internal hardware protection. I suggest you to keep it as origin. This is SATA3 and power connectors. It’s same as SATA2. Users need to distinguish SATA3 by packing or spec sticker. Performance Pro uses Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller. NAND FLASH is TOSHIBA 34nm, 16GB per chip. DRAM Cache is NANYA DDR3 256MB. So far, I only see PLEXTOR SSD using this combination and it’s been launched for months. In Nov, CORSAIR launched Performance Pro. The performance should be the most average one. First of all, Intel DeskTop platform uses GIGABYTE Z68A-D3H-B3 supports Raid 0. It’s with 3 PCI-E X16, 2 PCI-E X1 and 2 PCI. It’s good expandability in ATX platform. Z68 also supports GPU output. It supports 3 output interfaces and blue one is USB 3.0 port. Z68 exclusive Intel Smart Response Technology supports small capacity SSD and HDD making hybrid speed up. Intel Z68 chipset is mid-high segment product. It’s easy to find in the market. In the past 6 months, MB tough competition made Z68 entry model price is more parity and reasonable. P67 and H67 position and price are not good as H61 and Z68, they are almost fade out from the market. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i5-2400 MB: GIGABYTE Z68A-D3H-B3 DRAM: CORSAIR CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 VGA: Intel HD Graphics 2000 HD: CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 128GB / TOSHIBA 750GB POWER: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER GOLDEN 550W Cooler: Intel Original Cooler OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit

As GIGABYTE Taiwan press, they have released F7 BIOS to solve this issue and they won't make hardware change. Just for your reference.

Full Speed is 1.440V After burning test and measure the MOSFET highest temperature is 85 degree C. For next few X79 models review, I will also provide this temperature for reference. CPU voltage fluctuation is bigger than old BIOS. GIGABYTE G1.Assassin2 Good 1. G1-Killer series packing and components are better than own high end product. 2. Spec-in UEFI BIOS and provide 2 BIOS interfaces 3. Built-in Creative CA20K2 audio chip, Japanese high end audio caps and 128MB Memory cache. 4. Killer E2100 Networking NPU with 1GB DDR2 cache for better networking traffic management. 5. Unique BT4.0 and Wi-Fi PCI-e card. For mobility century, this is really useful features. 6. Front panel has USB 3.0 and quick OC features. It also has audio headset amplifier. Weakness 1. Chipset heatsink design is not good looking 2. 8 DIMM DDR3 design will be better 3. Before booting screen, if you click USB KB in advance, it may cause undetectable issue. 4. CPU voltage fluctuation is bigger between standby and full speed. Performance ?????????? Components ?????????? Specification ?????????? Appearance ?????????? C/P Value ?????????? All MB makers launch X79 series to replace X58. The price is around 265~430 USD. For users don’t have high end audio or LAN card and you are considering to buy these two high end cards, G1 cost should be similar. LGA 2011 is Intel most high end product. The price is top of pyramid. You can pick up the platform by budget. Sandy Bridge structure has very wide. Lowest H61 can combine with Celeron G530. Entry OC has Z68 with i5-2500K. Mid-end OC has Z68 with i7-2600K/2700K and future you can have X79 plus i7-3820. If you need heavy multi-tasking and shorter working time, X79 with i7-3930K/3960X is the best performance combo. The test result above shows Sandy Bridge-E structure is still the king of Desktop performance. There are i7-3930K and 3960X, 6C12T, CPU support multi-tasking performance. LGA 2011 CPU pricing structure is same as LGA 1366. Till 2012, i7-3820 4C8T launched, the enthusiasts will have one more choice. This year, there is only i7-2600K/2700K with Z68. Soon after, X79 with i7-3820 will become another option. Windwithme will keep sharing more brands X79 performance and OC guide. Wish all Happy New Year 2012 and you can find your best C/P PC combo in 2012.Thanks. This article is also post in my blog. WIND3C Any comments are all welcome.

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 435077 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 13.13 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.82 pts PCMark Vantage => 26980 3960X OC to 4.5GHz, the single core performance increase around 20% and multi-core increase 20~30%. You don’t need high voltage for this clock. You can use this setting for long time stably. Both OC and practical usage can run smoothly. Of course, you can go higher speed, but you need rise the voltage or improve your cooling kit. x264 FHD Benchmark => 35.7 x264 video converting rate increase from 28.8 to 35.7, about 24% higher. You can save lots of converting time. If you have high demand for this, single thread and multi-core are very important. DDR3 Test ADIA64 Memory Read - 20088 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 45878 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 16374 MB/s DDR3 performance increase 15~20% as speed OC from DDR3 1600 to DDR3 1866. No matter Sandy Bridge or Sandy Bridge-E, DDR3 bandwidth is extremely high. Especially the quad channel strength, the bandwidth is amazing. This is the key advantage of LGA 2011. Temperature Test (Room Temp. is 22?C) Enter to OS Desktop - 33~37 CPU full speed by LinX - 62~70 After pulling high clock and voltage, CPU full speed temperature rise obviously. It’s lower 70 in full speed condition. If you install in chassis, it will increase another 3~5. For 6C12T, it’s pretty good. Power Consumption Test Enter to OS Desktop - 151W CPU full speed by LinX - 323W Disable C1E mode, enter to OS desktop consume 151W. If setting CPU as default and disable C1E, it consumes 120W. In OC condition, power consumption increases a lot. It’s 131W more than default mode. However, the performance also enhances 20%. It depends on your idea. If the high performance cost you 323W, will you think it’s acceptable? I think it’s still ok. I just flash BIOS to latest F7 and running stability test at 4.6GHz. Enter to OS Desktop is 1.476V

