Our testing methods
Today we've pitted the 790FX against its closest and really only rival, Nvidia's nForce 590 SLI. Launched about a year and a half ago, the 590 SLI is hardly a spring chicken. However, it's still Nvidia's flagship chipset for Socket AM2 processors, a testament to just how little attention chipset makers have paid AMD processors since the Core 2 Duo's release.
Since we couldn't get the GA-MA790FX-DQ6 to cooperate with manual memory timings, we've had to back both boards off to Gigabyte's defaults for our Corsair DIMMs, which are a relatively relaxed 5-4-4-12-2T. We've also had to run the Gigabyte board in Native IDE mode rather than AHCI, so keep in mind that a lack of Native Command Queuing could impact our storage subsystem tests.
For our nForce platform, we've elected to use Foxconn's C51EM2AA because it's essentially an Nvidia reference design for the nForce 590 SLI.
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged.
| Processor | Athlon X2 5200+ 2.6GHz | |
| System bus | 1333MHz (333MHz quad-pumped) | |
| Motherboard | Foxconn C51EM2AA | Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 |
| Bios revision | 612W1P34 | F2K |
| North bridge | nForce 590 SLI SPP | 790FX |
| South bridge | nForce 590 SLI MCP | SB600 |
| Chipset drivers | ForceWare 15.01 | Catalyst 7.10 |
| Memory size | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) |
| Memory type | Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 SDRAM at 742MHz | |
| CAS latency (CL) | 5 | 5 |
| RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) | 4 | 4 |
| RAS precharge (tRP) | 4 | 4 |
| Cycle time (tRAS) | 12 | 12 |
| Command rate | 2T | 2T |
| Audio codec | nForce 590 SLI/ALC882D with Realtek HD 1.81 drivers | SB600/ALC889A with Realtek HD 1.81 drivers |
| Graphics | GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB PCI-E with ForceWare 163.75 drivers | |
| Hard drive | Western Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB | |
| OS | Windows Vista Ultimate x86 with KB936710, KB938194, KB938979, KB940105 updates | |
Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. 2GB of RAM seems to be the new standard for most folks, and Corsair hooked us up with some of its 1GB DIMMs for testing.
All of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.
Finally, we'd like to thank Western Digital for sending Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives for our test rigs. The Raptor's still the fastest all-around drive on the market, and the only 10K-RPM Serial ATA drive you can buy.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- SiSoft Sandra Standard 2008 12.34
- WorldBench 6.0 Beta 2
- TCD Labs HD Tach 3.01
- Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 110
- RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.05
- NTttcp
- CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
- Intel IOMeter v2004.07.30
- Crysis SP Demo
- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Demo
- Bioshock
- CPU-Z 1.41
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
