Test Setup
The Biostar TA690G AM2 was selected as our AMD 690G platform representative today. This choice does not indicate any perceivable performance differences that we have noticed when comparing it against the MSI K9AGM2 or ASUS M2A-VM boards; rather it was chosen after blindly pulling its name tag out of the lab hat. All three boards will be fully reviewed in our mATX roundup next week. At this time, each one offers basically the same base performance with features and pricing differentiating the boards from each other. The MSI feature list is very streamlined but still offers on-board HDMI output along with a price tag that should be south of $80. The ASUS and Biostar offerings are feature rich with price tags that will be around $85 and up. Performance and more importantly stability is excellent in all three boards.
Our first decision was to decide what chipsets to test against. The natural comparison is the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 chipset that has ruled the AMD IGP market for well over a year now. We selected one of the better overall 6150 boards from a feature viewpoint, which is the ASUS M2NPV-VM. There was not enough time to compare the AMD 690G chipset to the current VIA and SIS AM2 offerings as these new products just arrived and we will look at them in the near future.
Our next decision and one that we typically do not do in our normal motherboard reviews was to test the board against a similar board offering but utilizing a different CPU manufacturer. AMD has been adamant that the combination of the 690G/690V chipset and AM2 processor is meant to provide an overall superior platform experience when compared against the Intel G965/Q965 with a Core 2 Duo processor. Of course, they also mean this when comparing their chipset against the NVIDIA products but at least with every NVIDIA AM2 chipset sold, there is a corresponding AMD processor requirement. In the end we chose the MSI G965MDH for our Intel G965 platform offering.
We selected the AMD Athlon 64 5200+ X2 and the Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo processors as our processor choices as both represent great bargains when comparing price against performance in their respective categories. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs who are using this chipset and similar ones, we found out this OS choice will be the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium and a 2GB memory configuration as we suggest this amount as a minimum for Vista.
Our memory and hard drive choices are a little out of the norm for this category but since we are testing the chipset capabilities we were determined not to have a bottleneck in either area. We will test additional budget DDR2-800 memory from G.Skill and Wintec in our roundup along with comparison testing using an external video card. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board.
Overclocking, network, audio, and memory performance on individual boards will be covered in our mATX roundup. We will say that overclocking on the 690G platforms is in its infancy at this time as the initial BIOS releases concentrated on compatibility and base performance, not overclocking. We have received a performance oriented BIOS for the Biostar and ASUS boards that should allow overclocking now.
Our choice of software applications to test was based on programs that enjoy widespread use and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with the lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process was to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that resulted in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications were run with administrator privileges.
The Biostar TA690G AM2 was selected as our AMD 690G platform representative today. This choice does not indicate any perceivable performance differences that we have noticed when comparing it against the MSI K9AGM2 or ASUS M2A-VM boards; rather it was chosen after blindly pulling its name tag out of the lab hat. All three boards will be fully reviewed in our mATX roundup next week. At this time, each one offers basically the same base performance with features and pricing differentiating the boards from each other. The MSI feature list is very streamlined but still offers on-board HDMI output along with a price tag that should be south of $80. The ASUS and Biostar offerings are feature rich with price tags that will be around $85 and up. Performance and more importantly stability is excellent in all three boards.
| Biostar TA690G AM2 / ASUS M2NPV-VM Testbed | |
| Processor: | AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor Dual Core, 2.6GHz, 2 x 1MB L2 Cache, 13x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.350V |
| Cooling: | Zalman 9500 Air Cooling |
| Power Supply: | Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W |
| Memory: | OCZ Flex XLC PC2-6400 (2x1GB) (ProMOS Memory Chips) |
| Memory Settings: | 3-4-4-9, 1.90V |
| Video Cards: | On-Board X1250, GeForce 6150 |
| Video Drivers: | AMD 8.345, NVIDIA 15.00 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Buffer Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA 16MB Buffer |
| Optical Drives: | Plextor PX-760A, PX-B900A |
| Case: | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System: | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| . | |
| MSI G965MDH Testbed | |
| Processor: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Dual Core, 1.86GHz, 2MB Unified Cache 1066FSB, 7x Multiplier |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.3250V |
| Cooling: | Zalman 9500 Air Cooling |
| Power Supply: | Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W |
| Memory: | OCZ Flex XLC PC2-6400 (2x1GB) (ProMOS Memory Chips) |
| Memory Settings: | 4-4-4-12 1.85V |
| Video Cards: | On-board X3000 |
| Video Drivers: | Intel 15.1 |
| Hard Drive: | Western Digital 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Buffer Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA 16MB Buffer |
| Optical Drives: | Plextor PX-760A, PX-B900A |
| Case: | Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 |
| Operating System: | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| . | |
Our first decision was to decide what chipsets to test against. The natural comparison is the NVIDIA GeForce 6150 chipset that has ruled the AMD IGP market for well over a year now. We selected one of the better overall 6150 boards from a feature viewpoint, which is the ASUS M2NPV-VM. There was not enough time to compare the AMD 690G chipset to the current VIA and SIS AM2 offerings as these new products just arrived and we will look at them in the near future.
