Asus Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0

[NeoGen]

Does anyone own one of these, or have read about it?

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FXGEN3_R20/

I have been doing some much needed upgrades to my main machine, only to find out that my 5+ year old AM3 motherboard seems to be incompatible with RAID controllers (Adaptec 6405E).
I've been holding off on upgrading the motherboard for a long time because AMD never released a chipset with PCIe 3.0 support (and I've been waiting for it), but I think it came to the point I can't hold off any more, I really want this RAID controller to work for me. So I found this one motherboard from ASUS claiming to be the only one in the world that actually has implemented PCIE 3.0 on a 990FX chipset. (I wonder how...?)

Anyway, this motherboard should even support the Phenom II X6 1100T that I currently have, so it would be wonderful (and one less expense not having to get a new CPU).

Does anyone else here have it, know it, or have opinions on it that you guys can share with me before I jump on it?

[Dirk Broer]

I don't think anyone has it yet, as the previous version -Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0- has only been available for a few months.
But I have read about it: It is indeed the first AMD Motherboard that will support PCIe 3.0, so the board to go for when you also plan to buy -or already own- a PCIe 3.0 card
By the way: beats me as to why the Adaptec 6405E (http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/series/6e/) won't be supported by your present board, and will it fit in the newest Sabertooth?
Guess you will have to stick it in the last PCIe 2.0 x16 slot then.
The three generations -note that the CeraM!x coating now also includes the 990FX chipset and the loss of the PCIe 1.0 port under another CeraM!x-like thingus, no doubt the reason for the PCIe 3.0-:
https://www.asus.com/websites/global/products/8YcYZWliJkA2dK8D/SAB_990FX_GEN3_R2_line.jpg
Asus Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0
https://www.asus.com/websites/global/products/Yk1gGoRISkgLawoj/SAB_990FX_R2-line-01.jpg
Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
https://www.asus.com/websites/global/products/H9GanpgqHG8yN8yQ/product_overview.jpg
Asus Sabertooth 990FX

The matching -almost the same color as the TUF CeraM!x of at least the original Sabertooth- Corsair memory:
http://ic.tweakimg.net/ext/i/1351082977.jpeg

[Terry1953]

I have been looking at this board and really like the specs on it. I put it on my "Buy This" list as my next MoBO. I think it'll look real good with 16 gigs of that Corsair memory and a pair of 7790's. I still have an 8350 laying around here somewhere. But with summer coming I might make it a Labor Day project.

[NeoGen]

Dirk, the Adaptec 6405E does fit on my board (Gigabyte GA-MA790XT UD4P (http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3010#ov)) but for some reason to whatever PCIE slot I plug it the boot error is always the same, it's something like "Adapter firmware is corrupted! You need to reflash the firmware on the card". I know this is not true because I take the exact same adapter, plug it to an older machine and it boots perfectly, detects hard drives and does everything. Using the Adaptec Firmware Utility it even verifies the firmware checksum to be correct but on my Gigabyte board it just refuses to work.

Upon looking around online I found a few threads of people with various RAID controllers having similar complains on several different Gigabyte motherboards, and some rumours say that the PCIE ports on this motherboard are somehow mainly dedicated to GPUs so their compatibility with other kinds of adapters is hit and miss. (It's hard to believe that but at this point I'm starting to almost believe it)
http://superuser.com/questions/257647/gigabyte-motherboard-adaptec-raid-no-booting-from-any-drives
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245926-32-adaptec-5805-raid-motherboard-compatibility


I tried all PCIE slots, tried enabling and disabling most of the boards features, tried upgrading the bios both on my motherboard to the latest version, and also the firmware of the RAID controller to 2 different versions but never got it to work right so I am giving up on it. I was wanting to upgrade anyway so this might be the sign that it's time to go ahead and do it. :icon_neutral:

I can't find anywhere to guarantee that it will work, but I have more faith on this Asus than on my Gigabyte, if nothing else just because mine is probably around 5yrs old already. :icon_rolleyes:

[Dirk Broer]

Hi NeoGen,

It take it that you have at least the F7 BIOS for your board?