Advanced Memory Setting Due to it is quad channel, you can set Channel A/B/C/D. I do suggest GIGABYTE can add one more option to setup all channels at once. It will be more convenient. 3D Power Control, I don’t change any items here. Very rich voltage items for enthusiasts to fine tune the system. CPU Vcore 0.800~1.735V CPU Vtt 0.865~2.075V CPU PLL 1.195~1.985V IMC 0.665~1.835V DRAM Voltage 1.100~2.100V PC Health Status This BIOS provides 6 different languages. Sandy Bridge-E CPU can OC by 2 ways. First is increasing ratio and the other is pull frequency. Of course, you can adjust simultaneously to get the best performance. If DDR3 set as default, 100MHz, based on quality, the range is around 1600~2400. Setting above is my 3960X running at 4.5GHz. Every CPU quality and cooler are may vary. You will need to fine tune some items. OC Test CPU 100.0 X 45 => 4500.1MHz 1.335V Disable C1E and Turbo Boost DDR3 1866.8 CL10 10-10-27 1T 1.550V Hyper PI 32M X 12 => 12m 06.556s CPUMARK 99 => 688 Nuclearus Multi Core => 3552 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 50.08/24040

Power Consumption Test Enter to OS Desktop - 84W CPU full speed by LinX - 192W After stability test for a while and fixing CPU voltage at 1.135V, C1E mode make CPU voltage vibrate between 0.800 to 1.240V as CPU clock changed. This voltage only increase 3W in OS desktop but lower 30W in full speed which make full speed power usage be more efficient. GIGABYTE BIOS spec in UEFI technology in X79 series. The main screen has 2 parts, this is different with other UEFI BIOS. First interface is 3D BIO. The GUI is using product outlook. Users can move mouse cursor to hardware part, and enter to frequency or voltage setup. Click in PCI-E/PCI part screen. Lower-left corner rotation logo can rotate MB angles. This interface is more fit GUI and user can understand the system status easily. Press ECS to shift to normal UEFI page. Even though transferring to UEFI, the items are almost same to old BIOS. Users have no adaptation issue. Below is windwithme setup in OC mode. First of all, the CPU ratio adjust to 45. Advanced CPU Core Features You can adjust individual core ratio and choose how many cores you want. C1E is power saving mode. Intel Turbo Boost is opposite C1E. CPU speed will increase by loading status.

DDR3 clock is 1600, CL is 9 9-9-24 and voltage is 1.50V. LGA 2011 DDR3 default voltage is 1.50V. VENGEANCE series has bigger heatsink. In internet, you can see gold, green, red, black and blue colors for different spec. Default Test CPU 100.0 X 33 => 3300MHz 1.135V Enable C1E and Turbo Boost. Clock is floating between from 1200~3900MHz by CPU utilization ratio. DDR3 1600 CL9 9-9-24 1T 1.250V Hyper PI 32M X 12 => 15m 32.226s CPUMARK 99 => 597 Nuclearus Multi Core => 3082 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 40.27/19329 Nuclearus Multi Core cannot run Multi Thread Speed item. This software need to improve the multi-core support. Fritz Chess Benchmark 6C12T performance is higher than 2700K, 4C8T, when it OC to 5GHz. CrystalMark 2004R3 => 382190 MEM score is almost double LGA 1155. LGA 2011 quad channel bandwidth has really good advantage. CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 10.45 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.58 pts Single core performance is similar to 2700K default, but multi-core full speed performance is 18% higher than 2700K running at 5GHz. PCMark Vantage => 22612 x264 FHD Benchmark => 28.8 x264 video spec is getting more and more popular. Many people covert video to h264 or x264 format. In this condition, CPU multi-tasking performance is very important. You can see 3960X has very good performance. In this benchmark, the score is higher than 2600K OC to 5.1GHz. It’s really saving time. DDR3 Test ADIA64 Memory Read - 17686 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 39185 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 14370 MB/s It looks like only SiSoftware Sandra supporting quad channel DDR3 bandwidth. The DDR3 1600 bandwidth is almost double of LGA 1156 platform. ADIA64 and MaXXMEM seems don’t support quad channel yet. I hope the next revision can support it. Temperature Test (Room Temp. is 22?C) Enter to OS Desktop - 29~31 CPU full speed by LinX - 45~48 Intel RTS 2011LC water cooler radiator change to two 12cm fan and the heat dispersion is very good. Enter to OS Desktop is around 30 and full speed is below 50. For multi-core and high performance platform, this is very good.

