3-way AMD A75/A55 Llano motherboard shootout

[siopao1984]

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For the overclocking section of this roundup we focused on each board's ability to overclock the CPU (A3850 @ 2.9 GHz) to its highest frequency. Every board seems to have different limits, as set forth by the limitation for CPU multiplier overclocking, rather the ability to only overclock the FSB. While this might seem simple, the FSB on this system is tied into many different multipliers, from the CPUNB, memory, and even the integrated GPU's multiplier. That means that an increase in the FSB will have an impact on every aspect of system performance, the board's ability to supply power and support higher FSB is an indicator of overall overclocking abilities. While this might seem as a shot for maximum CPU clock, instead it’s a shot for highest FSB attainable with the highest CPU multiplier. So we would also only be able to clock our RAM as high as the highest memory multiplier times the maximum FSB, same as GPU.

A few notes before we begin to help those of you out there overclock your llano system:

Do NOT use the analog video output, as it starts to corrupt analog video (D-SUB) at around 125 FSB on all boards.
CPU-NB multiplier seems to make no difference in performance
Increasing the FSB will increase the GPU clock, so watch out if performance changes. Too much GPU clock isn't good sometimes.
Llano is very sensitive to voltage, so just increase in small steps. A little voltage will get you a long way.
Memory speed is tied to GPU performance, as the GPU uses the system memory at the speed its running at.
Use LLC if it is available, only on our ASUS board did we have this option, but our GIGABYTE board did not droop voltage much.
Turn off power saving features like C1E and C6.

ASUS F1A75-V Pro:


133MHz X 29 = 3856 MHz max CPU clock at 1.524v. We used a lot of voltage on this board to get that max clock, one MHz lower on the FSB and we only had to use 1.48v. This board did OC the highest, but only by 1 MHz on the FSB. There were so many options for the CPU VR, from frequency for the PWM to loading characteristics to LLC. We took full advantage of all of those, but for a novice user it might be a bit confusing.



GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H:


132 MHz x 29 = 3828 MHz max CPU OC. We only used 1.44v for this overclock, and that really surprised us, as this board was able to pull off such a high OC on such a low voltage. We set 1.47v in the BIOS, and it had dropped a bit. We were surprised by how easy it was to OC on this board, but we can say the same thing for the ASUS as well.



ECS A55F-A:


130 MHz X 29 = 3772 MHz Max OC. The ECS board OCed the least out of the three, but it did do a decent job. There was no LLC in the BIOS, just as GB, but the voltage keeps swinging profusely from 1.1v to 1.52v. We had set 1.52v in the BIOS, and we turned off all power saving features. This board was the hardest to OC, and had the least amount of frequency and voltage settings at that. This board doesn't seem as if it was made for overclocking, yet we think that you can get away with a mild overclock on this board if needed.

[siopao1984]

So let's take a look at some of the software features that are packed in with these boards.

ASUS F1A75-V Pro:

ASUS has a pretty wide variety of software, all of it is very flashy and very feature packed. It is probably the most complete software package bundled with any of these boards.

TurboV Evo:



This software lets you do everything from overclocking to fan control and BIOS updates.



What is really cool is its ability to control the VRM and its characteristics from Windows!



GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H:

GIGABYTE includes the typical GIAGBYTE software, including EasyTune6.



This piece of software is great for overclocking, and it also does fan control and the like.

Next we have the GIGABYTE in-Windows BIOS update utility, which has been around forever.



@BIOS works very well.



ECS A55F-A:

ECS has a variety of bundled software, it is very basic, and each program has a different function. This is the eOC program, and it helps users tune their systems. You can also do system monitoring from this program as well.



Next we have the fan control program ECS provides:

[siopao1984]

For every motherboard we first updated their BIOS to the most recent versions available on the manufacturer websites. Next we did a fresh install of windows, along with all driver and included software. We do NOT update Windows 7 from the state in which it is installed. We also do NOT update the programs. This ensures a consistent test environment no matter when the benchmarks are done, but your results will probably vary.

Test Setup:



We were tipped off that Windows 8 might have some performance gains for some AMD platforms. So on the tip we decided to also run our benchmarks in Windows 8, but only on one systems, the A55F-A. Let's see if we had any gains.

