Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6

Item: Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6
Author: Richard Swinburne

Written by Richard Swinburne

December 3, 2007 | 08:51

Tags: #790fx #am2 #benchmarks #cpu #crossfire #dq6 #ht3 #motherboard #performance #phenom #review

Companies: #amd #gigabyte #test

Overclocking & Stability

Without a Phenom in house at the moment, overclocking this board with a normal Athlon X2 is a bit pointless - we'd likely hit the limits of the CPU well before we hit the limits of the board. We've been promised a Phenom CPU, which we're hoping will turn up in the next few days, so we'll add overclocking into the article as and when it arrives.

We did test stability with a 6000+ and all the BIOS settings set to default and found the MA-790FX-DQ6 was perfectly stable looping 3DMark06 and Prime95.

Value and Conclusions

When I had initially looked at the board I groaned that the tick-box marketeers had sacrificed actual usability and spoilt the DQ6 by putting four x16 slots on it for CrossFireX. Thankfully because you can use x1 cards in the orange slots without compromising the full x16 bandwidth of the blue slots, Gigabyte has made it far easier to work with and as such I've warmed up to the board a whole lot more.

Unfortunately, it seems like era of everyone wanting the latest DQ6 is over. The board is expensive and offers niche features over the more reasonably priced DS5. I think Gigabyte has made the correct decision regarding both feature sets though: the DQ6 does have an extra Gigabit Ethernet, extra x16 slots, better power regulation, SMD capacitors instead of DIPs and a slightly better cooling solution.

Most people will be happy with the DS5 and at £130 I think that represents reasonably good value, and even though only a few people will need the extra DQ6 features I think the price appropriately reflects that as well. It's great that Gigabyte has balanced features while still using the same top of the range chipset for both boards so no one should have to compromise what they want.

That's not to say the DQ6 doesn't have some crippling problems with the current BIOS and general layout. The memory slots and north bridge are too close to the CPU socket and there's potential compatibility issues with the orange SATA sockets when you're eventually using CrossFireX because, after all, that's what the DQ6 is built for. There are ways around most of these issues, and it certainly doesn't stop you using the board, however the memory slot positioning is quite annoying because you have to try and find a CPU cooler that's tall enough or alternatively use the outer two DIMM slots only.

The Gigabyte MA790FX-DQ6 will set you back quite a considerable £150-to-£155, with a three year warranty, which compared to the much older Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi is about a third more expensive. The Asus may have WiFi which the Gigabyte doesn't, however the Gigabyte has all the latest features and is based the only enthusiast chipset for AMD CPUs to be released in the last year. This is all regardless of SLI versus CrossFire – if your alliance firmly lies with one or the other, no amount of monetary saving will convince you to change.

There's nothing really to compare the 790FX to yet though, since it's the only AM2+ chipset currently available so if you have got a Phenom it's what you'll definitely want to pair it with.

Final Thoughts

On the whole the DQ6 is a good board but one that few people will actually want. Most of us will probably prefer the DS5 instead as it looks to be a better compromise of features and price, but I still think both have a few niggles that could put people off.

The BIOS on the DQ6 still needs quite a bit of work which is a problem considering this board was on sale well before the official AMD 790FX launch date. Additionally, we've seen much more intuitive BIOS layouts and finer BIOS adjustments elsewhere. It's not like the board isn't usable though and we know that Gigabyte is working on fixing many of our concerns, but how long until all the features are actually usable together is anyone's guess.

Additionally, the board has a few layout issues but after using it for a while, I have to say it's grown on me. Sure, it won't set the world ablaze and convert people back to AMD, but if you've already decided to try that route then the MA790FX-DQ6 might be one for the shopping list. Let's just hope the BIOS gets a bit better though...