4 X Black SATA, provided by X79 and support SATA2. 2 X White SATA, provided by X79 and support SATA3 It can mix up to support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. The performance is based on installed SATA devices. 2 X Gray SATA, provided by Marvell 88SE9172 and support SATA3. It supports RAID 0, RAID 1. 2 X 64 Mbit flash, Dual BIOS, 1 X front USB 3.0 and 3 X USB 2.0 devices. Upper Side LGA 2011 CPU uses 16 phases digital PWM. CPU cover is plating processed which is better texture. There are pull rods in both sides. You must be more careful when install CPU. 4 X DIMM DDR3 support 1066/1333/1600/1866/2133. DDR3 max capacity is 32GB. It supports quad channels and Extreme Memory Profile. DDR3 has 2-phase PWM. Right side is 24-PIN power connector. IO 1 X PS2 KB/Mouse 1 X O.C. button 1 X BIOS Switch button 1 X Clear CMOS button 6 X USB 2.0(Red/Black) 2 X eSATA/USB 2.0 Combo(Black) 2 X USB 3.0(Blue) 1 X RJ-45 LAN 1 X S/PDIF Fiber output 5 X Audio jacks Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Audio Processor, CA20K2. It built-in 128MB Memory for CA2020K2. This design is for Creative high end audio card only. Nichicon MUSE ES(Green) and MW(Yellow) Japanese audio caps. 100% copper shielding provides the highest quality sound resolution. The design and components are high end audio card level. X79 chipset heatsink is hand gun this time. The design is exquisite. However, the imposing manner is lower than former magazine design... This time, GIGABYTE adds BT4.0 and Wi-Fi PCI-E card. Lower-right are 2 different USB ports. It supports Apple latest iPhone4S or any other smart phones or tablets which support BT and Wi-Fi. This pic is installing 2 antennas. Left green LED is WIFI and right orange is BT. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X MB: GIGABYTE G1.Assassin2 DRAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9 VGA: msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II HD: CORSAIR Force Series GT 120GB POWER: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W Cooler: Intel RTS 2011LC OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit X58 is the first triple channel platform. X79 enhances to quad channel DDR3. DDR3 is using CORSAIR VENGEANCE, CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9. The packing shows supporting Intel/AMD platforms. DDR3 capacity is 4 X 4GB. Blue color is main tone for this series. The packing is elegant. Users can open cover to check the DDR3 detail spec.

Nov 2008, Intel launched first Core i7 in LGA 1366 platform to redefine the enthusiast position. 2009, Intel launched LGA1156 for mainstream to mid-high range, called first generation Core i structure. Jan 2011, Intel launched 2nd Generation Core i, LGA 1155 platform, to replace LGA 1156 product line. However, Sandy Bridge structure didn’t phase into high end market immediately. That’s why LGA 1366 X58 platform stays for 3 years. Finally, 14 Nov, Intel announced latest LGA 2011 platform with X79 chipset, called Sandy Bridge-E. The main product change in 2011 is LGA 1155 replaces LGA 1156 and LGA 2011 replaces LGA 1366 product line. As latest Intel Enthusiast product, LGA 2011, the market position is same as LGA 1366. CPU is 6C12T mainly. i7-3820 is 4C8T, similar to i7-920. LGA 2011 first launch 2 CPUs, i7-3930K and i7-3960X, are both 6C12T. i7-3820 4C8T will be launched in Jan 2012. The price should be similar to i7-960 or i7-2600K. I am using Intel Core i7-3960X, same price as 990X, is 999USD by K SKUs based. The clock is 3.3GHz. It supports Turbo Boost 2.0 auto OC technology. The max clock is 3.90GHz. It’s physical 6 Cores and Hyper-Threading technology supporting 12 threads, called 6C12T. 32nm manufacturing, TDP 130W, 15MB L3 Cache, the most high-end CPU in LGA 2011. 3960X backside should be 2011 dots in theory. CPU dimension is much bigger than LGA 1366. The main difference of LGA 2011 is optional cooler. Intel provides 2 kinds of cooler for users. Intel BXRTS 2011AC cooler and Intel RTS 2011LC water cooling kit. Intel original water cooling kit is similar to others closed pattern kit. CPU contact surface is copper. If they can polish, it will be even better. Installation guide, accessories and kits. It supports Intel LGA 1155/11156/1366/2011. Fan is DELTA CNDP131F10 and the spec is 12VDC 0.29A Whole kit is 3 years warranty. I think water cooler should provide better service to encourage more users to use it. MB is GIGABYTE G1.Assassin2, X79 Chipset, for Gaming design. It’s same as X58 G1.Assassin color tone, black and green. The appearance is rare to see. It’s E-ATX and size is 30.5cm x 26.4cm. G1 is for Gaming market. GIGABYTE uses better audio and LAN components. Lower-Left Corner 3 X PCI-E X16 support 3-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI Bandwidth is X16 + X16 or X8 + X8 + X8. 2 X PCI-E X1 1 X PCI Very rare Bigfoot Killer E2100 LAN Chip Built-in Creative CA20K2 audio chip supports Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity and EAX Advanced HD 5.0 Technology It supports up to 7.1 channel and High Definition Audio Technology Design in Taipei