F7 2009/11/20:

Add CPU Core Control option
update Raid\AHCI ROM

[AMDave]

@ NeoGen
http://ask.adaptec.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13092/kw/6805%20bios/session/L3RpbWUvMTM2NTg2ODU0MS9zaWQvS0RrKipDbmw%3D
(although I think the idea that Firmware can somehow become corrupt is more than a bit dubious - it's FIRMware)

I was able to download the compatibility report
http://www.adaptec.com/en-us/support/_compatibility/6xx5ecr_pdf.html

The interface is 6405E: 1-lane PCIe Gen2
There is a specific list of compatible host models.
Gigabyte is not among them.

One thing you may want to try is in BIOS completely disable the Mobo IDE + SATA interfaces via the BIOS, then reboot and see if the Adaptec takes primary controller position.
Also make sure (if present) PnP is disabled so BIOS takes some ownership of what goes where in RAM and what IRQs are assigned at boot instead of waiting for the OS to sort out - which it can't if there's a boot conflict.

I hope you get that card to work.
It's a nice piece of kit.

[NeoGen]

Dirk, I didn't try F7, Even before adding the Adaptec controller I already had F8, and then I also tried with F9b, which I had never upgraded to before because it was still marked as Beta, but even so it didn't work.

Dave, I did remember to try and disable both SATA controllers but it also didn't work. After reading your post today I went to the bios again to go over all the settings and once again disable both SATA controllers and disabled all 4 IDE ports manually. (Doesn't have a function to just disable IDE altogether)
There was no visible function to enable/disable PnP, so couldn't get that one. I've seen on other motherboards where it even has options to set each IRQ to what PCI port but this one doesn't come with that level of control. But even so with all IDE ports disabled plus both SATA controllers disabled, the only thing left in the boot options was "Optional boot-in cards" as number 1 (and only). Upon boot the same problem continued and skipping the Adaptec issue it ends up saying something like "No boot disks found" and stops, which I guess it means it couldn't recognize the Adaptec controller and all other options were disabled.

The firmware has to be fine, I have flashed it two or three times on my other older computer and it works great, flashes without a problem and even verifies checksum to be correct. On my computer however none of those operations is possible. Even if trying to ignore the issue and booting windows from one of the motherboard's SATA ports, windows detects a "RAID controller" (no specific model) and when I install the drivers it just freezes and I have to do a reset.
I mostly ignore the compatibility reports on computer parts because I know there is no way they can test against every single device out there, so they only have a couple dozen devices that they tested for and don't bother with the rest. Usually the ones they tested don't really meet my personal requirements. Like motherboards that have 512Mb RAM chips on their compatibility lists... who uses that these days?

[Dirk Broer]

Gigabyte seems pretty confident you use either the AMD SB750 or Gigabyte's own onboard SATA controller chip for RAID (Manual: pages 26/27, 47/48 and 73/94 -English version (http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-ma790xt-ud4p_e.pdf), you might have the Portuguese version (http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-ma790xt-ud4p_bp.pdf)). Not a word about external RAID controllers...
Unlike the new Sabertooth (http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM3+/SABERTOOTH_990FX_GEN3_R2.0/E8041_SABERTOOTH_990FX_GEN3_R2.pdf), pages 5-8/5-9 mention third-party RAID controller.

[NeoGen]

Yea... as much as I like the FakeRAIDs that come on every motherboard these days, this time I would like to have a real hardware based RAID adapter because I intend to do an SSD array, and I don't want it to choke or use up my CPU too much if I push it to the limits :)

[NeoGen]

Well guys... after much debating with myself over these last few days I ended up last night taking the plunge and ordered it! :icon_mrgreen:

If all goes well and shipping doesn't take too long I am hoping to receive it by the end of the week, so that I have all weekend to play with it.
I will try to remember to take some pics for you guys to see, and get some benchmarks on it with my X6 1100T.
I hope AMD sticks with AM3+ a few more years for me to at least be able to upgrade the CPU at some point in the future, right now the highest CPU I see on the compatibility list is the 8-core FX-8350. Hopefully they will continue to develop AM3+ compatible processors that will be compatible with this board... maybe 12 or 16 cores? :)

[Terry1953]

Congrats on the new board and I'm looking forward to your review of it. The nice part about the FX8350 is that if you combine it with a MSI 6870 GPU and then in the winter you have the makings of a fine furnace for a 1 bedroom home. It's good that my son Ryan likes to sleep with the windows open. I'm not sure what we'll have come summer. I just hope this place don't end up looking like Pompeii after Vesuvius popped it's top. I think they have to fix the cooling problem before they start to add any more cores.

