Overclocking, 3DMark Vantage
This otherwise lovely DFI board refuses to allow a TRAS of 15 clocks - 16 is the minimum selectable setting in BIOS. Frustrating, but nothing can be done short of software RAM adjustments, which can be fraught with instability and has been avoided by this writer like the plague!
In regards to the CrossFireX setup, a small note must be made. Every endeavour is employed to maintain consistency between articles, however if the MSI DKA-790GX Platinum board was used, it might have sold the two 4890’s short, as it can only operate two x16 PCI-Express 2.0 cards in x8 + x8 mode. The 790FX chipset in this DFI board, however, performs at x16 + x16, giving the 4890’s no excuse!
Game quality settings:- Far Cry 2: everything as high as possible.
- Crysis Warhead: everything set to “Gamer”.
- Tom Clancy HAWX: everything as high as possible.
- No driver tweaks, no changes to Catalyst Control Centre.
Overclocking:
Overclocking a CPU via an unlocked multiplier really couldn’t be simpler. Get yourself some decent cooling, do a bit of light reading, and you’ll most likely end up with something like this:
An extra 36% of general purpose grunt for an absolute minimal amount of effort, with a reasonable 150mV increase to core voltage. Three cores at 3.8GHz make for an all-around pleasant computing experience.
Around the time that news broke regarding unlocking the disabled fourth core of this model of CPU, DFI was kind enough to release a BIOS with 65nm ACC code, specifically for those interested in attempting to unleash this bonus. Some success was met with the chip used in this review, as the following screenshot reveals.
Apparent stability and actual stability are two different things, as many readers will no doubt attest to, and actual stability proved elusive. So, four-core results were not included in the review.
3dMark Vantage:
The ATI Radeons have tended not to fare too well in 3DMark vantage as they lack support for NVIDIA’s proprietary PhysX physics acceleration. Perhaps 3DMark06 may have brought some better results but it seems pertinent that a new, high-end GPU should be tested with the latest synthetic benchmarks.
Breaking the results down, it is clear that two is bigger than one! Worthy of mention is the substantially increased GPU score attributable to CrossFireX, which is pushed further with an overclocked CPU. Nevertheless, synthetics are at best indicative, and at worst downright misleading, so let's get onto some “real-world” gaming tests.
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