AMD CrossFire Contest PC: Components and Performance September 23, 2008

ATI CrossFire Contest

Page:: ( 1 / 6 )

The rig is built around AMD’s 790FX platform, with AMD’s Phenom 9850 Black Edition at the heart of the system. Meanwhile graphics duties are handled by a pair of Radeon HD 4870 512MB cards running in CrossFire.

In this article we’re going to go over the components AMD uses inside the system followed by overclocking and benchmarks. We’ll start by discussing the Radeon 4870 graphics subsystem first.

Graphics: 2x ATI Radeon 4870 512MB

ATI shook up the graphics world with the debut of their RV770 graphics core. The chip contains 800 stream processors, the most of any ATI GPU to date, and supports DirectX 10.1, making it ready for upcoming games that support the technology. ATI has also addressed one of R600’s biggest limitations with RV770 -- its AA performance -- in fact we’ve found that ATI’s RV770 architecture provides better 8xAA scaling performance than NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 200 series. 8xAA is quite playable in many games at 1600x1200 and 1920x1200.

The Radeon 4870 is ATI’s high-end RV770 offering. The GPU is clocked at 750MHz and ships with 3.6GHz GDDR5 memory. With its 256-bit memory interface, this provides the 4870 with just over 115GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth, while the chip’s MADD rate is 1.2 TeraFLOPS.

[image]

Processor and Motherboard

Page:: ( 2 / 6 )

[image]

For processing duties AMD sent over their Phenom 9850 Black Edition CPU.

Clocked at 2.5GHz and featuring four processing cores, the Phenom 9850 Black is one of AMD’s fastest processors. The 9850 has 2MB L2 cache (4x512KB) and 2MB of L3 cache, and with its unlocked clock multiplier, enthusiasts can OC the CPU with whatever clock multiplier they wish. This gives you the flexibility to OC the CPU while keeping the rest of the system components at stock speeds, or if you’d like you can OC the CPU and its underlying components.

One additional tweak AMD has integrated into the 9850 and 9950 is a 2.0GHz memory controller (4.0GHz effective) with a full duplex (2.0GHz x 2) HyperTransport 3 link. Previous Phenom CPUs featured a 1.8GHz memory controller.

Of course, as the “50” suffix at the end of the 9950 model number denotes, the 9950 is based on AMD’s TLB errata free B3 stepping.

[image]

Based on AMD’s 790FX chipset, the ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe WiFi is ASUS’s high-end CrossFire offering. The motherboard sports quad graphics slots, support for the latest 140W Phenom processors, and dual-channel DDR2-1066 memory. ASUS also ships the motherboard with their Mempipe memory cooling. Mempipe, short for memory heatpipe, consists of a pair of coolers which can be attached to your system memory for additional cooling.

The coolers are made from copper and feature heatpipes for additional performance. The Mempipe adapter fits directly above the heatpipe cooler that rests on the chipset North Bridge, all you’ll need is a small Philips screwdriver to mount the Mempipe module to the motherboard. Once mounted, you can then adjust the Mempipe module to fit your specific memory modules.


Mempipe is compatible with single and double-sided memory, as well as memory modules with or without heat spreaders. The width of the Mempipe modules is completely adjustable so you can fit it with practically any memory module.

The only downside to Mempipe is that ASUS only provides enough Mempipe modules to cool two memory modules. With RAM prices so low, and Vista really needing 4GB of memory for optimal performance, a lot of enthusiasts are running four 1GB memory modules nowadays.

For powering the motherboard and its components, ASUS uses all-solid conductive polymer capacitors and an 8-phase power design, which is responsible for delivering power to the CPU, while an additional 2 power phases deliver power to the memory and HyperTransport controller. ASUS refers to this as their 8+2 phase power design.

The M3A32-MVP Deluxe also has a built-in 802.11g wireless networking controller. ASUS is the first manufacturer to integrate built-in wireless on all of their high-end motherboards.

Storage

Page:: ( 3 / 6 )

[image]

Memory: Corsair Dominator CM2X1024-8500C5D and OCZ Titanium PC2 8500

When it comes to high-end memory modules, Corsair and OCZ are widely considered to be the two top memory manufacturers by many. Certainly both companies are among the most popular manufacturers used in most enthusiasts machines.

Both manufacturers provide a lifetime warranty on their memory modules and both are known for delivering memory modules that often scale well beyond their officially rated speeds. This makes them ideal for the overclocking crowd.

AMD sent over two 1GB OCZ Titanium PC2 8500 modules, and two 1GB Corsair Dominator modules. These modules are rated for speeds up to 1066MHz and are designed to run at speeds of 5-5-5-15 at that speed with 2.1V of voltage.

