It's a nice mainboard, but it has some limitation, as you said 2.4v for ddr2 is way to low! What are the improvements with the built-in DDR3? Is it only for the VGA board of this amount of memory is used by the cpu too for some kinda caching?

thanks

Marco

OC 1162 CL5 5-5-15 2.4V

EVEREST Memory bandwidth

790GX bandwidth is not as good as 790FX, it’s a pity.

However, the OC clock is pretty good.

AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+ Black Edition

422Mhz SP2004 dual core stable.

Dual core clock is same level as 790FX. If your CPU quality is good, 790GX can run at 400~460Mhz.

For quad core Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition, it also can reach 240~250Mhz.

Concludes GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H

Good

1.Latest AMD 790GX+SB750 with full solid capacitors and heat pipe thermal module

2.Supports CrossFireX and ATI Hybrid CrossFireX

3.Rich BIOS items and wide voltage menus

4.4+1 PWM can support AM2+ 140W quad core CPU. During the test, Phenom 9950 can OC to 3.2G~3.3G and pass many applications.

5.HD3300 is the best performance built-in GPU. The 3D performance is much better than AMD 780G and the other brands UMA chipset.

6.Dual core frequency is pretty high and HD3300 has D-SUB/DVI/HDMI 3 outputs.

Weakness

1.DDR2 voltage can only reach 2.4V. It will be better if it can reach 2.6V

2.790GX DDR2 bandwidth is not as good as previous AMD chipset

3.As built-in HD3300, the chipset temperature is higher

Performance ??????????

Components ??????????

Outlook ??????????

C/P ??????????

In early 2008, AMD launched hi-end 790FX chipset which support X16+X16 CrossFire.

It collocate with X2 high frequency and DDR2 great OC ability. The price is aroun130~230USD.

After then, AMD announced entry Mirco-ATX 780GX built-in HD3200 GPU and not bad OC level. The price is 80~100USD.

For the mid-end market, it’s empty for several months.

790GX is the perfect product to fill in the segment.

790GX owns hi-end CorssFire, only X8+X8, faster built-in GPU HD330 than 780G,

and good CPU/RAM OC ability.

Also it has ATX and Mirco-ATX versions, it merges hi-end and entry characteristic.

The price is around 100~160USD.

GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H is hi-end product in 790GX. No matter package, components or BIOS OC, it has great performance.

MA790GP DS4H price is around 160USD now. If it can be lower than 150USD, it will be more attractive.

If 790FX is over budget, and you would like to have 780G built-in GPU performance,

also need further upgrade capability for CrossFire. GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H is

your good C/P choice.

Default

OC

NorthBridge Volt Control is helpful for OC HD3300. Basically, as it’s over 1050Mhz, sometimes it suffers the picture failed symptom.

The best clock is 1063MHz which can run all the test without problems.

If you don’t care the picture failed issue, the you can run 3DMark test at 1080Mhz

Need For Speed Pro Street

Default:

Resolution 1280x1024

ANTI ALIASING:2X

Default

OC

Crysis Benchmark

OC

Built-in DDR3 128MB is really improving the performance.

NorthBridge Volt rises to 1.6V, the core clock can over 1000Mhz very easily.

HD3300 3D performance is very outstanding. You can find more articles in the internet.

ATI 790GX 3D performance is much better than Intel G45.

GAINWARD HD4850 + MSI 4850 CrossFire

HD 4850 Default 625/993Mhz

3DMARK2005

3DMARK2006

Need For Speed Pro Street

Setup:

Resolution 1920X1200

ANTI ALIASING:4X

Crysis Benchmark

790GX is positioned in mid-end but it also supports CrossFire as hi-end 790FX.

However, 790GX only supports X8+X8 bandwidth.

CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+/Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition

MB: GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H

DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator TWIN2X2048-8888C4DF

VGA: GAINWARD HD4850 + MSI 4850 CrossFire

HD: Seagate 7200.10 320GB

POWER: POWER:Corsair HX1000W Modular Power Supply

Cooler: Thermaltake BigTyp VP/JETART Nano Diamond/Lubic

GIGABYTE exclusive software

EASYTUNE 5 PRO

iCOOL

@BIOS

AMD OverDriver Utility

AMD exclusive OS software has detail system info and user can adjust the voltage and clock through this software.

Built-in GPU HD3300, shared 256MB

GPU Default 700Mhz DDR3 1333/system memory DDR2 1066

GPU OC 1063Mhz DDR3 1333/system memory DDR2 1066

3DMARK2005

Default

OC

BIOS

Boot screen

Setup main manual

Voltage menu

SonthBridge Volt Control +0.1V~+0.3V

SidePort Mem Volt Control +0.1V~+0.3V

NorthBridge Volt Control -0.200V~+0.200V(gap at 0.025V)

DDR2 Voltage Control +0.05~+0.55V

CPU NB VID Control -0.600~+0.600V(gap at 0.025V)

CPU Voltage Control -0.600~+0.600V

Press Ctrl+F1 will show the OC item: Advanced Clock Calibration.

790GX provides new items to enhance Phenom OC limitation.

DDR2 parameters

Advanced BIOS

Te built-in GPU HD3300 related items are here.

SidePort: use built-in Memory, this MB has DDR3 128MB

UMA: shared with system main memory

UMA mode can select different capacity

SidePort DDR3 128MB can choose the speed.

PC Health Status

790GX built-in HD3300 GPU which is more performance than HD3200 in 780G.

I believe this chipset combines with AMD dual/triple/quad core CPU can bring the higher C/P value.

Unlike 790FX has the advantage of CorssFire X16+X16, 790GX is positioned in mid-end.

It only supports X8+X8 CrossFire. However, the new SB750 and GUP HD3300, 790GX is still a great choice for end users.

This time I get is GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H.

After 790GX launched, 3 tier one manufacturers all announced their 790GX products.

The price is around 160USD. As the price gap is small, the components, spec. and OC ability are the key factors.

Package

Accessory

GIGABYTE MA790GP DS4H

Left-Lower Corner

2 X PCI-E X16(CorssFiieX works as X8+X8)

3 X PCI-E X1

2 X PCI

1 X Floppy

LAN Chip Realtek 8111C, Audio Realtek ALC889A, 7.1cahnnels support HD Audio

Right-Lower Corner

6 X SATAII(SB750)

1 X LPT

Dual BIOS

Right-Upper Corner

4 X DIMM DDRII, support 533/667/800, and 1066 Phenom

1 X IDE

24PIN power in

Left-Upper Corner

4+1 phase PWM for CPU which supports 140W Phenom CPU

IO Interface

4 X USB 2.0

1 X 1394

1 X S/PDIF fiber output

HD3300 has 3 output interfaces : D-SUB/DVI/HDMI

MA790GP DS4H heatpipe thermal module