Two 690G builds

croddie · Post by **croddie** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:04 pm

The AMD link says:
"Dual Independent displays including two digital outputs"
Two independent digital outputs isn't supported by either of these boards is it? (Using the DVI and hdmi connectors at the same time.)
It would be the icing on the cake.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:16 pm

If this is true it is something we see for first time among ALL mobos!
A big step!

Confirmation required!

line · Post by **line** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 1:53 am

I can't speak from first-hand experience, but let me quote the user's manuals on this.

If the manuals are to be believed, only Asus got it right.

vdsl · Post by **vdsl** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:50 am

Thanks for you review.
I have the same mobo with same cpu: Biostar TA690g + X2 3600+.
I wannt to have low vcore with this mobo, but is not posible with me, the lowest vcore i get is 1.1 on 800mhz cpu, anything less than that and my pc freeze, someone know what could be wrong ? Thanks.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 5:02 am

I played with overclocking last night and tried playing back HD DVD on a borrorwed Xbox 360 HD DVD drive. Here are some results using the base config (Biostar, 4000+, 2GB memory, 3.5" drive) and picoPSU:

Bus speed: 220MHz, or a 10% overclock from default 200Mhz
Idle: 1.1ghz (5x) @ .88V, 33W
King Kong HD DVD playback: 2.3Ghz (10.5x) @ 1.104V, 70W, 85-90% CPU usage

I was very impressed by the range of underclocking/overclocking capabilities of the AM2 CPU. I was even more impressed that I was able to play back HD DVD with just the on-board x1250 GPU.

BTW, my Biostar BIOS was from June, before the August ATI BIOS boost announcement. So whatever improvement it will bring, it will be icing on the cake.

NX3 · Post by **NX3** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:33 am

AMD announced this May 07, see the link below and the date.

http://www.chilehardware.com/foro/amd-6 ... ml?t=80038

Its only August is started appearing on english websites :

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=41419

Its a good chance the latest bios from manufactures already include the updates. Gigabyte have been used in several english websites stories on the 690g chipset and update :

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12979

I can play 1080p material on a Athlon x2 3600+ without a problem on a Asus M2A-VM-HDMI with bios version 901

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:10 am

Interesting info. I guess the English speaking market is no longer the prime market

On 1080p videos: I have found that there is 1080p, then there's 1080p, then there's HD DVD 1080p

At 1.6ghz @ .9v (underclocked from 2.1ghz), I had no problem playing back many of the freely available 1080p videos, including those on Microsoft's WMHD showcase site.

Then I found this site: http://www.drfoster.f2s.com/trailers_hd-dvd.shtml. I could not play back any of the 1080p videos there until after I upped the frequency to 1.8ghz.

Then I tried HD DVD. I needed to overclock to 2.3ghz in order to achieve smooth, stutter free playback of King Kong (encoded in VC1 at average bitrate of ~20mbps).

I guess whether your rig can play back 1080p really depends on the type of encoding and the bit rate of the video.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 5:51 am

Final thoughts on my HD DVD playback tests:

While I was impressed that I was able to play back full 1080p HD DVD using a system powered entirely by an 80W brick (keep in mind most systems probably idle at much higher power consumption), I can't help but wonder what the system would have drawn if I had used one of the new ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro boards.

My guess is the power consumption would have been around 40W idle and 50-55W when playing back HD DVD/Blu-Ray. I would love to see actual numbers from anyone who owns this card and a 690G system.

HD DVD/Blu-Ray is not the main focus of my HTPC right now, but I look forward to the near future when ATI and Nvidia incorporate HD acceleration to their IGP's.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 11:18 am

I was looking at Radeon series HD last night for the same reason your thinking is.
Reading the specifications and data sheets i found that HD 2400 Pro is not for 1080p. For this the card is Radeon HD 2600.

Doubling the previous post from Frank2003 i can say that it would be very interesting if somebody can test with this card the cpu load when playing 1080p files or HD DVD / blue ray disk. No matter what the mobo is, just what is the processor. They claim that it has hardware decoding but they say the same for 690G and for 7050. I don't know how much is the help from chipsets when we see 80-90% load of a 4200-4400 x2 processor (this is the rate of frank's when running at 2300MHz)

jones_r · Post by **jones_r** » Sat Aug 18, 2007 1:42 pm

frank2003,

The explanation regarding 1080p is simple.

Some 1080p material is encoded using the old MPEG2 algorithm. In order to decode it you don't need a powerfull CPU.

AVC (which is also called MPEG4, and also called H.264) is a much more powerful encoder thatn MPEG2, which gives much better quality, but taxes the CPU accordingly. Almost nobody is using MPEG2 anymore for high definition (maybe apart from broadcast HDTV in the states), the shift to AVC encoding is almost complete.

AVC is the most powerful encoder available for high definition blu-ray and HD-DVD disks, and will stay with us at least 15-20 years, so your computer better know how to handle it.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 4:13 am

mar2k wrote:I would be anxious to hear more about the ML02 as that is certainly an interesting little HTPC case..

