ASUS Readies M4A89TD PRO Motherboard

[btarunr]

At its displays at the ongoing CeBIT event, ASUS surprised many with a pair of Crosshair IV Series motherboards showing a renewed interest at the very high-end of the AMD platform. Incidentally, the company is also preparing a mid-range motherboard based on the AMD 890FX chipset, the M4A89TD PRO. The new board builds entirely on what the chipset has to offer with a slight addition of a two-port USB 3.0 controller. The AM3 socket is powered by a 10-phase VRM, supporting 140W CPUs. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots with its own 2-phase VRM.

The 890FX chipset gives out two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 full-bandwidth slots, other expansion slots include an open-ended PCI-E 1.1 x4, a PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. All six SATA 6 Gb/s ports the SB850 southbridge gives out are internal, an additional JMicron controller gives out IDE and eSATA. The board boasts of ASUS' "Core Unlocker" switch which simplifies unlocking disabled physical cores on some dual, triple, and quad-core chips. Other features include 7.1 channel audio, gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0 for connectivity. The M4A89TD PRO should be released around the time when AMD unveils its latest processors.



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[Mussels]

this board looks good - odd layout with the large spacing between the PCI-E slots however.

 

[Marineborn]

they gotta really slot putting that 1x slot under the first 16x, any current and last gen video card is gonna cover it up and screw you right out of the abilitiy to go 16x 16 Crossfire...*sigh*

 

[Mussels]

they gotta really slot putting that 1x slot under the first 16x, any current and last gen video card is gonna cover it up and screw you right out of the abilitiy to go 16x 16 Crossfire...*sigh*

agreed. the board only has 6 slots, so why not leave that bit blank and put it ABOVE the top 16x slot?

 

[Marineborn]

agreed. the board only has 6 slots, so why not leave that bit blank and put it ABOVE the top 16x slot?

come on mussels, thats would make sense we cant have any of that. lol

 

[Mussels]

come on mussels, thats would make sense we cant have any of that. lol

and people wonder why i havent bought an AM3 system yet...


seriously, whats with these people? dont they think? do they not use video cards in their test labs?

 

[Marineborn]

im betting this is there logic, okay a low end user might have to use that pci1 slot for a random card and can stick his video card in the second pcie16 slot, single card...okay...now there like okay if they have 2 cards, they can just use a 8x port to use anything else they have, its universal, DAM IM A GENIUS theres no way this can fail

 

[va4leo]

this board looks good - odd layout with the large spacing between the PCI-E slots however.

Would fit three slot graphics quite nicely in SLI / CF ^^

 

[Mussels]

Would fit three slot graphics quite nicely in SLI / CF ^^

quite true. sadly, leaves you no real usable slots if you do however.

 

[Velvet Wafer]

i find the positioning of the NB highly exotic

 

[pantherx12]

i find the positioning of the NB highly exotic

I approve of this NB position


Have to agree about slot layout, but this isn't a high end board and non high end boards tend to be layed out stupidly for some reason ( perhaps they do it to force people to buy a highend board for crossfire)

 

[Mussels]

hey i didnt notice the NB... looks awesome, wont conflict with massive CPU heatsinks

 

[Velvet Wafer]

hey i didnt notice the NB... looks awesome, wont conflict with massive CPU heatsinks

also, you only need one fan, and not 2, to cool both the NB and Mosfet area of the board

 

[AsRock]

this board looks good - odd layout with the large spacing between the PCI-E slots however.

Yeah it be a pain with those sata ports there. It's enough for me not to buy it too however i do like the rest and how it is.

 

[Mussels]

Yeah it be a pain with those sata ports there. It's enough for me not to buy it too however i do like the rest and how it is.

better than most. i absolutely hate those right angled sata connectors many high end boards use, since it means you cant hook up sata to e-sata brackets at the back of the case (cables dont reach)

a really massive GPU might inhibit you using some of those sata ports, but shit.. if you get two massive cards (5970's?) for crossfire, you gotta expect to lose something in return.

 

[pantherx12]

Mussels, buy some longer cables you cheapy bastard

 

[Mussels]

Mussels, buy some longer cables you cheapy bastard

cant.

these things only come in two lengths: short and really short.

 

[pantherx12]

Well that's not very useful at all D:

 

[WarEagleAU]

I don't wonder Mussels, lol. I like that VRM/NB cooler, SB looks like cheapo thrown in. I don't mind the spacing, but that 1x is really in a bad spot.