Post Cards from the Edge - AMD 780G, NVIDIA 790i, Gigabyte 680i
by Gary Key on April 5, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Pop goes the MOSFET
Our top performance board in the roundup - thanks to its SidePort memory and optimum layout - is the JW-RS780UVD-AM2+ from J&W. They have a note at the bottom of the product page stating this board does not support 125W TDP processors, and again in the specifications section. We consider this acceptable and for the record, their board failed on power-up with the 9850E. J&W informed us that they will be producing a new five-phase PWM board in an ATX form factor for the performance oriented crowd in May. In the meantime, they have shipped us a new board to complete testing. For a “new” player in the market, we have to admit their customer service and support has been impressive.
The next board up is our all-around feature favorite product from Gigabyte, featuring a four-phase PWM design. The GA-MA78GM-S2H product page does not mention support issues with the 125W TDP processors. It actually states that the board supports the Phenom FX/Phenom processors, leading one to believe all is well. The specification page does not mention any support problems with the 125W TDP Phenoms. It is not until you get to the CPU Support List page that you find out the 9850E has not been qualified on this board, and the same goes for the other quad-core B3 stepping processors. This leaves the user in a quandary as to actual support for the new Phenoms, and hopefully Gigabyte will update the product pages quickly. The board actually runs the B3 stepping fine with the F3E BIOS or higher. However, this board failed after a short overclocking session with the 9900/9850BE processors. It lasted the longest of the boards we tested with either processor and will still power on, but it will no longer POST. Interestingly enough, Gigabyte has qualified the 125W TDP 6400/6000+ X2 processors on this board. We had a new board arrive today and will complete testing on it over the weekend before we subject it to any further overclocking tests with these processors.
We moved to the ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI board that features a three-phase PWM design. The product page states that the board supports the latest AMD Phenom quad-core processors. Well, guess what: it lasted a mere two seconds with the latest and greatest Phenom processor and about 10 minutes with the 6400+ X2. The specification page is blank so we moved on to the QVL page and found it only contained qualified memory modules. We thought to ourselves, "What would Nancy Drew do?" Low and behold, we went to the download page for the board and off to the left was a box that featured links to CPU Support, Specifications, Product Comparisons, FAQ, and Forum. Sure enough, we clicked on the CPU Support link and found the information we were searching for earlier. Turns out that the Phenom 9100e, 9500, and 9600 are the only qualified Phenom models, and the 125W TDP 6400+ X2 is missing in action as well. This is a long way from the marketing slogan proclaiming support for the latest Phenom quad-core processors.
Next up is the ECS A780GM series of boards that feature ATX and uATX form factors with a three-phase power design. The product and specification pages list AMD Phenom support. Clicking on the CPU support link off to the left brings up one of the more detailed CPU support pages we discovered. However, the 9850BE and 6400+ X2 are both missing. You can guess the outcome by now; while our board is not completely dead, it is on life support and pretty much circling the drain. We were able to shut it down before a complete black out, but the board is no longer stable at any setting.
We stopped testing the 125W TDP processors at this point, although we could have continued with the boards from ASRock, Jetway, and Biostar. Based on their PWM designs, we are sure that each board had a high probability of failure with the 125W TDP processors. In each case, the product pages list support for the full Phenom or X2 processor series and it is not until you go to the CPU support pages that you realize 125W TDP processors are not supported.
AMD also has a very useful tool that provides information about Phenom compatibility across a wide range of motherboards that AMD has tested. None of our test subjects has been formally approved by AMD for use with the 125W TDP processors in the X2 or Phenom product families. We found this interesting as Gigabyte qualified the board for use with the 6400+ X2 but the Athlon X2 compatibility tool does not agree. So who is right? We will find out shortly.
What did we learn? Do not trust the product information and specification pages in the vast majority of cases. The CPU support pages tell the real story - some better than others, but in all cases the 125W TDP processors are not officially supported by current 780G motherboards (4/25/08 update - Finishing 100 hour test results with the 9850BE and three vendor qualified boards have passed to date with proper cooling of the PWM area). It just takes some effort to find that information (except for J&W) and this is something we do not think the user should have to do. In our opinion, the product pages lead the user down one path while the CPU support pages (which are sometimes difficult to find) tell another story. At this point, it pays to read the fine print or hope your favorite review site is able to provide this information.
