Stability

We dropped in a pair of Corsair DHX DIMMs at 1,066MHz - set by EPP but the rest of the BIOS was set to its optimised defaults. We then threw in a couple of Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards and a Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition to stress the board.

As usual we ran Prime95 Torture test for a while first to burn in the CPU, then we let rip with 3DMark06 looping over the top to stress the graphics subsystem too.

Unfortunately 3DMark06 threw up a rendering error a few hours into testing, even though Prime95 was still running flawlessly. We restarted it and left it for the remainder overnight, however when we came back in the morning the whole system failed to turn on the monitor and the fans weren't spinning up and down according to load changes - the whole thing had crashed.

We tried again with a single graphics card and in five hours the whole thing had again ground to a halt with a black screen. This is hardly the best result for Gigabyte.

Power Consumption

The power consumption when using the integrated graphics and Hybrid graphics only is notably less on the Gigabyte 790GX than it is on the Asus CrossHair II Formula which uses Nvida's nForce 780a chipset. The 790GX is also lower power under load than the AMD 790FX and nForce 780a chipset too, however this Gigabyte board is a more mainstream DS4H rather than Asus Deluxe or Republic of Gamers which are both generally better featured and therefore use more power.

As is common with AMD systems currently, despite the fact that we did use Cool'n'Quiet, there is no power phase regulation on the motherboard itself or advanced energy saving features like are offered on Intel motherboards.

Value and Conclusions

First of all, before we get to the nitty-gritty on the Gigabyte motherboard let's bask in what AMD has given us: a fantastically performing (well, it won't replace a discrete card), very scalable integrated graphics and hybrid graphics engine.

If we take the Asus M3N-HT Deluxe which uses the Nvidia nForce 780a SLI MCP, which is cheaper than the Asus CrossHair II Formula we tested, this is £5 more than the RRP of the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H. Throw in a GeForce 8500 GT 256MB for £28.55 and both together are £138. The Gigabyte coupled with a Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 256MB will set you back all of £127.16.

So basically, you could save £10 and get a bucket load more performance (at the same low resolution and detail) and scalability from Hybrid CrossFire. But wait, let's not forget the more appropriate Nvidia option that features the same GeForce 8200 integrated graphics core, but lacks the NF200 - the nForce 750a SLI MCP. Gigabyte's GA-M750SLI-DS4 is just £79.41, so coupled with a GeForce 8500 GT will be virtually the same price as the Gigabyte AMD 790GX motherboard on its own, but together the Nvidia chipset and card will offer a better graphics performance.

AMD's 790GX doesn't offer Hybrid Power either, which Nvidia's higher end nForce chipsets such as the 750a and 780a SLI MCP's do.

So not quite the performance leading bargain after all, but hybrid graphics still seems expensive. Surely the whole point of low-end integrated graphics and hybrid graphics is to make things as inexpensive for the user as possible otherwise you might as well just buy a more powerful discrete PCI-Express x16 card and cheaper motherboard.

It makes no sense to spend three to four times as much on a motherboard than a graphics card if you wanted to play games.
In that respect the GeForce 8200 and AMD 780G motherboards are identical prices (about £55), so for the same money of a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H and Sapphire Radeon HD 3450, you could get a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H and an XpertVision nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB or ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB graphics cards that'll blow hybrid CrossFire out the water.

Effectively, just by thinking about all the options we've pretty much disregarded anything the AMD 790GX offers - its integrated graphics is too expensive and at this price it doesn't feature Hybrid Power options like the competition to add value when you do want to use a discrete card; instead the 790GX and sideport memory becomes defunct, so why bother buying a GX over an FX with the new SB750 southbridge?

In an Apples to Apples comparison when using a PCI-Express graphics card there is very little performance difference between the 790FX+SB600 and the 790GX+SB750 - in 2D applications the 790FX comes out marginally ahead, however in games the 790GX is faster in two out of three we tested when using a single graphics card. Naturally, thanks to its dual PCI-Express 2.0 x16 lanes, the 790FX does outperform the 790GX (and 780G) in multi-GPU situations because the 790GX only has dual x8 lanes, offering up half the bandwidth instead.

Final Thoughts

Essentially, the 790GX will fill the midrange gap where the 790X failed to gain ground - it'll offer more features and better overclocking from the new SB750 southbridge, but depending on what price the few 790FX and SB750 boards arrive at it or whether ATI pulls its finger out in Hybrid Power, it will be make or break as to whether the 790GX is ever appealing or not. There's just no point to expensive Hybrid CrossFire.

This undoubtedly affects the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H. It's a board with some compatibility issues and even if the features are solid and at least what we'd expect, it has a decent general performance, fantastic IGP performance but basically fails in reliability. In some respects it's one of the best featured (in terms of SATA and overclocking) CrossFire board you'll find today, however given the problems we would recommend looking around to see what else is on offer. If you're agnostic between CrossFire and SLI - we'd recommend the Nvidia nForce 750a SLI MCP and saving yourself a bundle of money in the mean time.

• Performance
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• 7/10

• Features
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• -
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• 7/10

• Value
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• -
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• 7/10

• Overall
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• 7/10

What do these scores mean?