[Dirk Broer]

Reviews on NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131969&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo) are very positive (3x 5 eggs)
TigerDirect (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7889689&CatId=7244) has no reviews yet, nor has Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Motherboards-Sabertooth-990FX-GEN3-R2-0/dp/B00C0RCKY0)

[Terry1953]

I'll be buying one sooner than I thought. A thunderstorm came through last night and took out 2 motherboards. I HATE springtime! One of them I just put in a couple of days ago and the other is my son's 8350.

[Dirk Broer]

I bet you do not have a "bliksemafleider" (Lightning rod) on your roof? 2 motherboards.....I'd be falling in the stats like a brick for months!

[Jason1478963]

Some feel poor grounding can cause a bigger issue for lightning. Then surge equipment and lightning protection will work better if you have a good grounding system.

[NeoGen]

I have no idea how good or bad the grounding of my house is, but I made sure to plug all my equipment to surge protectors with high joules capacity (>3000). I've been lucky so far that I never had a storm issue but the real test will be when a lightning strikes... then I will find out how good the grounding and the surge protectors are.

BTW... I got the motherboard just this past thursday! :icon_mrgreen: Didn't have time Friday to do anything, and today (Saturday) I'm exceptionally working all day too, so it may be tomorrow that I start the assembly and take some pics of the board to show. But the box alone looks very cool! :)

[Nflight]

I am with NeoGen on the surge protectors. But I went one further and place two surge protectors in series so one is plugged into the first one which is plugged into the wall socket. This way if the first one fails the second one has a chance to stop the impending doom. Terry I am in tears for your two lost systems, that was a doozy of a storm last night! :blob3:

[Terry1953]

They were both on surge protecters so I might try the "in series" idea. I just ordered two of these http://www.medicalartspress.com/apc-ups-systems/cbs/143649.html?cm_mmc=SEM_PLA_143649 one for my room and one for Ryan's so that all systems should be safe from now on. I figure they cost less than either board I lost so it's a good investment.

[NeoGen]

I got one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812107131

Got more than enough plugs for both my crunchers, plus the network switch, plus even my phone charger.

The "in series" idea is awesome indeed, I think I got to put that on my budget for this year, to get some secondary power surge protectors. I've read people's complaints in multiple places about power surges frying and taking the connected equipment with it because in that split second between the time the lightning strikes and the varistor of the power surge blows up, it's still enough to pass current to fry the equipment attached, especially if the response time of the power surge is too large. With 2 power surges in-series the second one would catch what the first one let through before dying.

[Dirk Broer]

Sounds too much like the Gillette razor blade advertisement: "the second blade will catch what the first didn't"
Then why did they come up with triple, quad and penta-blades?

"that split second between the time the lightning strikes and the varistor of the power surge blows up": When the split second is 1/10 of the time needed for the power surge you need eleven to be save....

[Jason1478963]

i have a lightning arrestor (http://www.altestore.com/store/Enclosures-Electrical-Safety/Lightning-Protection/Delta-LA302R-AC-Lightning-Arrestor-Single-Phase-3-Wire/p472/) with a Surge Arrester (http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/QuickViewService?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&R=100202111&catEntryId=100202111) in the main panel. My grounding was also recently upgraded for the new service and install of my Photo-voltaic system. This included four ground rods with two of them being in a very wet location. It can be more difficult to get a good ground in dry locations and I've heard an expert say they had to go fifty foot down to get a good ground for a radio tower. In some of these older homes without the grounded plugs we may not benefit from the surge strips as I believe the ground wire is required for it to function correctly. I still have a plug or two that needs corrected from the previous owners electrical disaster.

I am sorry to hear of the motherboard failures. I would try to send them in under warranty still. It may be the failure would have happened at the next power off as well. I would expect the power supplies or their internal protection would have been taken out as well if it was a big surge. Best of luck with the new equipment.

[NeoGen]

They should build houses like a Faraday Cage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage)... :)

You would be shielded indeed... the problem is that cellphone and other kinds of wireless would be left outside too. lol

[Dirk Broer]

when you have a connected -by cable- wireless router inside the faraday cage, won't it just function inside the cage?