Hi, I posted my ML02 build experience here: viewtopic.php?t=42848

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:28 pm

This thread has me wondering about my new MSI 690G full ATX board. The NB runs pretty hot (enough to make you want to pull your finger off after a few seconds).

I wonder if I should put my Zalman NB47J with some AS5 on the NB just to be on the safe side

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 4:45 pm

jackylman wrote:This thread has me wondering about my new MSI 690G full ATX board. The NB runs pretty hot (enough to make you want to pull your finger off after a few seconds).

It seems to me many 690G mobos (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, for examples) have hot NBs. Maybe my Biostar is an anomaly. Can anyone with a Biostar 690G confirm if the NB runs cool? If you have any other 690G board (example: Sapphire) can you tell us about the NB temperature?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:20 pm

jackylman wrote:This thread has me wondering about my new MSI 690G full ATX board. The NB runs pretty hot (enough to make you want to pull your finger off after a few seconds).

I wonder if I should put my Zalman NB47J with some AS5 on the NB just to be on the safe side

Your mobo is neo 2 digital?

What about overclocking options? Undervolting on bios? Have you tried 0,8V? I think that this mobo can go to big overclocking levels. Tried some?

najames · Post by **najames** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 3:00 pm

frank2003 wrote:
jackylman wrote:This thread has me wondering about my new MSI 690G full ATX board. The NB runs pretty hot (enough to make you want to pull your finger off after a few seconds).
It seems to me many 690G mobos (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, for examples) have hot NBs. Maybe my Biostar is an anomaly. Can anyone with a Biostar 690G confirm if the NB runs cool? If you have any other 690G board (example: Sapphire) can you tell us about the NB temperature?

I have a Biostar TA690G and both chipsets heatsinks are cool to the touch. Not even really warm honestly. The PC has been running since last night, should be long enough!! The Brisbane 3600+ CPU is undervolted FWIW.

The CPU probe from the Microfly case is reading 28.5C now. I really want a Gigabyte for HTPC, but will settle for another Biostar if the chipsets run that hot. Need to decide today.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 4:56 pm

najames wrote:I really want a Gigabyte for HTPC, but will settle for another Biostar if the chipsets run that hot. Need to decide today.

If you don't need firewire or have special power requirements like I did (my Silverstone ML02 PSU could not power up the Biostar), then I would wholeheartedly recommend the Biostar due to its lower power consumption and better BIOS support for over/under clocking/volting.

In addition, if you are interested in OC, the Biostar is more overclockable than the Gigabyte. I was able to easily OC the Biostar to 220MHz. But one site I read said the Gigabyte could only OC up to 205Mhz due to lack of voltage control.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 5:17 pm

On the subject of hot NB on the Gigabyte: I wanted to run this experiment but did not have another video card with on-board video memory to carry it out:

When I didn't install any memory, the NB did not get hot. What I wanted to do was to determine if the the hot NB was caused by the IGP which required system memory. One way to do that was to disable the IGP in BIOS. If the NB did not get hot, then it would have proved the IGP was to blame.

So if someone have an external card can you complete this experiment?

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:07 am

frank2003 wrote:
najames wrote:I really want a Gigabyte for HTPC, but will settle for another Biostar if the chipsets run that hot. Need to decide today.
If you don't need firewire or have special power requirements like I did (my Silverstone ML02 PSU could not power up the Biostar), then I would wholeheartedly recommend the Biostar due to its lower power consumption and better BIOS support for over/under clocking/volting.

In addition, if you are interested in OC, the Biostar is more overclockable than the Gigabyte. I was able to easily OC the Biostar to 220MHz. But one site I read said the Gigabyte could only OC up to 205Mhz due to lack of voltage control.

205 and 220 are not but a bit of overclocking. I think i've read that both mobos does overclocking about 300-350Mhz FSB (getting a 3600 brisbane 1.9Ghz stock to about 3 Ghz). Did you also kept your HT ratio to 1Ghz, changed the fsb/ddr ratio to keep memory clock low etc?

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:57 am

I didn't really try OC much; I was only interested in finding out if the mobo could play HD DVD with the stock IGP with a bit of overclocking. I was able to do it using the BIOS automatic OC feature on the Biostar (I think it was called "V8 Performance", or something like that).

I didn't try OC'ing the Gigabyte. I found the article I referred to in my last post: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1114/4 ... index.html

Quote: "Clearly you will not be doing serious OC with this motherboard."

najames · Post by **najames** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:00 am

he Gigabyte will overclock nicely. I emailed them and am trying to find the mysterious bios that makes all the voltages accessable.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

I was an early buyer of the TA690G. Even though I am not really an overclocker, my 3600 would run at 9.5x264 with a few bios tweaks, any more seemed to be a no go at the time. I know there are people running it much faster now.

I would really like to find out if more people have hot chipsets on the Gigabyte board.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:21 am

I could be wrong but I could have sworn the Gigabyte board with the latest F3A did not have voltage control (with Ctrl-F1)! It only had CPU multiplier which I set to 5x @ 1GHz. I had to do the voltage control in CrystalCPUID. Can someone with F3A confirm?