The Dominator modules ship with massive heatsinks, this is their most distinguishing feature. Heat from the memory chips is transferred from the RAM to the air via these black aluminum heatsinks. Corsair uses very long fins to increase the surface area of the heatsink. Resting underneath this heatsink is a second, smaller heatsink which is responsible for cooling the PCB of the memory module. This silver heatsink is also made from aluminum and is dedicated solely for cooling the PCB.

OCZ’s Titanum series memory modules are also known for their cooling. OCZ outfits their Titanium modules with special XTC heatspreaders. Rather than relying on a conventional aluminum plate like that used on many enthusiast modules, the plate on the XTC heatspreader consists of dozens of tiny holes. This honeycomb design helps to improve airflow and thus helps the memory module run slightly cooler.

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB

For handling storage tasks AMD sent over a 500GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 hard drive. The Caviar SE16 supports perpendicular storage. By storing bits in a vertical, or perpendicular, arrangement, drive capacity is increased, ushering in the first terabyte hard drives. The SE16 features a 16MB cache and 7200 RPM spindle speed.

According to WD, seek time as low as 8.9ms for reads, and 10.9ms for writes, with an average rotational latency of 4.2ms.

[image]

Arguably the most distinguishing feature of LG’s GH20NS10 is its Serial ATA interface, making it easier to install with less cable clutter. The drive also supports CD read speeds up to 48x, and DVD read speeds up to 16x, while write speeds are up to 48x for CDs and 20x for DVD-RAM, 12x DVD-R, and 8x for DVD-RW.

The Case, PSU, and OS

Page:: ( 4 / 6 )

[image]

If you’re looking for a high-end case that’s roomy, easy to work with, and flexible you’ll certainly want to put Cooler Master’s Cosmos 1000 series at the top of your list. This is one of our favorite cases.

What makes the Cosmos CSX 1000 so great? The fact that it’s a dream to work in. The case is completely tool-less. Hard drives rest inside six removable hard drive trays. To install or remove a HDD, simply unscrew the thumbscrew and pull out the tray. It’s that simple. Optical drive installation is also a snap. Simply slide in the drive, and push a blue button inside the chassis to lock it into place.

Getting in and out of the case is also a breeze. Cooler Master provides a lever on the back of the case; to open it up, simply pull the lever and the side panel pops off.

The inside of the case is quite roomy. Both conventional ATX, as well as larger extended ATX motherboards can be housed inside of the Cosmos and the lack of sharp edges will keep you from accidentally cutting yourself when working inside of the system.

[image]

To be honest, before we received this system we’d never heard of Be Quiet and their Dark Power Pro line of power supplies. But we’ve certainly got no complaints with their Dark Power Pro 1000W. It runs quietly and boasts some impressive specs. The PSU has six different 12V rails, all delivering 20A of power to the 12V rail, 24A on the 3.3V rail, and 28A on the 5V rail. This is more than enough power to run a 4870 CrossFire setup with a quad-core 9850 processor. Another aspect of the Dark Power Pro 1000W is that it’s a modular power supply, helping with cable management inside the case.

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit

To finish off the system AMD sent over a copy of Vista Ultimate x86 OEM. The Ultimate Edition is Microsoft’s fully-featured version of the OS, with features such as DreamScene, which allows you to run full motion video as your desktop background. Ultimate also includes support for features such as system image-based backup and recovery, as well as encrypting file system with Windows BitLocker.

Overclocking, CPU benchmarks

Page:: ( 5 / 6 )

[image]

Overclocking the system

The CPU came first though. In our Phenom 9850 review, Chris managed to OC his 9850 sample to 2.8GHz, that’s a fairly average OC for the 9850, so I was shooting for something a little bit higher.

Unfortunately the M3A32-MVP Deluxe is an older motherboard that doesn’t ship with AMD’s SB750 South Bridge and therefore support AMD ACC, and I was also limited to AMD’s stock CPU cooler, but I was hopeful anyway.

So what speed did I finally settle on? 3.02GHz:

[image]

CPU benchmarks

Game Performance

Page:: ( 6 / 6 )

Conclusion

In closing, we’d like to thank AMD for sponsoring this contest. They’ve certainly sent over high-end components; this will make a great gaming rig for the CrossFire contest winner, Astriir1. The only adjustment I’d suggest would be replacing the stock AMD cooler for an aftermarket heatsink/fan unit, and with the Cooler Master Cosmos CSX chassis he’ll have plenty of room to grow with additional drives.

We hope to continue doing these contests for readers in the future, so if you didn’t take home AMD’s CrossFire rig, or one of the Sapphire Radeon 4850 cards we gave away, don’t worry, there will hopefully be plenty more opportunities shortly. Thanks also to everyone who participated in the CrossFire contest, you certainly showed your love for AMD and CrossFire in your Matrix submissions!