AMD 880G Mobo Roundup - New Mainstream Integrated Graphics

AMD's True Mainstream Chipset

This year, AMD set out to refresh its motherboard chipsets and the past two months, we have seen its new 8-series chipsets make their market debuts. First was the AMD 890GX chipset, followed by the enthusiast class AMD 890FX and to end off, the mainstream and entry level 880G and 870 chipsets. We have already seen and reviewed boards from the major brands for the , chipsets and today, we'll be checking out the AMD 880G.

Like the other 8-series chipsets, the changes in the AMD 880G over its closest predecessor, the AMD 785G, are not exactly groundbreaking. A new Southbridge, SB850 that adds native SATA 6Gbit/s functionality is the main difference that nevertheless gives AMD's chipsets an edge over its rivals. The other change is a slight upgrade of the integrated Radeon HD graphics core at its heart, a move that is also suggested by the revised name, (from the 785G's Radeon HD 4200 to the 880G's Radeon HD 4250).

The graphics core on both the 785G and the 880G remain the same RV620 that comes with 40 shaders and supports DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 2.0. This integrated graphics gets ATI's Universal Video Decoder 2 (UVD2), which also happens to be the most current version, to relieve the CPU for HD content playback. Finally, the option to include SidePort memory (up to 128MB) to boost graphics performance is present on both the older Radeon HD 4200 and the newer 4250.

What's different is in the core clock speed, which has been increased from 500MHz to 560MHz. You'll find later that this core clock is not set in stone, and motherboard vendors are free to adjust this to suit their requirements, and even users can access the BIOS settings to tweak this frequency in many cases. Before we introduce the three AMD 880G boards in our roundup today, here's a GPU-Z screenshot of the integrated graphics core. 

Our contenders came in two different form factors: the ASUS is a standard ATX board, while the Biostar and Gigabyte are in the smaller, microATX dimensions. Given the mainstream nature of this chipset, expect microATX form factors to be plenty popular among vendors and users alike. We have previously covered the ASUS and Gigabyte in our previews and , so some of the content may seem familiar to you as they were reused. 

ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3

The ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is the only ATX board among the three and the extra PCB allows it to bone up on the usual proprietary features. Among the more familiar names like ExpressGate and EZ Flash 2, are newer ones like Core Unlocker and Turbo Unlocker. Core Unlocker allows users to unlock any hidden cores on their AMD processors and is increasingly prevalent among motherboard vendors. Turbo Unlocker, which we covered in some detail during our testing of the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula, is a slight but useful, automatic overclock of any AMD Phenom II X6 processor or 'Black Edition' quad-core. Essentially, one gets a small performance boost for 'free' and we aren't one to say no to that.

Besides the proprietary stuff, ASUS included an IDE connector onboard to supplement the five SATA 6Gbps ports and the sole eSATA port. To drive home the point that this is a premium 880G board, other features like USB 3.0 and FireWire are found. We attribute these additions to the more than adequate PCB area, which also allows ASUS to include a second PCIe 2.0 x16 slot for CrossFireX. So, while the typical AMD 880G board could usually do Hybrid CrossFireX (currently only certified for Radeon HD 5450) with the integrated graphics, this board can actually do CrossFireX with two discrete graphics cards, including even dual-slot cards.

Speaking of which, the integrated Radeon HD 4250 on the ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is clocked significantly higher than the 560MHz default. How high? How would 700MHz sound? That's equivalent to the Radeon HD 4290 found on the 890GX chipset. There's also 128MB of DDR3-1333 SidePort memory to go along with this. In the gaming benchmarks, you'll find this clock advantage to be quite clear, and while it will not match a decent discrete graphics solution, it's more than what we had expected. ASUS has included tools in the BIOS to tweak the graphics core clocks, with an automated GPU Boost feature. The same goes for the CPU, which has a similar set of features available in the BIOS.