Our next decision and one that we typically do not do in our normal motherboard reviews was to test the board against a similar board offering but utilizing a different CPU manufacturer. AMD has been adamant that the combination of the 690G/690V chipset and AM2 processor is meant to provide an overall superior platform experience when compared against the Intel G965/Q965 with a Core 2 Duo processor. Of course, they also mean this when comparing their chipset against the NVIDIA products but at least with every NVIDIA AM2 chipset sold, there is a corresponding AMD processor requirement. In the end we chose the MSI G965MDH for our Intel G965 platform offering.
We selected the AMD Athlon 64 5200+ X2 and the Intel E6300 Core 2 Duo processors as our processor choices as both represent great bargains when comparing price against performance in their respective categories. We also switched to Microsoft Vista Home Premium 32-bit as our operating system of choice for this category. After speaking with several of the larger OEMs who are using this chipset and similar ones, we found out this OS choice will be the one most widely offered to consumers. It was a natural then that we would test on Vista Home Premium and a 2GB memory configuration as we suggest this amount as a minimum for Vista.
Our memory and hard drive choices are a little out of the norm for this category but since we are testing the chipset capabilities we were determined not to have a bottleneck in either area. We will test additional budget DDR2-800 memory from G.Skill and Wintec in our roundup along with comparison testing using an external video card. All other components in our test configurations are identical with the boards being set up in their default configurations except for memory settings being optimized to ensure maximum throughput on each board.
Overclocking, network, audio, and memory performance on individual boards will be covered in our mATX roundup. We will say that overclocking on the 690G platforms is in its infancy at this time as the initial BIOS releases concentrated on compatibility and base performance, not overclocking. We have received a performance oriented BIOS for the Biostar and ASUS boards that should allow overclocking now.
Our choice of software applications to test was based on programs that enjoy widespread use and produce repeatable and consistent results during testing. Microsoft Vista has thrown a monkey wrench into testing as the aggressive nature of the operating system to constantly optimize application loading and retrieval from memory or the storage system presented some interesting obstacles. This along with the lack of driver maturity will continue to present problems in the near future with benchmark selections. Our normal process was to change our power settings to performance, delete the contents of the Prefetch folder, and then reboot after each benchmark run. A lengthy process to be sure but one that resulted in consistency over the course of benchmark testing. All applications were run with administrator privileges.
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goinginstyle - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
I think most of the people missed the comments or observations in the article. The article was geared to proving or disproving the capabilities of the 690g and in a way the competing platforms. It was obvious to me the office crowd was not being addressed in this article and it was the home audience that the tests were geared towards. I think the separation between the two was correct.The first computer I bought from Gateway was an IGP unit that claimed it would run everything and anything. It did not and pissed me off. After doing some homework I realized where I went wrong and would never again buy an IGP box unless the video and memory is upgraded, even if it is not for gaming. I have several friends who bought computers for their kids when World of WarCraft came out and bitched non-stop at work because their new Dell or HP would not run the game. At least the author had the balls to state what many of us think. The article was fair and thorough in my opinion although I was hoping to see some 1080P screen shots. Hint Hint
Final Hamlet - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
Too bad one can't edit one's comments...My point (besides correcting a mistake) is, that I think that this test is gravely imbalanced... you are testing - as you have said yourself - an office chipset - then why do you do it with an overpowered CPU?
Office PC's in small businesses go after price and where is the difference in using a mail program between a Core 2 Duo for 1000$ and the smallest and cheapest AMD offering for less than 100$?
Gary Key - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
We were not testing an office chipset. We are testing chipsets marketed as an all in solution to the home, home/office, multimedia, HTPC, and casual gaming crowd. The office chipsets are the Q965/963 and 690V solutions. The G965 and 690G are not targeted to the office workers and were not tested as such. Our goal was to test these boards in the environment and with applications they are marketed to run.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
We mentioned this above, but basically we were looking to keep platform costs equal. Sure, X2 3800+ is half as expensive and about 30% slower than the 5200+. But since the Intel side was going to get an E6300 (that's what we had available), the use of a low-end AMD X2 would have skewed results the other direction. We could have used an X2 4800+ to keep costs closer, but that's an odd CPU choice as well as we would recommend spending the extra $15 to get the 5200+.The intent was not to do a strict CPU-to-CPU comparison as we've done that plenty (as recently as the http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">X2 6000+ launch). We wanted to look at platform and keep them relatively equal in the cost department. All you have to do is look at the power numbers to see that the 5200+ with 690G compares quite well (and quiet well) to the E6300 with G965.