Personally, I was very disappointed in the type of information available on the websites and in the product manuals. Sure, a manufacturer can hide behind the CPU support lists, but the information provided on the product description and specification pages would lead the majority of users to think using any Phenom or X2 processor is perfectly acceptable when it is not. One would think the manufacturers would be especially sensitive to this problem unless they just enjoy the RMA process and pissed off customers. This especially holds true when purchasing the board from an e-tailor or local shop. Unless the user does some research, the current information available in a product ad or on the box does not tell the rest of the story.
Our stand at this time with the manufacturers is they need to ensure the CPU support page is clearly identified, readily available on the product information page, and it needs to be updated on a regular basis. We also request the CPU support page be linked from the processor support information described in the overview section. If this is not possible then the processor information should be asterisked with a note to check the CPU support page or state what processors are not supported in the short term. Trying to address the channel and retail markets is another can of worms that we will look at later.
We are hoping the short-term fixes occur quickly over the next thirty days; if they do not, well, the product will not be eligible for an Editors' Choice award and you can be certain we will mention processor support in the review. In fact, if a processor is missing from the list we will assume it is not supported and will report it as such from this point forward.
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braddy752 - Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - link
Seeing this Gigabyte case has being flaming with gasoline.. Though the board maker should take certain responsibilites of having mistake information..However, we all knew that from the starting point it's the chipset makers issue, delivering too aggressive assumptions on supporting processors which the chip maker had not validated. Not mentioning those buggy issues created by Nvidia.
Nvidia has been keeping quiet for those issues found by journalist or end-users, and making their so called partners (board makers) to deal with it.
So, who should be blamed for the faulty products? Board maker or the Chip maker? For me... I'll still trust the board makers who deliever good quality products, and blame the root cause to the chip maker.
aguilpa1 - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I approached Anandtech a looong time ago way back when Yorkfields first came out about 680iSLI not being compatible as I soon found out. They ignored my posts.I had an EVGA 680i SLi and they provided their customers with a 780iSLI step up, which I am now running trouble free. Maybe you guys should have gone EVGA.
Tanclearas - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
Gary,I'm not sure if you recall, but I was the one you helped get in contact with Nvidia regarding the nforce4 corruption issues related to the hardware firewall. I still have all of the email messages associated with that. You definitely tried harder than Nvidia in working with me on identifying the issue. I responded to the suggestions by the Nvidia rep quickly, and provided as detailed information as I could to them. I offered to completely reformat my system, and follow any specific directions they wanted, but their only suggestion for me was to install a driver that I had already tested with.
You followed up with me, and contacted Nvidia again, but they still never contacted me again. You eventually let me know that Nvidia's solution was to discontinue support of the hardware firewall, even though that was a major "bullet point" on the feature list of nforce4.
I won't go so far as to say "I'll never buy nvidia again!", but I definitely won't buy until the products have been on the market an extended period and there is reasonable confirmation about which "features" of their products actually work as advertised.
chucky2 - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
Gary,Personally, I think instead of working behind the scenes with the mobo manufacturers, you ought to publish the review and slam them all for dying. The fact seems to be that these manufacturers will just not fix their ways until it blows up in their faces.
Maybe being embarrassed on the front page of AnandTech in a full out review will serve as sufficient embarrassment for them to put enough engineering into their products so those of us who buy a 125W Phenom and OC it (through the BIOS options the manufacturers themselves provide) the boards won't fry.
In college teaching the saying goes Publish or Perish...maybe for the manufacturers it should be Engineer it or be Embarrassed....
Chuck
P.S. Now your 780G review will be further delayed because of their shodding underengineering....should give AnandTech time to review a couple of the past 690G boards to see how they compare and if they have the same problems. I just looked, and the Gigabyte 690G boards have the 6000+ and 6400+ listed as supported, and the 95W Phenom's as well. Should make for a good comparison....
whatthehey - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I completely support your suggestion: reviewers should put the reviews out there as soon as a product is available on the retail shelves. By all means, go ahead and delay a preview or a first look while you wait for a BIOS respin, but when boards are available to the average Joe shopping at Newegg, it's time for manufacturers to put up or shut up.I respect all the hard work you do, Gary, but I'd much rather read reviews of imperfect products than to wait (and wait... and waaaaait.......) for a review of an ephemeral "perfect" motherboard and BIOS.