Like the Crosshair IV Formula, our impression of the M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is that the design and quality lives up to ASUS' high standards. The layout is generally fine, despite the somewhat unconventional placement of the IDE connector. The Northbridge heatsink however does seem a bit too close to the CPU socket and we had some slight difficulties in removing our third-party CPU cooler, which was being hindered by the fins of the heatsink. Overall, the sense is that this is a premium board, and the quality components chosen along with a healthy list of features serves to convey this impression further.

Biostar TA880G HD

Biostar's AMD 880G board comes in a microATX form factor and from the features, it does not deviate too far from the standard design. The SB850 onboard gives it six SATA 6Gbps ports, all of which are clustered at a corner of the board, and safely away from the single PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. Unlike the larger ASUS board, there's only space for a single graphics card, so Hybrid CrossFireX is possible, but only if you pair it with a similarly entry level/mainstream discrete graphics card (such as the Radeon HD 5450, the only one certified at the moment). The integrated graphics meanwhile does get a small clock boost and runs at 600MHz, with 128MB of SidePort memory included. Unlike the other two AMD 880G boards, there are no options to adjust the integrated graphics clock speed in the BIOS manually, though a built-in automated overclock increased the board's base clock from 200 to 240MHz.

The lack of frills on this Biostar board extended to its USB support, or rather the lack of USB 3.0, which is present on its competitors. FireWire is another extra that's not available, but we did find a printer and a serial port for those legacy moments. The standard Realtek HD audio CODEC together with a Gigabit Ethernet controller from Realtek complete the features on this rather basic board. 

There's nothing much to say about this Biostar board. It's a rather basic implementation of the 880G chipset, but we didn't find anything jarring about the layout or the included features. True, it could have benefited from more storage options, like IDE or USB 3.0, but again those are not a must-have for a mainstream board of today. At least one gets solid capacitors throughout, ensuring a decent level of quality, and Biostar has included some of its own BIOS tools to give it an extra layer of polish.

Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H

We have seen Gigabyte's ability to get the most out of limited PCB space and with this board, the vendor does it again. There are five SATA 6Gbps ports onboard, with eSATA present at the rear. Then there's the IDE and floppy drive support, and FireWire too. And USB 3.0 ports too. All this on a microATX board. It does make for a rather crowded looking board, with barely any wasted PCB, but fortunately, layout issues are kept to a minimum. From what we can see, a dual-slot graphics card may lead to one SATA port being unusable, but that's the only compromise. Things may get a bit messy, especially if you're not into proper cable management, but there shouldn't be any other layout conflicts.

The integrated Radeon HD 4250 on the Gigabyte runs at the standard 560MHz, and there's no SidePort memory, a decision that should keep this board price competitive. It will mean that this board will suffer slightly in gaming applications but Gigabyte is probably betting that the compromise is worth it. Users can however choose to increase the clock speeds manually in the BIOS, but there's of course no way of adding SidePort memory. Hybrid CrossFireX is supported but no discrete CrossFireX is available. Though there seems to be dual PCI Express Graphics (PEG) slots, only one is a true PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, while the other suppots speeds up to x4 only. Since the PCIe lanes for both slots originate from the same internal interface from the chipset, plugging in an x4 card into the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot would mean crippling the neighbouring PCIe 2.0 x16 slot to also run at an x4 mode. At those speeds as well as the close physical placement of the slots, it doesn't really warrant CrossFireX support.

The board itself appears to run cool enough not to require a heatsink where the power components are clustered and it looks like another clean, sensible microATX design and layout. The mainstream nature of this board is evident from the lack of more expensive components (solid capacitors however are standard) and Gigabyte's practice of having double the amount of copper in the PCB (part of its Ultra Durable feature) is still present. Overall, it looks like a very decent AMD 880G board, albeit lacking some frills.