[Terry1953]

I believe that as long as it had a cable input it would function fine in wireless mode but only to units inside the cage.

[NeoGen]

My main computer was down last night under scheduled heart surgery, it was a long and intensive procedure.... at times I almost thought I was losing the patient...

Imagine it like in those emergency room hospitals where you got the patient hooked up to a heart beat monitor
(beeeeeeeeeeepppp)... Come on! DON'T YOU DIE ON ME!! CLEEEAR!!! (*BZZZZZ*) CLEEAR!! (*BZZZZZ*) (beep) (beep) (beep) (beep)

But the patient successfully went through the procedure and is now resting! :)

The new heart (Asus Motherboard) was successfully transplanted, CPU and Memory recognized, Noctua Heatsink in place and everything is now working.

We just have to give the patient a few days rest now to recover from the procedure before putting it through heavy exercise. Currently I just installed the hardware and went through the bios settings, and everything looks good. Next step for the next few days will be to reinstall windows and all the applications.

[Dirk Broer]

Success with the patient! I recommend a third fan for his Noctua cooler -if there's space for yet another fan above the board- so a push-push and pull-pull configuration.
http://images.hardwarecanucks.com/image/akg/Air_Cooling/D14/Noctua_D14_intel_side_profile.jpg
Here's a triple 140mm setup, in case you might have some spare Noctua 140 lying around somewhere. You can also try three 120mm fans.
The Noctua must be able to beat 90% of the Water cooled solutions (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/water2.0-extreme-kraken-x40-hydro-h90-elc120,3434.html) in terms of cooling, noise and price anyway! (as in cooler, quieter and cheaper)
Your new mobo has an inbuilt SSD, which should help with start-up times and hands-on response times.

[Terry1953]

Mine wasn't as dramatic as yours Neo but I got the new sabertooth board and put it in today. 1 beep and it was off and running, 11 sec boot on Windows 7 (second time through) it has a 120 Ghz SSD and I had no idea that the board had one as well. We got lucky and saved all the info. that my son had on his system.

[NeoGen]

I spent the better part of last night tweaking and OCing... managed to get stable 3.8GHz (out of 3.3 stock) at acceptable temperatures around 55C under full load. This morning before leaving to work I checked on it and it was still running Prime95 and Furmark at full load without a single glitch after almost 12 hours.

The patient is responding well to the treatment and excelling in the physical therapy exercises. :)

Terry, that's great to hear! Are you going to throw in all that Asus software they bundle on the CD? I only used the CD for 2 things yet... USB3 drivers and Ethernet drivers. I will try to keep my system clean of all that junk software...lol.
Mine wasn't as dramatic either but we can imagine it as if it was. :icon_mrgreen: It did make me sweat doing the "surgery", and having to set up Noctua's custom mounting (Secufirm 2), plus the large heatsink and 2 fans in a tight space. But all went well and you and me are now owners of the only AMD motherboard that supports PCIe 3.0! :icon_mrgreen:

[Dirk Broer]

And now for the PCIe 3.0 cards to go with it!

My personal recommendation is to go for the HD 7790.
SP performance almost on a par with the HD 6870,
but with DP capability -the HD 6870 has none-
and running at roughly half the required power of a HD 6870.
http://media.bestofmicro.com/7/8/377396/original/Sapphire-7790-front.jpg

[NeoGen]

That's a nice looking GPU with 2 big fans on it. :)

Tonight I decided to crank it up some more, so I upped the CPU to 4GHz... at first it wasn't taking it and crashing Prime95, so I went into the bios and cranked up a bunch of options as well as upping the CPU voltages just a little, and guess what? It worked! :icon_mrgreen:

It is running steady on Prime95 Stress test + Furmark at 4GHz at around 65C. I think this is as far as I will go because I know summer is coming and that's when the machine will really sweat. If these settings last throughout the summer then they will last all year round. I could probably crank it higher but I'm happy with my 20% OC increase, it equates to 7 cores at stock speed and a little extra.