The major selling point of this chipset is basically that it supports HDMI output. That's nice, and for HTPC users it could be a good choice. Outside of that specific market, though, there's not a whole lot to put this IGP chipset above other offerings. That was what we were hoping to convey with the article. It's not bad, but neither is it the greatest thing since sliced bread.
If you care at all about GPU performance, all of the modern IGP solutions are too slow. If you don't care, then they're all fast enough to do whatever most people need. For typical business applications, the vast majority of companies are still running Pentium 4, simply because it is more than sufficient. New PCs are now coming with Core 2 Duo, but I know at least a few major corporations that have hundreds of thousands of P4 and P3 systems in use, and I'm sure there are plenty more. Needless to say, those corporations probably won't be touching Vista for at least three or four years - one of them only switched to XP as recently as two years back.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
Perhaps it's because the companies releasing these products make so much noise about how much better their new IGP is compared to the older offerings from their competitors? If AMD had released this and said, "This is just a minor update to our previous IGP to improve features and video quality; it is not dramatically faster and is not intended for games" then we would cut them some slack. When all of the companies involved are going on about how much faster percentage-wise they are than the competition (never mind that it's 5 FPS vs. 4 FPS), we're inclined to point out how ludicrous this is. When Intel hypes the DX9 capability of their G965 and yet still can't run most DX9 applications, maybe someone ought to call them on the carpet?Obviously, these low performance IGPs have a place in the business world, but Vista is now placing more of a demand on the GPU than ever before, and bare minimum functionality might now be adequate for a lot of people. As for power, isn't it interesting that the HIGHEST PERFORMANCE IGP ends up using the least amount of power? Never mind the fact that Core 2 Duo already has a power advantage over the X2 5200+!
So, while you might like to pull out the names and call us inane 15 year olds, there was certainly thought put into what we said. Just because something works okay doesn't mean it's great, and we are going to point out the flaws in a product regardless of marketing hype. Given how much effort Intel puts into their CPUs, a little bit more out of their IGP and drivers is not too much to ask for.
TA152H - Wednesday, March 7, 2007 - link
Jared,Maybe they didn't intend their products to be tested in the way you did. As someone pointed out, playing at 800 x 600 isn't that bad, and doesn't ruin the experience unless you have an obsession. Incredibly crude games were incredibly fun, so the resolution isn't going to make or break a game, it's the ideas behind it that will.
You can't be serious about what you want AMD to say. You know they can't, they are in competition and stuff like that would be extremely detrimental to them. Percentages are important, because they may not running the same games as you are, at the same settings. You would prefer they use absolutes as if they would give more information? Did AMD actually tell anyone these were excellent for all types of game? I never saw that.
With regards to CPUs and GPUs, you are trying to obfuscate the point. Everyone uses a CPU, some more than others. But, they do sell lower power ones, and even single core ones. Not everyone uses 3D functionality. If you don't get it, I DON'T want it on certain machines of mine. I don't run stuff like that on them, and I don't want the higher power use or heat dissipation problems from it. What you call effort isn't at all, it's a tradeoff. Don't confuse it with you get something for nothing if Intel puts more into it. You pay for it, and that's the problem. People who use it should, people that don't, shouldn't, so the kiddies can play their shoot 'em ups.
Just so you know, I'm both. I have mostly work machines, but two play machines. I like playing some games that require a good 3D card, but just don't like the mentality the the whole world should subsidize a bunch of gameplayers when they don't need it. That's what add-in cards are for. I would be equally against it if no one made 3D cards because most people didn't need them. I like choices, and I don't want to pay for excessive 3D functionality on something that will never use it, to help gameplayers out. Both existing is great, and IGPs will creep up as they always have, when it becomes inexpensive (both in power and initial cost) to add capabality, so the tradeoff is minor.
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
Does this chipset support 5.1 LPCM over HDMI or not??? Or more plainly can someone send 5.1 (games, HD movies, etc) digitally to receiver with the 690G? According to your previous article on the 690G 5.1 48khz was supported over the HDMI port. Now its back to 2 channel and AC3 bitstream. Which is it?Gary Key - Wednesday, March 7, 2007 - link
It is two channel plus AC3 over HDMI. That is the final spec on production level boards and drivers. We will have a full audio review up in a week or so that also utilizes the on-board codec.StriderGT - Thursday, March 8, 2007 - link
Why is this happening? Why on earth can't they produce a PC HDMI Audio solution that outputs up to 7.1 LPCM (96khz/24bit) for ALL sources!?! They already do that for 2 channel sources!!!! Do you have any info from the hardware vendors regarding the reason/s they will not produce such a straightforward and simple solution?!?PS There are lots of people demanding a TRUE PC HDMI Audio solution not this SPDIF hacks...
Renoir - Tuesday, March 6, 2007 - link
I'm also interested to know more specifics about the audio side of this chipset. The support of HDMI v1.3 suggests that with an appropriate driver and supporting playback software Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bitstreams should be able to be sent via HDMI to a v1.3 receiver with the necessary decoders. Is this a possibility?