BIOS Settings

For a supposedly mainstream chipset, with numerous microATX designs, there are plenty of BIOS tweaks for the average user. We see this as the inevitable effect of motherboard vendors migrating their usual enthusiast capable BIOS designs to even the more mainstream products, disabling only features that don't apply. As a result, the ASUS and Biostar both gets some form of an automated overclocking tool, while all three boards have more than sufficient BIOS options. We have listed some of the more prominent ones below: 

Test Setup

The prices for AMD processors are very affordable and with 6-core processors debuting recently, we felt that most users will have no qualms (and the budget) to dump into a quad-core processor, so for this roundup, we have outfitted the AMD 880G boards with our Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz) processor. Besides the three AMD 880G boards, we have included a reference AMD 785G board in our testing to ensure that there's a baseline to compare with. In most cases, there's little to separate the AMD 880G with the 785G.

• AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz)
• 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 @7-7-7-20
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA HDD (single NTFS partition of 200GB)
• Radeon HD 4250 (dependent on board's default clocks, 256MB frame buffer, Catalyst driver version 8.71)
• Windows 7 Ultimate

The following benchmarks were used:

• BAPCo SYSmark 2007 Preview (ver 1.05)
• Futuremark PCMark Vantage (ver 1.0.3.1)
• Futuremark 3DMark06 (ver 110)
• SPECviewperf 9.0
• Quake 4 (ver 1.3)
• Unreal Tournament 3 (ver 1.1)
• Black Snake Moan and Superman Returns Blu-ray discs for HD playback testing

Results - SYSmark 2007 Preview

As you may have noticed, the AMD 785G happened to be our best performer overall in SYSmark 2007, with the rest of the AMD 880G boards following close behind. It's a clear statement that in terms of general system performance, you'll be hard pressed to pick one from the other, as the breakdown below further illustrated. Even the weakest performer here, the Biostar, was competitive enough in most of the tested segments, though its Video Creation score could be better. 

Results - Futuremark PCMark Vantage

The next system suite, PCMark Vantage, confirmed the competitiveness of the AMD 785G against its successor. There's really not much point in upgrading for the sake of more performance if you already have this chipset, though the SATA 6Gbps support on the AMD 880G may matter to some. In the various subsections, the ASUS made up for a slightly below par performance in TV & Movies section with an improved showing in Memories. But besides that, all the AMD 880G were mostly evenly matched. 

Results - SPECviewperf 9.0

It's in SPECviewperf's 3dsmax test that we managed to find a board gaining an edge over the others. Here, we believe that the higher integrated graphics clocks on the ASUS board helped it to take pole position. Notice too that the 500MHz IGP clock on the 785G was the last board here, with the Biostar's 600MHz helping it to a slight lead over the Gigabyte. The next test, proe-04 viewset, stresses the CPU and memory subsystem and had little to do with the graphics prowess of the boards; as such the results outcome was quite different with the Biostar board slightly slower than the others.

Gaming Benchmarks

It's in the gaming benchmarks that the decision of vendors like ASUS and Biostar to boost the clock speeds on the integrated graphics pays off. ASUS in particular was pretty impressive thanks to its 700MHz core clock, which blazed ahead of the 600MHz Biostar. Its results were almost as good as the Radeon HD 4290 IGP built into the AMD 890GX. Gigabyte went with the default 560MHz, but without SidePort memory, it's only slightly ahead of the AMD 785G running at 500MHz. 

HD Playback Performance

Blu-ray playback however depended solely on the UVD2 on the integrated graphics core and since all the boards have the same engine regardless of their graphics clock speeds, their performance remains mostly similar. The Biostar was marginally higher but at such relatively low CPU utilization, it doesn't really matter. It's safe to say that users should have no issues with playing back HD content on these motherboards with modern processors. 

Temperature

Both the Northbridge and Southbridge heatsinks were passively cooled on these boards and from the temperatures we recorded below, it's clear that passive cooling is more than sufficient, even if the temperatures recorded at load were a bit on the warm side. The lack of elaborate passive heatsinks match the kind of temperatures recorded on this chipset, which is perfectly fine and there's nothing to be concerned about.