Benchmarks:

[siopao1984]

The winner here really isn't clear, while we have three different boards that all have the same socket, they are all differently priced and that influences the categories. They show that there is more than one way to build a budget oriented platform, and in the end they seem to rank as do their prices, with the most expensive board being the best performing and most feature filled. So we will go board by board, and give you our view on our experience with each.



The results are pretty much as one would expect with Windows 7, with the A55 system performing below-par. What is very surprising is the huge spike in performance in PCMark7 and AIDA64 when we ran those benchmarks under the Windows 8 environment. We were actually surprised at this. For the rest of the results, the ASUS F1A75-V Pro seems to really be in the lead, but the GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H trails behind it beating the ASUS in some instances. The winner here for CPU performance is hard to tell, but for memory the ASUS board really seems to have some gains in AIDA. When it comes to the difference between the A55 and A75 platform, the winner is clear, as the A55 platform is consistently a bit slower than the rest.



ASUS F1A75-V Pro:

This board was definitely the top performer; it is well built and adds some features the rest don't have. While it is the most expensive it also packs in two extra USB 3.0 and two extra SATA6GB/s ports. It is full size ATX and does support CrossFireX, something the rest of our boards do not support. It has the famous ASUS 8-Phase Digital PWM, running a strong 8 phase VRM. Even though it has such a strong VR, it doesn't overclock that much more than a 4-phase GIGABYTE board, and the ASUS requires almost .1v extra for that extra 50mhz. There is one thing that makes this board stand out, and its UEFI. The UEFI is just great, there were no bugs, it looks great, and the overclocking settings are endless. For the extra money you might have to dish out for this A75 motherboard, you do get your money’s worth, and a little extra. ASUS has really shown us that they can put together one hell of a budget board. If you want one of the best Llano boards in terms of performance, overclocking, and features look no further.







GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H:

While this board might seem like it is handicapped by its mATX format, it does pack in every little feature that every full sized A75 chipset board does. It also overclocks very well and on very little voltage. That might be to its benefit since it did have the least amount of voltage steps for the Vcore in the BIOS. That bring us to our next point, this board doesn't have UEFI, something the even cheaper ECS board has. Yet even without UEFI, it still packs one heck of a punch. It definitely has a much more diverse feature set than the rest. To complement the FCH's connectivity it also has 1394a, Parallel, COM, and TPM. While the other boards might have some of these, only the GIGABYTE has all of them. While all the boards use the same NIC (Realtek 8111E) this board has the better audio codec than the other two, the ALC889 with 108dB SNR compared to 97dB SNR of the rest (ALC892). If we look to build quality, this board uses better MOSFETs for its peripheral voltage regulators and it has two physical BIOS ICs, two things that the other boards lack. Coupled with the fact that it is less than the ASUS and just a bit more than the ECS, it is the most feature rich of the trio. This board definitely makes the middle ground look nice, and might be your best bang for your buck. Let's not forget that GIGABYTE build quality that clearly shines through even on this sub $100 motherboard.





ECS A55F-A:

Clearly this board is the cheaper of the two and naturally handicapped by its A55 chipset, meaning SATA6GB/s and USB 3.0 aren't native to the FCH. While the board is ATX and full sized at that, it doesn't support CrossFireX, nor does it have triple slot spacing for the first 16X slot if you decide to use the second 16x (4x) for an expansion card like a sound card. For its price you can't complain much, if you are going to spend $80 on a motherboard, you probably won’t be buying an $80 USB 3.0 thumb drive either. Yet when USB 3.0 devices become more prevalent you might be yearning for that little extra in performance, but the gains at this point are very small if we look at current devices and controllers. What surprised us is the ECS UEFI, we were happy to find that ECS used it on this board. At this price point on the AMD side it is one of the last things we would expect to see, but ECS came through. While we had no issues with their UEFI, we did find that it isn't the easiest to overclock and has the least overclocking settings. While it might not be the top overclocker or performer it is the cheapest and the easiest on your wallet, so look no further if you need to watch that budget.

[mayaot ka]

taas lang nato wala koy idea.....heheheheheeh

[mayaot ka]

taas lang nato wala koy idea.....heheheheheeh.