AMD FX9590 (5ghz) Review (w/ Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5)

1. Introduction2. The AMD FX95903. Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 Motherboard4. Corsair Vengeance Pro 2,400mhz and H100i5. BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 Cooler6. Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 Bios and overclocking7. Super High Resolution Gallery8. Testing Methodology9. PCMark 710. 3DMark 1111. 3DMark12. SiSoft Sandra13. Cinebench R11.5 64 bit14. 3D rendering15. Media Encoding16. USB 3.0 performance17. SATA 6Gbps performance18. Alien V Predator (Direct X 11)19. Sleeping Dogs (Direct X 11)20. Tomb Raider (Direct X 11)21. Max Payne 3 (Direct X 11)22. Dirt ShowDown (Direct X 11)23. Metro Last Light (Direct X 11)24. GRID 2 (Direct X 11)25. Power Consumption26. Closing Thoughts27. View All Pages

Today we have installed Windows 7 Enterprise.

Our polls on the Kitguru main site and Facebook page have shown a huge percentage of our readers are still in favour of Windows 7. Our own internal testing shows very little difference between the operating systems in regards to gaming or synthetic benchmark testing, so we are staying with Windows 7 for the time being.

We don't feel there is any point in testing games at 1024×768 with low image quality settings – gamers today want to play at 1080p or greater resolutions with high image quality. We therefore want to see if there any major differences between the AMD FX9590 system @ 5ghz and our standard Core i7 3960x gaming system which is overclocked to 4.4ghz.

Both systems are using the high end ASUS GTX780 Direct CU II OC graphics card. The Intel system has faster 2,400mhz memory however the AMD FX9590 is clocked higher to 5.0ghz.

These gaming results are not purely scientific, but we wanted to see how the highly overclocked AMD FX9590 system would perform against our long term 3960x gaming testbed, using the same graphics card.

AMD FX9590 Test System
Processor: AMD FX9590 8 Core processor @ 5ghz
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
Cooler: Corsair H100i (performance mode) / BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 2
Graphics: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic (Synthetic section – Catalyst 13.6 beta) and ASUS GTX780 Direct CUII OC (Games testing – Forceware 320.49)
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro Series @ 2,133mhz (10-11-11-28)
Power Supply: Corsair HX850
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive.
Chassis: Lian Li X2000
Boot Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE
Storage Drive: Patriot 240GB Wildfire.

Monitor: Apple 30 inch Cinema HD

Gaming compare system:

Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz
Graphics Card: ASUS GTX780 Direct CU II OC (Forceware 320.49)
Cooler: Antec 920 H20
Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1250W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung
Monitors: Dell U3011

Synthetic compare systems:

Processor: Intel Core i7 4770k (3.5ghz & 4.5ghz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87 Sabertooth
Cooler: Corsair H100i (performance mode)
Graphics: Nvidia GTX670
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro Series @ 2,400mhz (10-12-12-31 2T)
Power Supply: Corsair HX750
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive.
Chassis: Lian Li X2000
Boot Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE
Storage Drive: Patriot 240GB Wildfire.

 

Intel Core i7 3700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 3770k
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Memory: 16GB G.Skill @ 2,400mhz 11-11-11-31.
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W.
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive.
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2.
Boot Drive: Kingston SSDNow V+200 90GB.
Storage Drive: Patriot 240GB Wildfire.

Intel E5 2687W x 2
Motherboard: Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS
Coolers: Corsair H80 x2
Memory: 64GB Kingston Predator 1,600mhz 9-9-9-24 1T
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Modular
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000FN
Boot Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron GTX SSD
Secondary Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron SSD

Intel E5 2660
Motherboard: Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 16GB G.Skill ARES 2,133mhz @ 9-11-10-28
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000a
Boot Drive: Intel 510 120GB
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB WildFire

Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE

Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

Intel i5 3570K @ 4.2 – OCUK Prodigy Arctic Gaming System
Motherboard: ASRock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77
Cooler: Coolit Liquid
Memory: Corsair Vengeance White 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750W PSU
Chassis: Bitfenix Prodigy Mini ITX Case – White
Boot Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB HDD

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire.

Software:
3DMark
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
Atto Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
SiSoft Sandra

Games:
Alien V Predator (Direct X 11)
GRID 2 (Direct X 11)
Dirt Showdown (Direct X 11)
Sleeping Dogs (Direct X 11)
May Payne 3 (Direct X 11)
Tomb Raider (Direct X 11)

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus USB BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

Game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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