[Terry1953]

Nah I just run the bare min off the ASUS disk. The 8350 is at 4.2 in Turbo anyway so I just let it go on at that. I'd hate to try to cool it OC'd and with the 6870 GPU in the same box I really don't want to think about summer. The machine I like to mess with the OC on is still my 4800+ I've been messing with it forever. It's the 939 socket version (I think I'm on my 5th board) and I have had it running along at 3.9 for months now with just air cooling. I still have that cooler I bought for it but it eats enough electricity that even I don't like to run it. I just like to play with it. Been playing with it since 2005.



Write Review
1 x VIGOR GAMING CLT-M2I 92mm Thermal Electric CPU Cooler

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835702002

That thing was a real bust it cooled great but you needed your own nuke power plant to run it. Somewhat like the 6870's I have now. lol 6870 unfortunate typo but the next one will be a double.

[Dirk Broer]

H! So you have HD 6970s now. You might try your luck then with MilkyWay to put the heat to good use
and when it gets too hot think about this:
http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/VGA-Kuehler/Alternativ_cooler_HD6970-015.jpg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186068

[NeoGen]

Dirk, I did have a spare Noctua 140mm fan at home! And I found it still on the Noctua box last night! :icon_mrgreen:
Last year I got 2 Noctua HSFs, one for my working computer and another one for a different machine I'm building, but that one could only take 1 out of 2 fans due to the case being slimmer, so the second fan was stored for possible later use or as replacement in case something happens.
So last night I got it on my machine's heatsink to make a similar setup like you showed on the picture. There is a slight problem though, I can't close the case now because the available place where I can put the 3rd fan is right on top of the motherboard's FSB heatsinks, so the fan stands raised just half inch higher than it should. And I can't swap it with the 120mm fan on the opposite side either because underneath that one are the RAM chips, so it does the same effect.

So in conclusion, the third 140mm fan is a great idea but I can't close the case. My project will now be to find a 120mm Noctua fan that I can use instead and make it like that triple fan system on the picture. :)


EDIT: Also forgot to mention, with the third fan in place, even though it was a bit off place and unable to close the box, I did run some stress tests and found that my case fan was blocking air instead of helping it out. The case fan to where the Noctua system was pointing to was running at about 800RPMs while the Noctua fans run at about 1200, so there was a bit of a blockage there and my GPU right below was being hit by the hot air that was flowing downwards instead of out of the case. Once I removed the case fan and just let the Noctua shoot the air out the GPU dropped about 6 degrees under full load on Furmark. :)

[Dirk Broer]

6 degrees under full load on Furmark, that's no mean feat!
According to Hardware Canucks (http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/26613-noctua-nh-d14-cpu-cooler-review-17.html) the three fans can best be all of the same diameter, so in your case -pun intended- 3x 120mm.

[NeoGen]

Tried out BOINC and after reconfiguring and re-detecting, here's what I got


4/30/2013 12:00:06 AM | | Running CPU benchmarks
4/30/2013 12:00:06 AM | | Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
4/30/2013 12:00:37 AM | | Benchmark results:
4/30/2013 12:00:37 AM | | Number of CPUs: 6
4/30/2013 12:00:37 AM | | 3318 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
4/30/2013 12:00:37 AM | | 9877 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU


These are the largest values I've ever seen for my CPU, but how well do they fare against others?

[Dirk Broer]

Hi NeoGen,

You can find some results in this 35-page -and a bit dated- topic on ExtremeSystems forum (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?134602-BOINC-benchmark-post-results/page35&)

[AMDave]

From DN09 (linux AMD64):
Phenom II X6 1055T ** at stock 2.80Ghz:

Tue 30 Apr 2013 21:57:11 EST | | Benchmark results:
Tue 30 Apr 2013 21:57:11 EST | | Number of CPUs: 6
Tue 30 Apr 2013 21:57:11 EST | | 2711 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Tue 30 Apr 2013 21:57:11 EST | | 12439 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Slower Whetstone but faster Dhrystone
NB - I had 2 non-BOINC (llrnet) background processes using 100% of 2 cores when that ran.

From DN08 (Win7 AMD64):
Phenom II X6 1055T ** at stock 2.80Ghz:

30/04/2013 10:04:00 PM | | Benchmark results:
30/04/2013 10:04:00 PM | | Number of CPUs: 6
30/04/2013 10:04:00 PM | | 2337 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
30/04/2013 10:04:00 PM | | 7391 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

which is not what I expected.
DN08 has faster RAM than DN09 but the benchmarks are poorer.
The ram and the OS are the only differences between the 2 machines.
Maybe the OS and client compilation really do make that much of a difference.