1100T Full Speed - 238W LinX 0.6.4 FX-8120 Full Speed - 166W LinX 0.6.4 When enter to OS desktop, FX-8120 power consumption is 7~10W lower. When both CPU work at multi-core full speed, FX-8120 power consumption is 72W lower. FX-8120 in default mode, no matter temperature or power consumption, it all shows 32nm advantage. In the premise, it’s only for default mode. I shared FX-8120 OC status in my previous review. Even it’s 95W FX-8120, when I OC over 4.3GHz, the power consumption bump up to over 380W. FX-8120 temperature is also rise a lot. 3D Test msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 3DMark Vantage => P21867 CPU SCORE => 54346 3DMark Vantage => P19559 CPU SCORE => 46417 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 242.92 FPS StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 223.66 FPS FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 4018 FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 3538 1100T in 3DMark Vantage, the 3D performance is 11.8% higher and CPU score is 17.1% more. In StreetFighter IV and FINAL FANTASY XIV, 1100Ts is also 8.6% and 13.6% higher than FX-8120. You can see for Game, CPU execution performance is very important. Also, most games just need 2~4Cores. For real 3D requirement, core number is not the most important factor. I suggest you to choose higher performance CPU. GIGABYTE 990FXA-D3 Good 1. The price segment is entry level in 3 major brands. 2. It has 4 PCI-E X16 and supports 2-Way ATI CFX and nVIDIA SLI technology. 3. IO provides 8 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 interface. Including front USB, user can have 14 USB 2.0 devices. 4. Built-in 6 native SATA3 support many RAID modes. 5. BIOS provides plenty items and wide voltage range which is good for OC or fine tune performance. Weakness 1. Heat sink is a little small and no pipe. 2. It’s no front USB 3.0 Port. 3. BIOS is not UEFI interface. Performance ?????????? Components ?????????? Specification ?????????? Appearance ?????????? C/P Value ?????????? After so many comparisons, you can see both CPU has their own strength and weakness. As default mode, no matter single core or multi-core performance, Phenom II X6 is all better than FX-8120. FX-8120 has obvious advantage in temperature and power consumption. Its’ CINEBENCH OpenGL page is also very good. Also, FX CPU DDR3 bandwidth wins X6 a lot. This is Bulldozer structure main strength for performance. Maybe many readers think the benchmark is just numbers. They prefer to know the performance in real use environment. I use so many benchmark software, applications or games to test. I think the score is also consultative. In the AMD market, if you are looking for better performance, you can choose Phenom II X6 CPU with 970X or entry 990FX. If you need more cores, better temperature, lower power consumption, latest AMD platform and don’t care the lower performance, you can choose FX-8120. However, the current price is a little bit high. Bulldozer structure introduces 8-Cores to PC market, but the structure and performance is not good enough. If AMD would like to break through the performance bottleneck currently, I suggest they can move Phenom II X6 to 32nm. Also improve Bulldozer structure to be more efficient and launch FX II to win back the users confidence. Above is windwithme sharing for AMD new platforms. As a smart users, for mainstream CPU, what your choice will be? This article is also post in my blog. WIND3C Any comments are all welcome. Finally, Happy Holidays… Let’s countdown to 2012.

1100T DDR3 1610.8 CL7 9-8-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 9280 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 12768 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 11660 MB/s FX-8120 DDR3 1879.2 CL9 10-9-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 14699 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 18120 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 13862 MB/s DDR3 bandwidth, FX-8120 wins 1100T in big gap. FX-8120 leads 58.4% in ADIA64, 41.9% in Sandra and 18.9% in MaXXMEM. FX-8120 bandwidth score is similar to Intel first Gen. Core i platform. It’s still a little behind 2nd Gen. Core i platform. At least it’s a shot in the AMD arm. In the past 8 years, this improvement is a big step. I hope they can catch up the competitor’s bandwidth. Temperature – Enable Cool 'n' Quiet power saving technology 1100T Enter to OS Desktop - 34(Room temperature is 20?C) FX-8120 Enter to OS Desktop - 30 1100T Full Speed - 60 LinX 0.6.4 FX-8120 Full Speed - 45 LinX 0.6.4 AMD32nm APU and FX series CPUs always show very temperature in most software. Sometimes, it’s even lower than room temperature. It’s often to see 8~16?C. However, CPU is not a cooler. The temperature should be higher than room temperature. It shouldn’t be lower environment temperature. I will ignore AIDA number. For right side MB tool to compare, we can use this for reference. Even though, I think this number is still lower than FX-8120 real temperature. In Touch BIOS, 32nm FX-8120 burning temperature is much lower. It has 2 more cores than 1100T. As we set both in default mode, FX-8120 temperature owns the obvious advantage. Power Consumption Test 1100T Enter to OS Desktop (Enable CNQ) - 81W FX-8120 Enter to OS Desktop (Enable CNQ) - 74W 1100T Enter to OS Desktop (Disable CNQ) - 103W FX-8120 Enter to OS Desktop (Disable CNQ)- 93W

CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 5.87 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.09 pts CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 5.11 pts CPU(Single Core) => 0.96 pts CINEBENCH is fastest updated and complete multi-core support. 1100T in single core performance is 13.5% higher. 6-core full speed is also 14.9% higher than FX-8120 8-core full speed. MP Ratio can see 1100T 6-core efficiency is 5.36x, but FX-8120 8-core is only 5.31x. It looks like it’s caused by 4M8T new structure. OpenGL pages, FX-8120 is 9.3% higher. PCMark Vantage => 13589 PCMark Vantage => 12803 PCMark7 => 3993 PCMark7 => 3845 PCMark Vantage and PCMark7 are both system benchmark. The difference is not big. 1100T total score is a little bit higher. Windows Experience Index - CPU 7.5 Windows Experience Index - CPU 7.5 Basically, Windows Experience Index is very fast and convenient benchmark software. The accuracy is based on persons. If using FX-8120 in other 990FX, the score is 7.8. However, the other benchmark is almost the same. In Z68, I also suffered this issue before. I set DRAM at DDR3-2133 and one Z68 got only 5.9 but the other got 7.9. After comparing three DDR3 bandwidth software, the performance is same for both Z68 platforms. I only can say, Windows Experience Index is very simple benchmark tool. It’s just for reference. DRAM structure is the key change for FX-8120. It uses AMD latest Memory Controller. In CPU 200MHz and don’t OC frequency, the memory can set to DDR3 1866, but 1100T only can reach 1600. This review uses CORSAIR VENGEANCE series DDR3. The model is CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9. The packing shows it supports both AMD and Intel dual channel platforms. The capacity is 2 X 4GB. The clock is DDR3 1600. CAS Latency is 9 9-9-24 at 1.50V. It meets AMD platform latest 1.5V voltage regulation. VENGEANCE series has black, red, blue and green colors. Each color means different spec and use. This VENGEANCE can work at DDR3 1600 CL7 or OC to 1866 CL9. It’s good for enhancing these 2 CPUs performance.

Upper-Left Corner 990FXA-D3 uses 4+1 phases PWM. The upper white connector is 8-PIN DC-In. Black AM3+ socket supports AMD AM3+ FX/AM3 Phenom II/AMD Athlon II CPU. IO 1 X PS2 KB/MS 1 X S/PDIF optical output connector 8 X USB 2.0(Red) 2 X USB 3.0(Blue) 1 X RJ-45 LAN 6 X Audio System Configuration CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T / FX-8120 8-Core Processor MB: GIGABYTE 990FXA-D3 DRAM: CORSAIR VENGEANCE CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 VGA: msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II HD: Intel 510 Series 120GB POWER: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER GOLDEN 550W Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit SP1 Besides CPUs are different, the other spec is all the same. Performance Test 1100T CPU 201.4 X 29 => 3323.1MHz(Torbo 3726MHz) DDR3 1610.8 CL7 9-8-24 1T FX-8120 CPU 201.4 X 29 => 3222.4MHz(Torbo 4028MHz) DDR3 1879.2 CL9 10-9-24 1T As same software test below, the first pic is 1100T and second is FX-8120. Hyper PI 32M X 6 => 22m 48.628s CPUMARK 99 => 504 Hyper PI 32M X 8 => 28m 37.477s CPUMARK 99 => 423 CPUMARK and PI both have long history. I still remember K8 was always leading Pentium4 in CPUMARK and PI. Till now, CPUMARK is still very good and easy benchmark software in single core test. Early stage, SUPER PI only can test single core CPU. Now, latest version Hyper PI can support 16 cores. It’s a very common benchmark software. 1100T single core performance is higher than FX-8210 around 19.1% in CPUMARK. In Hyper PI 32M, multi-core full speed is also 26.2% faster. Nuclearus Multi Core => 2216 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 24.33/11677 Nuclearus Multi Core => 16231 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 20.87/10019 Nuclearus Multi Core hasn’t been update after 2008. It doesn’t support multi-core well. As FX-8120, it can run Multi Thread Speed. In contrast, 1100T cannot run this option. Former 6-Cores 980X and recent 3-Cores A6-3500 also cannot finish the test. Implying it cannot support triple murderer cores?! However, we can refer to the full finished ALU Speed and FPU Speed items, 1100T is still leading obviously. Fritz Chess Benchmark is a multi-core benchmark by chess. It can support to 8 threads. 1100T 6-core full speed is 24.33 and FX-8120 8-core full speed is 20.87. 1100T is still 16.6% higher. CrystalMark 2004R3 => 222715 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 219825 CrystalMark 2004R3 test several items performance in full system. 1100T is still a little ahead in total score. If look into CPU performance, you can refer to the ALU and FPU to see the difference. For DDR3 performance, FX-8120 has more advantages. You can see detail test below.