Power Consumption

Power consumption was also relatively low, but that's not surprising since we're talking about boards with integrated graphics, some of which are microATX in size. The older AMD 785G however did have higher power consumption at peak, so it looks like the newer boards are more efficient.

Conclusion

With both AMD and Intel committed to integrating graphics with their processors, one has to wonder if chipsets like the AMD 880G, which have a separate graphics core on the motherboard, may be one of the last of its breed. Especially since the AMD 880G is targeted at the mainstream segment, where users may not care too much about raw graphics performance and where the onboard HD playback capability is what matters. While the on its Clarkdale family wasn't that impressive, it was decent enough for HD playback that users would find Intel's solution indistinguishable from the Radeon HD 4250 on the AMD 880G. We believe that a similar situation will occur when AMD launches its first 'Fusion' product, Llano, next year.

Coming back to the AMD 880G chipset, it has a Northbridge that's practically identical to that on its 785G predecessor. With a slight 60MHz boost in the clock speed of the integrated Radeon HD 4250, the onboard graphics performance is marginally better than the 785G. The good news is that the Southbridge is a new SB850 that's found on most of the better AMD's 8-series motherboards, and SATA 6Gbps could come in handy if you're one of the early adopters. As it is, there's hardly any reason to upgrade if you're already on a 7-series board and yet to get into SATA 6Gbps or USB 3.0 (which has to be added separately by the board vendors, like ASUS and Gigabyte here).

If you're new to the AMD platform however, this chipset is a definite mainstream favorite, especially if size matters. There are more microATX options available for the 880G and onboard graphics is mediocre whether it's the 880G or the 890GX. These boards can take in a Phenom II X6 processor without any issues and the new BIOS unlocking options to free hidden processor cores of lower-end SKUs on all three boards reviewed here is very useful.

Do note that the boards we've brought in for comparison today are targetted at various user needs. This brings us to remind readers that this article isn't a direct shootout of AMD 880G motherboards but just a comparative round-up of some of the first few boards bearing the new chipset. As such there are no winners but just an overall rating of how we feel the boards stand from our testing.

Individually, there's no doubt that the ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 is aimed at a slightly higher end segment than its peers here. Firstly, its ATX form factor distinguishes it from the rest, while the number of extra features and more expensive components all have their own price tags. The higher default graphics core clock, better overclocking and the presence of its unique Turbo Unlocker feature all mean that this ASUS board is better than the other two, in terms of performance and features. Its price, at around US$120, is accordingly more expensive. Locally, its S$234 retail price is also one that's more suited to a higher end chipset, like the AMD 890GX.

For those looking for a typical microATX 880G board that's not short of features, then the Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H is probably what they have in mind. With a complete set of storage options, this Gigabyte board has a sole weakness in its default integrated core clock speed and the lack of SidePort memory. Users can tweak the graphics core frequency to alleviate some of these concerns but then again, if graphics performance is that crucial, why would you be using the integrated solution in the first place? Its US$95 pricing reflects its mainstream value proposition, though locally, the USB 3.0 version we reviewed here, may not be available. Instead, the distributor has a few other alternate models, though primarily using the older, non-SATA 6Gbit/s SB710 Southbridge. The closest to our review unit is the Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H, which is an ATX board that's more akin to the ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 in features and which goes for S$195. 

Finally, Biostar's microATX offering looks to be as standard as a reference 880G board. The exception is its graphics core, which gets bumped up slightly to 600MHz along with SidePort memory. The feature list is however rather short, with no USB 3.0, no FireWire, eSATA or IDE support. It's basic but at least Biostar got a decent layout and there were no issues during our testing. Unfortunately, this plain vanilla 880G gets a US$100 price tag (local SRP of S$159), which makes it more expensive than the Gigabyte. In short, we feel that there are better alternatives than this Biostar board out there at this price.

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