Interesting. I hadn't done that in a while.

[Dirk Broer]

Results for my 3-core A6-3500@2400 Mhz (Xubuntu 12.10, kernel 3.7.7, BOINC 7.0.65)


Tue 30 Apr 2013 03:28:14 PM CEST | | Number of CPUs: 3
Tue 30 Apr 2013 03:28:14 PM CEST | | 2323 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Tue 30 Apr 2013 03:28:14 PM CEST | | 11709 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Not bad, compared to AMDave's Phenoms!

Results for my 4-core A8-3870K@3300Mhz (Ubuntu 12.10, Kernel 3.5.0.28, BOINC 7.0.56)


di 30 apr 2013 15:35:14 CEST | | Number of CPUs: 4
di 30 apr 2013 15:35:14 CEST | | 3192 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
di 30 apr 2013 15:35:14 CEST | | 16018 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Tada!

Results for my 4-core A8-3820@3100Mhz (Windows 8, BOINC 7.0.64)


30-4-2013 15:39:59 | | Number of CPUs: 4
30-4-2013 15:39:59 | | 2373 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
30-4-2013 15:39:59 | | 7091 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

In line with AMDave's findings....

And to top it off:
...My Athlon X2 5000 (Lubuntu 12.10, Kernel 3.5.0.28, BOINC 7.0.65)


Tue 30 Apr 2013 08:20:35 PM CEST | | Number of CPUs: 2
Tue 30 Apr 2013 08:20:35 PM CEST | | 2408 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Tue 30 Apr 2013 08:20:35 PM CEST | | 10764 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

[NeoGen]

Wow... the OS seems to make a staggering difference in results... it almost doubles! :shocked:

[Dirk Broer]

Wow... the OS seems to make a staggering difference in results... it almost doubles! :shocked:

Another example: I recently switched my AM1 SOC system from Ubuntu Linux 14.04 to Windows 10, because I had trouble running BOINC through the SOCs internal graphics that the Athlon 5350 has.

CPU type AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm) 5350 APU with Radeon(tm) R3 [Family 22 Model 0 Stepping 1]
Number of processors 4
Extra processors ---
OS Linux 3.13.0-53-generic
BOINC version 7.4.23
RAM 14913.64 MB
Cache 2048 KB
Virtual memory 8152 MB
floating point speed 2311.72 million ops/sec
integer speed 8987.59 million ops/sec
Average upload speed 57.84 KB/sec
Average download speed 8357.84 KB/sec


CPU type AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm) 5350 APU with Radeon(tm) R3 [Family 22 Model 0 Stepping 1]
Number of processors 4
Extra processors AMD Kalindi (2047MB) OpenCL: 2.0
OS Microsoft Windows 10 x64 Edition, (10.00.10074.00)
BOINC version 7.4.42
RAM 15296.18 MB
Cache 2048 KB
Virtueel memory 18112.18 MB
floating point speed 2045.71 million ops/sec
integer speed 3716.54 million ops/sec
Average upload speed 39.67 KB/sec
Average download speed 200.48 KB/sec

As soon as my Win10 expires this box goes Linux again!
Just look at those integer speed values...And, much surprisingly: the download speed! -though the change to WiFi for this box might explain that.

[HeikoRieger]

Hi,

I've bought the RAID card 6405E from Adaptec like NeoGen did.
Now I have a problem to find a motherboard that is compatible with this RAID card.
I've bought the ASUS M5A99X-Evo R2.0 and the 6405E card but unfortunately they are not compatible.
But I want to make this RAID card work in my system.
I also bought the AMD 8350 with 4 times G.Skill 8GB 1866MHz. The CPU and the RAM were working without any problems with this mainboard.
So I sent back the mainboard and now I am looking for a new mainboard which should work with all my equipment.
Maybe the Asus Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 could work.

[AMDave]

Hej Heiko!
Welcome to the AMD Users forum.

I sent NeoGen a PM to see if he can give you some expert advice since he has experience with that model and those issues.

[Dirk Broer]

Maybe the Asus Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 could work.