In the past years, AMD CPU performance hasn’t been revolute. Since 2006, first time K8 performance crossed over by Core 2 Duo, they started to focus on multi-core and parity price. For entry or mainstream PC users, it’s good news. During that time, AMD high end product lost the performance strength, they only could move to mid-end market. After Core i launched, the single core performance gap was even bigger. Multi-core became main product strategy for AMD. Windwithme would like to share CPU comparison since FX-8120/8150 lanuched. Originally, I would like to use 3 unlocked CPUs which price is around 200USD to compare. They are AMD Phenom II X6 1100T, AMD FX-8120 and Intel Core i5-2500K. For 2500K performance, I have shared many times which you can refer my former reviews. Moreover, 2500K may make this stage brutally. After consideration, I decided to use AMD only. AMD Phenom II X6 series, 1090T has the best C/P value. However, I pick Phenom II X6 1100T due to the price is similar to FX-8120. 1100T packing is all black which meets Black Edition. Left side is AMD Phenom II X6 1100T. Right side is original cooler. Black Edition CPU cooler is bigger size and cooper pipe design. This cooler is same grade as FX-8120. Before the battle, let’s introduce the players. Left side representative - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition 45nm, 6-Cores, official clock is 3.3GHz, TDP 125W Core name is Thuban and supports Turbo Core to 3.7GHz. L2 is 3MB and L3 is 6MB. Right side representative - AMD FX-8120. 32nm, 8-Cores?official clock is 3.2GHz Normal FX-8120 is 125W. This review is using lower power consumption version, TDP is 95W. Core name is Zambezi and supports Turbo Core to 4.0GHz. L2 is 8MB and L3 is 8MB. Just judge by spec, FX-8120 manufacturing is more advanced. FX-8120 has bigger L2 and L3 cache. After sharing to each core, actual L3 is 1MB and L2 is 2 times of 1100T. I pick AMD current most high end chipset 990FX - GIGABYTE 990FXA-D3. Using entry 990FX MB can have better C/P. Blue PCB is standard color of GIGABYTE. This year, they also use black PCB for high end MB to enhance texture. Lower-Left Corner 4 X PCI-E 2.0 X16 support 2-Way ATI CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI. Dual VGA bandwidth is X16+X16. The others are X4. 2 X PCI-E X1 1 X PCI Realtek RTL8111E LAN chip. Realtek ALC889 audio chip supports 7.1 channels High Definition Audio and S/PDIF output. Lower-Right Corner 6 X Blue SATA provide by SB950 and support SATA3. It also supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 and JBOD. TPM security encryption module slot and dual 32 Mbit Flash BIOS. Upper-Right Corner 4 X DIMM DDR3 support 1066/1333/1600/1866/2000(OC). The max DDR3 capacity is 32GB. DDR3 2000 needs to pull CPU clock. Next is 24-PIN DC-In connector.

StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 270.63 FPS Above is the performance of three kinds of 3D software under 4.7GHz, which is also affected by the CPU performance. Regarding the 3D scores, it is 10% less than that of 2500K OC 5GHz. It needs to be further improved in the future AMD architecture. 990FX provides the bandwidth of ATI CrossFireX X16+X16, which can get better performance than the dual-VGA of the same specification. External frequency of FX-8120 also gets good performance. If you want to increase the DDR3 performance more, the most direct way is to increase the CPU external frequency. In this way, it can probably reach the level of DDR3 2000~2200. CPU 262 X 18 => 4716MHz DDR3 2096 CL10 11-10-27 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 14914 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 19369MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 15013MB/s The external frequency of FX-8120 can be stable around 255MHz. CPU external frequency within the overclocking range also performs well. After increasing DDR3, it can almost reach 15000 MB/s in AIDA64 Memory Read. Compared with the previous AMD platforms, the bandwidth performance when overclocking is increased by about 40~50%, which is also one of the greatest feature for this new platform. Reaching 5GHz Super PI 32M X 1 => 16m 49.743s CPUMARK 99 => 554 5GHz is not easy to reach for FX-8120, even if the heat dissipation system is enhanced. The key is whether the physical quality of the CPU is excellent or not. Generally, it can reach almost 4.8~4.9GHz, thereby making operating system (0S) run smoothly. Although reaching 5GHz in OS, it can’t be stabilized, which can be only reached under single PI and 32M. If it requires running 8 PIs simultaneously, it can’t be reached even if it is 1M. That’s why the overclocking should consider whether each core of the multiple cores has the same excellent physical quality. BIOSTAR TA990FXE uses the AMD’s most advanced 990FX integrated with SB950 chipset. The price in U.S. is about US$115(no more than NT$3,500), which is affordable to most people. The performance is also one of the major features of BIOSTAR, which gets good performance in the test after overclocking. Moreover, 990FX has the advantage of dual-X16 and built-in native SATA3 and USB 3.0, which is quite advanced in the hardware specification. BIOSTAR TA990FXE Advantages 1. The package and materials are both above the level, and the price is still fair among 990FX series. 2. Its BIOS has been integrated with UEFI interfaces, with rich options, and a large voltage range as well as excellent overclocking capability. 3. It includes Japanese solid capacitors, built-in POWER/RESET buttons and simple debug LEDs. 4. It adopts Atheros AR8151 network chip, which is a renowned brand among the network chip brands. 5.It has the built-in and native SATA3 and USB 3.0?and provides two PCI-E X16s and conventional PCIs for extension. Shortcomings 1. CPU voltage is fluctuated greatly when system is standby and at full speed. 2. BIOSTAR has no distribution channel in Taiwan. Performance ratio ?????????? Material ratio ?????????? Specification ratio ?????????? Appearance ratio ?????????? Performance vs. Price ratio ?????????? In AMD’s Bulldozer platform, we can see the improvement brought by the new architecture, and the shortcomings as well. The advantage is that AMD integrates new 32nm process, and launches the 8-Cores design in the common PC consumption market for the first time. When FX-8120 is not in the overclcoking state, the power consumption and temperature both get good performance. The overclocking degree also pushes the AMD CPU and DDR3 clock to higher field, and the DDR3 performance is improved greatly as well. The shortcoming is the price which made AMD proud all the time. This time FX-8120/8150 will make the consumer feel some kind of expensive. The single-core performance is a little bit lower than that of 1090T, so are the multi-task performances of some software. When overclocking FX-8120 to 4.3GHz or higher, the temperature and power consumption amount will increase a lot. These three aspects should be strengthened by AMD to increase the efficiency under multi-task environment through architecture optimization, BIOS modification or software support. I think many AMD fans have been waiting for Bulldozer architecture for more than one year, who can only know the 8-core performance from the hearsay news on the Internet or the test information revealed by media abroad during this period. In this article, windwithme spent nearly two weeks to make calibration for overclocking. Initially, I hoped it could reach the level of stable burning by 4.6GHz or higher to present the best performance of FX-8120. However, it didn’t make it, which is pitiful. Bulldozer brings about surprises and some disappointment. Personally, I think the disappointment is more than surprises. When writing this article, I got some complicated feelings. Maybe it is because I still have the passion of pursuing K7 high C/P and K8 high-performance CPU. When can we see the unsurpassed magnificence of AMD when the performance of K8 Athlon 64 3000+/3200+ was overwhelming on the market again? When will AMD make us crazy about it again, and make some new-era architecture that is really perfect in overall aspects? I still hope AMD can perform better in the medium- and high-order market in the future, and have the glorious period as before. I believe that it is also the expectation of many consumers... This article is also posted in my blog WIND3C. 3C fans are welcome to visit and propose suggestions.

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 282679 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 7.62 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.15 pts PCMark Vantage => 16970 PCMark7 => 4432 Windows experience index - CPU 7.8 After overclcoking FX-8120 to 4.7GHz, the performance of CINEBENCH is increased by about 20% in single core, and over 50% in 8-core at full speed. Besides, MP Ratio is also increased to 6.63x, which should be an important factor to cause the significant improvement of the multi-core performance. The performance of other software in the entire platform is significantly improved as well. It seems that the performance of FX-8120 after overclocking is comparatively outstanding. However, the Windows experience index is still 7.8 scores. The simple test software built in Windows7 is necessarily enhanced in the accuracy aspect. DDR3 1866.6 CL8 10-9-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 14194 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 18627 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 13985MB/s FM1 APU released by AMD in July, if without overclocking, can be maximized to DDR3 1866. The architecture of AM3+ Bulldozer this time has the same specification. It is unlike the previous platforms that can only support DDR3 1600 at most. The improvement in frequency is also the feature of this new platform, and the bandwidth is slightly increased after it is adjusted to DDR3 1866. Power consumption test System standby - 79W CPU at full speed - 401W CPU test items in CINEBENCH R11.5 running For the power consumption duing system standby, it just increases 5W once overclocking. It may be resulted from enabling C&Q power-saving technology. This part is fairly good. However, the power consumption amount after overclocking increases a lot. When I tried 4.3GHz by using LinX burning, the power consumption reached around 380W. It couldn’t conduct burning by using LinX under 4.7GHz. When I tested the 8-core capabilities by CINEBENCH R11.5, it still got the data of 401W. The power consumption of FX-8120 after overclocking is quite high, which is one of the factors in need of improvement in the future. I don’t share more about the temperature test after overclocking. The first reason is that LinX can be only running under 4.3~4.5GHz. After replacing it with Thermaltake advanced air cooler or CORSAIR H80 to enhance the heat dissipation capabilities, the overclocking stability couldn’t be improved as well. Another reason is that displayed temperature is only around 42~46 Celsius, which should not be the actual temperature. When I disassembled the tower air cooler after burning at 4.3GHz, the heat dissipated from the heat sink shocked me a lot. 3D test msi N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II 3DMark Vantage CPU SCORE => 58318 FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 4021

