Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7

[essenbe]

yes, I know. I know and believe everything I wrote, but sometimes, I just can't stop myself. I'm not sure what to call myself. I have to try, and know all the time it dosen't make any difference. I will sit around and think about it and it worries me until I fix it. Or sometimes break it.

 

[tw33k]

We have to have something to occupy our minds or else we'd be tempted by the Dark Side of The Force.

Been playing around with timings etc and this RAM seems to run better slightly under clocked

 

[essenbe]

Looks much better. I haven't seen that tool before.

 

[tw33k]

Me either til the other day. Someone on another forum suggested it to me. Performance is still low I reckon.

 

[essenbe]

tw33k, I don't know anything about the 990 boards, but on my last 890 AMD board I had to increase the voltage of the CPU NB to 1.2V to stabilize the ram. I had read that this was sometimes necessary with AMD boards. I understand the memory controller on the 990 boards are different, but just wanted to offer that as a suggestion. No more blue screens after I did that.

 

[tw33k]

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that

 

[hjonesMCT]

Just saw this thread. I have one word.

JEALOUS

 

[essenbe]

Thanks for the tip. I'll try that

If you try it, I might suggest increments and not going over 1.2V. Supposedly, the black edition chips usually didn't it at all or less than 1.2. But, remember, the 990 board is completely different than the 890.

 

[essenbe]

Just saw this thread. I have one word.

JEALOUS

Me too! BTW, I just visited your web site. It looks excellent.

 

[tw33k]

I think I have to admit defeat. I've hit the sweet spot for this chip and it doesn't like any further increases. I'm tempted to get a 965BE to tide me over until BD chips are out.

 

[essenbe]

I think I have to admit defeat. I've hit the sweet spot for this chip and it doesn't like any further increases. I'm tempted to get a 965BE to tide me over until BD chips are out.

The new ones are supposed to be out in like 6 weeks. Surely, what you have will work til then. But, on the other hand, the chips were supposed to be out last year; so maybe 6 weeks. But, I keep thinking that these boards were made for the new chips. The current chips may work on them but maybe just not quite as well. Just my thoughts.

 

[tw33k]

Yeah that's true about this chip at least. I've been wanting to upgrade for a long time now. I passed on the x6 chips because I thought BD would be out sooner. The last rumor I heard about BD release was for August so I'll probably wait til then and see.

 

[essenbe]

Yeah that's true about this chip at least. I've been wanting to upgrade for a long time now. I passed on the x6 chips because I thought BD would be out sooner. The last rumor I heard about BD release was for August so I'll probably wait til then and see.

I'm just disapointed in AMD. I've heard that the release of BD was imminent for the past year and a half. Then it was going to be this month and now they have put it off again. I'm honestly not sure what to think. They fired their CEO in January because they said he wasn't leading the company in the right direction. There may have been many reasons they fired him. But you have to admit that whatever the reason was, it was bad timing at the very least. You do not fire the CEO when you are fixing to release a brand new technology.

 

[tw33k]

I've been an AMD fan for as long as I can remember. Except for my current notebook, I've never owned an Intel system (the price was just too good) but this Bulldozer debacle has seriously got me thinking. I'm expecting big things with BD. Hope I'm not disappointed.

 

[essenbe]

Don't misunderstand me. I am not anti AMD, I'm actually pulling for them. Until about a month ago I had an X6 AMD machine. The motherboard died. In looking to replace it I looked at Sandy Bridge. For price to performance, AMD could not compete, so I built a complete new SB rig. I still have all of the components for another rig. I have just been waiting for BD. But, I have a lot of questions to be answered before jumping in. For instance- When is the last time a new chip or SSD or anything was going to be released but no production samples were sent out beforehand? I don't recall one. That is always done for the hype if nothing else. That, the CEO issue, the failure to release it time after time just raises questions in my mind. I want to build a BD machine. I just want those questions answered first. And also want to see independant results of tests first. I admire people like you who jump in and 'Go for It'. I'm just not quite that way. I'm going to build something and I hope it will be BD.

 

[Rhammstein]

AMD says there's a small bug, they weren't able to achieve, at least not consistently, the clocks they needed. Because these chips are meant to take on Sandy Bridge, they had no choice but to wait a month/2 months, for the B revision.