Been searching for this mobo for more than two years now....as well as this board:
http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4658/8328_big.jpg

[HeikoRieger]

Dirk,
You can't find that mobo in the Netherlands?
Here in Sweden is it available and I am sure also in Germany.

Sorry. ..the Gen3 is not available any more in Europe.

Now my question: Is the normal sabertooth r2.0 also good and will my raid card work?

[Dirk Broer]

Hi Heiko,

I can't see why not, the main difference between the Gen3 R2.0 and the 'plain' R2.0 is the controller chip that takes care of the PCIe 3.0.
https://dlcdnwebsites.asus.com/existone/websites/global/products/8YcYZWliJkA2dK8D/PCIe-3_261.jpg
On the other hand, neither is named in the compatibility report by Adaptec (http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/compatibility_report/arc-sas_cr_06-03-15_series6e.pdf), FWIW.
http://graphics.adaptec.com/us/support/nr/6405e_280x220.png

[HeikoRieger]

Hi Dirk,



I can't see why not, the main difference between the Gen3 R2.0 and the 'plain' R2.0 is the controller chip that takes care of the PCIe 3.0.

On the other hand, neither is named in the compatibility report by Adaptec (http://download.adaptec.com/pdfs/compatibility_report/arc-sas_cr_06-03-15_series6e.pdf), FWIW.


I've bought the "ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0" and the Adadptec RAID-controller is not working. The same problems like with the other boards. :(
So now I've decided to send the Adaptec-card back and looking for another hardware-RAID-controller.

So I've found this one:
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9341-4i

348

With this card is the problem. The "ASUS Sabertooth 990FX" is in the compatibility list but not the 'R2.0'.
So the next question is:
Work this RAID-card also in my 'R2.0' motherboard?
What is the difference between the plain 'Sabertooth 990FX' and the 'R2.0'?

Oh...I've just read it's a software raid-controller.
So now the next one: :)
LSI MegaRAID SAS 9260-4i

349

This is really a hardware-RAID-controller. :)

[Dirk Broer]

RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60, now we're talking RAID..

RAID (originally Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, now commonly Redundant Array of Independent Disks -they've found out that disks do not come inexpensive) is a data storage virtualisation technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into a single logical unit for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both.


Raid Level
Method
Read performance
Write performance
Minimum disks needed
Data protection
Fault tolerance
Scheme



0
striping,
without mirroring or parity

Better

Better

2
None (!)

No (!)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/RAID_0.svg/150px-RAID_0.svg.png



1
data mirroring,
without parity or striping

Better

Slower

2
Mirror

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/RAID_1.svg/150px-RAID_1.svg.png



5
block-level striping
with distributed parity

Better

Much slower

3
Parity,
supports single disk failure

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/RAID_5.svg/300px-RAID_5.svg.png



6
block-level striping
with double distributed parity

Better

Very much slower

4
Parity,
supports two disks failures

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/RAID_6.svg/300px-RAID_6.svg.png



10
(1+0)
striped data
across mirrored pairs

Better

Bit slower

4
Mirror,
one disk failure in each sub-array

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/RAID_10_01.svg/220px-RAID_10_01.svg.png



50
(5+0)
straight block-level striping of RAID 0
with the distributed parity of RAID 5

Better

Slower

6
Parity,
One disk failure
in each sub-array

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/RAID_50.png/510px-RAID_50.png



60
(6+0)
straight block-level striping of RAID 0
with the distributed double parity of RAID 6

Better

Slower

8
Parity,
Two disks failures
in each sub-array

Yes
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/RAID_60.png/510px-RAID_60.png

[NeoGen]

Hej Heiko!
Welcome to the AMD Users forum.

I sent NeoGen a PM to see if he can give you some expert advice since he has experience with that model and those issues.
Seeing the message a bit too late I guess, but to me the Adaptec 6405E has been working without a hitch, I have it installed on an Asus Sabertooth 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 with the latest BIOS version on the mobo and latest firmware version on the RAID controller itself.
Adaptec has been changing hands a lot... it went from Adaptec... to PMC-Sierra... to Microsemi nowadays. But regardless of what the company is called, the product works wonders even with older hard drives, I just wish it had more cache memory.
My favorite HDD monitoring software, Hard Disk Sentinel, unfortunately cannot see the drives through the controller to monitor SMART values, but using Adaptec's Maxview Storage Manager works.