The review from hardocp was done just a few days ago, presumably with a recently manufactured board. Let's hope the BIOS screenshots showing voltage control were taken from a new release of BIOS that Gigabyte will be posting on their website soon.

BTW thanks for the link.

noee · Post by **noee** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:38 pm

TA690G owner here:

Brisbane 3600 X2, TI-128 w/Scythe "E" @ 5V. Two Yate-Loon 120MM @5V for the case fans.

Vcore shows 1.152
O/C to 2312Mhz
IGP O/C by 50Mhz
IGP using 128MB RAM (2GB total)

Heatsinks just warm to the touch.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:18 pm

If you purchased the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H in the last couple of weeks, does your BIOS look like this:

http://www.tweaktown.com/popImg.php?img=g690l_6.JPG

or this:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/image.htm ... 8xX2wuZ2lm

If you see the latter (after hitting Control-F1 to make the Adavanced Chipset menu to appear), then you may have a version of the BIOS that's more recent than the latest one posted on Gigabyte's site (F3A).

I have the former (F3A) and I can't wait to get my hands on the version that gives me the voltage control features shown in the second screen shot.

I think this explains the conflicting reports of the OC'ability of the Gigabyte.

Maybe this version of BIOS also fixes the hot NB problem.

papakoo · Post by **papakoo** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 1:20 am

Unfortunately the MSI 690 FIH mobo looks that is the only one that with extra Graphic card , the onboard is disabled.
The power consumptions with descrete and onboard are clear:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=37 ... ert&pid=12

Asus with onboard is 4 W less but with descrete is 12W more than MSI. So it looks that disabling the onboad GPU gives 16W less power!

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:13 pm

najames wrote:he Gigabyte will overclock nicely. I emailed them and am trying to find the mysterious bios that makes all the voltages accessable.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

So what's the word from Gigabyte?

There are some really disappointed owners out there (http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=443898) who bought this Gigabyte board thinking they could achieve the outrageous O/C numbers posted by some hardware review sites.

Maybe Gigabyte gave a special version of F3A BIOS to the review sites that had voltage controls. But the latest version of BIOS with the same name on their download site does NOT have this feature. So before you order this board I'd suggest you get confirmation from actual owners that it does in fact have voltage controls

najames · Post by **najames** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:37 am

Well Frank, I have the Gigabyte board on order. It is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I am planning on going out of town for the weekend so I won't have a lot of time to play with it. My TA690G heatsinks are barley warm to the touch, actually seemd cool, so I am curious about the Gigabyte. I also have a couple "mysterious" Gigiabyte BIOS' to look at.

I am not a hardcore overclocker, run my Biostar at about 1.1V, very cool, overclocked to a little over 2Ghz, oooooh.

somecretin · Post by **somecretin** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:23 pm

Thanks for all the good info here, frank2003 and everyone: this is really useful, especially about the hot/cool NB.

Question about the TA690G: does it support 2560x1600@60hz (on DVI), like the GA-MA69GM does? The 690 chipset does support that, along with 2048x15xx@85hz analog, but so far I've not seen any reviews noting this support on the Biostar.

Can one of you guys confirm, one way or another?

Thanks

(actually, Ive only seen one review of a 690G where they hooked it up to a Dell 30" 3007 at 2560x1600 :: was a GA-MA69GM)

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:09 am

According to this

Display Support:

* Supports a maximum resolution of 2048x1536 @ 32bpp

somecretin · Post by **somecretin** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:41 am

yeah, @85hz, analog. Yet you'll find further info elsewhere noting 2560x1600@60hz DL-DVI. Not clear, I know, but it's my specific reason for getting one of these

for example:
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/asus/M2A-VM-HDMI/g1.htm
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?type=e ... =376&pid=2
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/11/
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=2942&p=2
http://www.combatsim.com/story.php?id=5350
http://news.firingsquad.com/hardware/gi ... h_amd_690/

testing with the Dell 3007WFP - http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd ... /page3.asp

najames · Post by **najames** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 10:20 am

Well, I got a late start on assembling the PC last night, kinda finished at 1:15am and called it a night, didn't run it. I just went home and fired it up, no OS just into the BIOS. My chipset next to the CPU runs hotter than hell too, the other chipset is ok. I think it is time to see what thermal compound they used on the thing, but also drop their tech support a line since my Biostar is very cool. Maybe it is like MSI Neo2 Plat. They were basically not putting any thermal compound on the chipsets for a while. The person didn't eat their Wheaties and couldn't squeeze the tube or sumpin'.

Other than the chipset temp, the other thing that sucks is the shortage of fan headers. My Microfly has 2 fans, front and back, grrrrrr.

Gigabyte
1 x CPU fan header
1 x system fan header

Biostar
1 x CPU FAN Header
1 x North Bridge FAN Header
2 x System FAN Header

I used the very last bit of a OLD tube of AS5 and it looked kinda nasty. The 5000 Brizzy was running warm too at 37C at idle. It might get better after a run in, but I might also remount the stock heatsink with fresh compund. I have some somewhere.

I can't really check my Biostar video, running Linux now on it with only basic standard drivers. I don't ahve any monitors with that sort of resolution either.

Frank, I PMed ya the other day. Did you read it?