I don't blame them, if they'd shipped the chips running at lower frequencies, which they obviously know wouldn't have been enough to compete with Intel (There was a benchmark done where a Bulldozer quad core couldn't quite keep up with a I7 880..it was 8xx something) and so it would have been a PR disastor, regardless what AMD may have said, ppl would only pay attention to the bad performance, they don't want to suffer this, and again I think it's the right call. The chips are practically ready, it's a simple revision, and they're off and running.

This was only the quad tho, that struggled in benchmarks, which is probably what will replace the Athlon II quads. I'm sure the 8cores would have beaten any first gen i7, but that's not what they're after here, they need the slowest of the 8cores to be able to match a 2500K, IMO.

Anyway that's what I gather is going on.

 

[essenbe]

I agree that is what they needed to do. They have to at least match Sandy Bridge at the same price point or lower in order to compete. I'm Pulling for them. You know, even someone who dosen't like AMD should be pulling for them. Competition is good for all consumers. If Intel rules the roost, we're all in trouble.

I hope to build with AMD again. We'll see what happens.

 

[Rhammstein]

Well, I'm gonna be grabbing a Zambezi X8, 8130P, 3.8Ghz base, 4.2Ghz Turbo, and, as soon as AMD starts shipping the more extreme chips beginning of 2012, I'll be upgrading the Cpu right away, so I'll be selling the 8130P at a great price, but this won't be until early 2012. That's plenty of time to see how they perform, and I'll be posting it for sale here first, it'll be... 4-6months old by then. I'll be selling it half price because I plan to OC it pretty hard, nothing crazy but I'll shoot for 5Ghz. If you'd like first dibbs, lemme know, I guess the price would be around $160 since they're going for $320.

 

[essenbe]

Let me know. I might be intrested if I haven't done something else by then. What are the more extreme chips going for? I know they say speed kills, but I'm just that way. I like fast!

 

[Rhammstein]

I can only speculate, but I think this estimate will be very accurate, although it's my math, not an industry expert.

Judiging by the differences in price AMD has announced, between the different 8 core chips that are going to ship soon, I'd guess $350. Since the announced 8130P runs $320, $30 more than it's lesser brethren.

Now, there's two things to consider when talking about the next series of chips. AMD says these first Zambezi chips will only have a 6 month shelf life, this is 100% verified, directly from AMD. So..

What they're saying is, the next version/revision of these chips are going to be better, I'm assuming higher clock speeds, and probably new products aimed a bit lower into the budget area. Anyway, we'll certainly be seeing these chips so early because of Ivy Bridge, the timing is nearly exact, so this is extremely likely why the short shelf life. They believe these chips will compete with SB, and once IB is here, they're going to wash them out entirely for the new chips, which makes perfect sense, since this 2nd release is a full update, so there's no need to continue selling these chips due in Aug/Sept, first because the newer chips will be so much better, second because these first chips may not compete with IB (certainly not overclocking, and these are FX so, OC is a big deal I'm sure) and third, it's not possible to simply lower the price on these early chips to sell at a value, because it would kill the sales of the newly revised, early 2012 chips. It would still be costly to produce the chips so early into their lifecycle, so keeping them around and slashing prices seems out of the question.

I'm greatly hoping for a 140w TDP chip, it would certainly have a base of at least 4.0-4.2Ghz, and turbo to 4.5-4.7Ghz. If we don't get a 140w TDP, I have a feeling with the second revision, well third total actually, they may be able to push these numbers with 125w TDP.

They obviously expect some pretty big gains, well they've said so, with these 2nd, early 2012 chips. We just don't know if it's their assumption they'll get better quality chips, or use higher TDP, or perhaps both, I'm hoping both. At the very least, they intend to have better performance as a result of maturity by then.

Anyway, I'm 100% going to do what I mentioned, and so I'll have the 8130P at half price. While I plan to OC, it won't be anything extreme, and it will have the remainder of 2 1/2 years warrenty on it. If you have something else by then, that's fine I'm sure someone else here would love to grab the chip at half price. The 8130P may not even be available anymore, by then.

(All of this is assuming Zambezi actually ships by September, though it should)