GA-890GPA-UD3H - Bios and Raid

[kaspanatola]

Hi there,

It´s my first post here in Gigabyte Community Forums, so I wish you all a happy new 2012.

I own a GA-890GPA-UD3H rev.2 with AMD X6 1090T processor running with FF bios (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3420&dl=#ov). My questions are:

- Do I need to update to the latest (beta) Bios FGF? Apparently, the board detects and uses the processor correctly but my board's model CPU support list (http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3420), I should. What will be the benefits and what will I loose since it's not a full functional bios (what is meant by remove boot PXE ROM?).
- I currently have 2 Corsair Force 3 120Gb SSD's attached to the SB850 with RAID0 as boot disk (RAID selected in the BIOS). How can I enable write-back cache functionality in RAID BIOS during LD creation, since that option in RAID Bios is not editable (the default is write-through and apparently can't be changed)? In Win7, to improve SSD's performance I can enable NCQ in RaidXpert, and the default is also write-through and again, write-back cache is not selectable.

Any help will be appreciated.

Regards, Kaspa

[teknology9]

Hi kaspanatola....welcome to the forum and Happy New Year.

To answer your question.....I would say yes....as that is the BIOS for that particular CPU. I did the same when I upgraded to to the 1090T for my current MB.  Please read the post below about updating the BIOS.

Here:

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,2441.0.html

Hope this helps

Teknology9

[kaspanatola]

Hi teknology9,

Thank you for your reply.

The first question was not intended on "How to update the Bios" but more "Should I update and what will be the benefits vs. lost functions". Since it's a beta bios, what are the improvements over the latest 'stable' FF ?

The second question was how to get the best SSD Raid0 performance in this board, since I can't enable write-back cache upon array LD bios creation (can't modify the default write-through) nor in the RaidXpert windows utility (it's there but not editable).

My system is:
- GA-890GPA-UD3H, FF bios
- X6 1090T processor
- 4x2Gb Corsair DDr3 1600Mhz
- 2xCorsair Force 3 SSD's 120Gb's (each) in Raid0 (Boot Disk)
- ATI Radeon 5850 graphics card


Regards,
Kaspa

[teknology9]

Hi Kaspa,

Well...just looking at the CPU Support list for your MB...BIOS FF is not  for the 1090T therefore BIOS FF seems not to be the correct BIOS to support the 1090T CPU. So BIOS FGF is the BIOS to use.....as it reads that is what is recommended by Gigabyte.  Please see below:

http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3420

Interms of RAID0 performance forum members have found getting a RAID card like the Highpoint 640 to be a good solution in delivering acceptable speeds...please see link below:

http://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/cs-series_rr600.htm


You can obviously use the onboard SATA ports to RAID your two SSD drives but as I have stated better read/write speeds have been realised by using a RAID card like the one I have mentioned......but you could run tests....it depends what you are content with.

UPDATE

You could also ask the same question, regarding RAID, on the Corsair Forum...here:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/forumdisplay.php?s=02a9fda89a28ede0c11862570663e7f9&f=188

Teknology9

[blackie]

I can speak to the BIOS as I have the same board and processor AND have tried both BIOS. The FF bios supports the 1090T just fine and dandy. The other BIOS is supposed to support the AMD Bulldozer processors - BUT - when I tried it - it would NOT support any overclocking (no mater how minor).

So the Beta BIOS negates any over-clocking. I also asked Gigabyte support and they were very non-committal but essentially said the same as I just stated.

[kaspanatola]

Hi teknology9,

Thank you again for your reply.
I already have the latest firmware rev 1.3.3 in both SSD's.
I will check that I have the latest chipset drivers in my Win7 64bit installation:
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx

Will do some SSD's performance tests (ATTO and Crystal HD Benchmark), and post here the results.Will expect to have some figures later on.

Futhermore, will buy new controller or stay with SB850 based in the feedback of the other forum users.

Regards,Kaspa

[kaspanatola]

Hi blackie,

Thanks for your reply and share experience. Will stay with the FF revision for now, since it seams that the Raid Bios version remains the same.

The second question about the write-back cache, anyone can enable that feature in Raid bios during array creation or/and in the RaidXpert program?

Regards,
Kaspa

[WAWood8]

I also have a 1090T and it also works just fine with BIOS FF.  In fact, when I upgraded recently to FGF, my 1600-class memory had to be throttled back to 1030 in order to get the PC to boot. I reflashed back to FF, and was able to get the memory back to 1600 again.

When that new BIOS came out, the consensus was that it was primarily for the 1100. This is the first I read about it being for the 1090T.

[kaspanatola]

Hi,

Sory for the dalay. In the meanwhile I've decided to install 'FGf' beta bios, run a few tests, run into problems (BSOD's) motivated possibly by memory issues (like possibly WAWood8) and installed again the FF bios version. I find it much more stable, with better memory support (my memory is running 1600Mhz, no problems right know). The memory is 4x2Gb Corsair CMP4GX3M2C1600C7 (timimgs 7-8-7-20-41-2T at 1,60v) stable.

My Raid0 tests (2 SSD's Corsair force3 120Gb) are:

http://postimage.org/image/junlugsqd/
http://postimage.org/image/tgh6arjw5/

I find it strange that most of the write performance tests (red bar) in ATTO shows better values than the read performance values (green bar)...
What do you think of these values?

The current AMD AHCI compatible RAID controller is the lastest version available from AMD site for integrated chipset SB850 (version 3.3.1540.22 date 22-09-2011) and both corsair SSD's have 1.3.3 firmware latest updates.
I have NCQ enabled via RaidXpert but as stated before, couldn't create Raid0 array in the Raid Bios using write-back cache (just write-through) and write-back option isn't also available (selectable) in RaidXpert. The TRIM function is being used.

Did anyone ever enabled write-cache back in this board?

Regards,
Kaspa

[kaspanatola]

By the way, both tests (ATTO and Crystal Disk Mark) in my last reply were taken from my Windows7  installation.
Since I have multiboot (XP 32bit+Win7 Pro 64bit) in my machine, I've run both tests again, this time in my XP installation.
The results are much better than the ones before:

http://postimage.org/image/7mdvs1uw7/
http://postimage.org/image/6ldn2xdwn/

How can those results being much better in XP compared with those taken from win7 ?
Both RAID chipset drivers are the latest taken from AMD site and no hardware/configuration changes were made between tests...
Are the XP 32bit drivers more optimized/efficient than the Win7 64bit ones?

Regards, kaspa