Power consumption test System standby - 74W CPU at full speed - 157W LinX 0.6.4 The power consumption of FX-8120 obtains rather good performance under default configuration. The power consumption difference between standby and full speed is 83W. The integration of 32nm process is greatly helpful to the CPU of AMD’s new-era FM1 or AM3+ architecture. Below will share the overclocking of FX-8120 BIOSTAR has integrated new UEFI graphic interfaces in 990FX BIOS. Some power-saving functionality in the CPU information page can make some further adjustment. O.N.E calibration page Voltage page CPU Vcore +0.050~1.450V CPU-NB Over Voltage +0.050~0.200V Memory Over Voltage -0.250~+0.490V NB Over Voltage +0.010~0.490V CPU HT Over Voltage +0.010~0.300V SB Over Voltage +0.010~0.300V NB HT Over Voltage +0.010~0.300V CPU frequency multiplication can be adjusted here too. To increase the external frequency, it needs to lower NB FID first. If you want to reduce CPU voltage, you can also start from the option of Core VID As for the DRAM frequency and parameter settings, generally, smaller the values are, higher the performance is. Different from the previous platforms, FX-8120 supports DDR3 1866 for the first time. In the past, the maximum CPU of the version inferior to 1100T can be only adjusted as 1600. Below it is set as DDR3 1866 CL8 10-9-27 1T PC Health Status CPU temperature detection data is higher than some software in OS, so this comparison is much closer to the actual temperature performance. Above are the set values by windwithme to overclock FX-8120 to 4.7GHz and integrate with DDR3 1866. The overclocking settings are easier than that of frequency-unlocked FX CPU. It just needs to adjust CPU frequency multiplication, and then adjust the CPU voltage to the acceptable value. In comparison, the overclocking of DDR3 is also in the similar way, which requires adjusting DDR3 1600/1866 first, and then setting parameters or increasing DDR3 voltage. If the operation voltage can be stabilized after overclocking CPU/DDR3, it means that the overclocking is successful. Overclcoking performance test CPU 200.0 X 23.5 => Voltage of 4700MHz at full speed is 1.452V DDR3 1866.6 CL8 10-9-24 1T Hyper PI 32M X 8 => 22m 29.028s CPUMARK 99 => 520 Nuclearus Multi Core => 23265 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 30.51/14643

CPU default performance test CPU 200.0 X 16 => 3200MHz DDR3 1600 CL7 9-8-24 1T Hyper PI 32M X 8 => 30m 21.240s CPUMARK 99 => 436 Nuclearus Multi Core => 16066 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 20.75/9958 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 220281 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 5.04 pts CPU(Single Core) => 0.95 pts PCMark Vantage => 14105 PCMark7 => 3884 Windows experience index - CPU 7.8 The single-core performance of FX-8120 presented in CINEBENCH R11.5 is almost the same as that of A8-3850 or Athlon II X4640, and 10% lower than that of Phenom II X6 1090T. So the FX series needs enhancement in single-core performance. Multi-task is still the major feature of FX-8120. The software of CINEBENCH can get score of about 5.04 under 8-core at full speed. However, by taking a close look, we can see that it only gets 5.31x for MP Ratio. Compared with 3.89x of X4 640 and 5.22x of x6, the best multi-task performance can only reach the level of the last-generation X6. It may be correlated to the design of new architecture, or the performance will be enhanced by Windows 8 as mentioned on the Internet. As for the best Windows experience index of above software, FX-8120 can get the high score of 7.8 under default configuration. DDR3 1600 CL7 9-8-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 13516 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 16554 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 12839 MB/s DDR3 performance is obviously improved in AM3+ CPU. Compared with 1090T under DDR3 1600, it is improved by over 30%. It should be the best improvement among FX series. It has gone through three generation of DDR~DDR3, from K8 DDR to the latest 1090T DDR3. Regarding the DRAM bandwidth, the maximum Read keeps around 10000 MB/s. Over the past eight years, the AMD bandwidth has been increased finally. Although a small step in PC market, it is a big one for AMD. It is hoped to catch up with the competitor’s platforms in DDR3 performance in the future. Temperature performance (Ambient temperature is 22 Celsius) System standby - 13~27 CPU at full speed - 22~33 LinX 0.6.4 In comparison with the temperature by touching the water cooled radiator, the burning temperature of FX-8120 under default frequency is lower than that of 1100T, so the temperature improvement is great. It can be seen from the shared test of 32nm A8-3850 that the CPU temperature is always low according to much software. It remains the same after I use A75 of more than three brands. However, the temperature is not so low when I touch the heat sink, which is about 50 Celsius according to my analysis. The abnormal CPU temperature is also shown on FX-8120. As mentioned by some media abroad, it might be caused by the inaccurate temperature information provided by FX CPU to MB. The above temperature data detected by various software is just for reference, but without representing the actual temperature of FX-8120 capably.