As for the motherboards, I'd say you should stick to reviewing whatever CPUs they list as working and put in information about what CPUs *don't* make that list. Then let us know how the board works in practice. If it's flaky and your article ends up killing sales for a board, that's just too bad.
Finally, less time spent on extreme overclocking and more time spent getting articles out the door would be appreciated. I don't use water, let alone phase change or LN2, and I'm not going to push my system to the ragged edge. I'll take a reasonable overclock if it's easy to achieve. Spending hours/days/months tweaking and adjusting various BIOS settings to get the last .05% performance boost means nothing to 99.999% of people. Let the XS braggarts worry about the ORB charts!
nubie - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I don't know if anything I have ever seen on Anandtech qualifies as extreme overclocking (if you want that go to vr-zone.com and see Shamino or Kingpin), unless we are talking about 3.8+ Ghz air-cooled CPU's, and I guess that is a little extreme, but only as far as the retention mechanism goes. I don't recall any voltage modifications or phase-cooling on this site. (If you can buy it for $100 or less, and put it on the CPU in one piece, without soldering, vacuum pumps, or bleeding of coolant, and it fits in the case, I don't really consider it extreme.)I think what they point to here is that general mild overclocking will completely destroy a motherboard with certain CPU's, CPU's that are supposed to be supported and should by rights have plenty of headroom for worst-case scenario running, and should thus be exploitable by their "best case" test methodology with a mild overclock.
Dsjonz - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I agree with whatthehey. "Warts and all" reviews TODAY are what many of us want. But despite the overclocked CPU limitations of the initial crop of these three 780G motherboards, I won't "waaaaait' for this issue to be resolved with more expensive board respins six months from now. I will be buying a 780G next week for my HTPC hardware refresh. Why?I'm buying a 780G board today because they offer precisely what I have been waiting a long time for. All three deliver full-featured low-power MATX boards, all hitting the feature set sweet-spot for HTPC/Windows Home Server/general productivity use -- and all offered at the crucial under-$100 "single-spouse-decision" pricepoint.
Also consider what these 780G boards are NOT. They are clearly not oriented toward the "addled overclocker/uber-gamer/power-workstation" crowd. Yet, that's how they are being reviewed and judged. Am I the only one who is objecting to a prevailing pattern among many PC reviewers today to evaluate non-gaming/overclocking MATX motherboards only for their overclocking and gaming prowess?
Let's separate the issues. The beef is with the three motherboard makers who should have prominently listed support limitations for overclocked CPUs. It's hard to believe that all three deliberately under-engineered their products, but it's at all not hard to believe that rushed and inexperienced product marketing staffers at all three companies either ignored engineering caveats or were "out of the loop" about these issues and did a "cut-and-paste" of standard product requirements on the specifications section of the datasheet.
Unlikely, you say? I'm in the business, and it happens all the time.
garydale - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
Not quite what the originator of that phrase had in mind, but it makes me very happy I stayed with the lower power (95W) version of the Phenom. I have an inexpensive all-in-one mainboard that doesn't seem to be having any problems with the 9500 (B2). However, until reading this article, I thought I was just being energy efficient.I'm also happy that we have sources like this to turn to. I've never paid much attention to CPU compatibility charts before, naively believing that if it was the right socket, at worst a BIOS upgrade would allow the processor to work. Now it seems I have another problem to worry about.
Johnniewalker - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
Saved me lots of time and headaches!anindrew - Monday, April 7, 2008 - link
I've been an avid reader of anandtech.com since 2000 or so. I am very impressed by how candid and gutsy your article is. Besides benchmark and real world tests, every user wants to know about issues with products. When issues this big present themselves, you are doing a great service by bringing them to the forefront.I've been wanting to build a new system for about a year (since my motherboard had a bit of a heart attack 6 months ago). I've held off for a few reasons (mostly financial). If I built right now (which I'm not), I'd probably go for an X38 board and a Q9450. I haven't heard about any issues with that combination as of yet.