Introduction

Just released into the retail space from ASUS, sporting one of AMD's latest 9-series chipsets, the M5A97 EVO is a full-size entry-level product equipped with the new AMD970 chipset. With AMD set to release a slew of new CPUs and APUs in the near future, the ASUS M5A97 EVO's release is a pre-emptive strike, allowing users an easy incremental upgrade using their current AM3 CPUs, so their systems are ready and waiting for the upcoming AMD AM3+ CPU/APU launch. With a standard black and blue color scheme, the M5A97 EVO seeks to punish the competition, offering several exclusive features not seen elsewhere. Will it turn the competition black and blue, or does the color scheme hint that it's going to take a few lumps itself? We put it in the ring, and see what sort of fighter it really is.

Specifications

AMD 970 Chipset

Launched during Computex 2011, the AMD 970 chipset is the lesser of the three new northbridge options from AMD. All three feature several new features for the 9-Series chipsets, but the majority of technology is carried over from AMD’s previous 8-Series products. Featuring Hypertransport 3.0, and native SATA 6 Gb/s connectivity via the SB950, the 9-Series from AMD is an incremental upgrade. The big marquee difference, of course, is the new AM3+ CPU support, CPUs which have yet to arrive within the retail space, and are expected later this year. All 9-series chipsets provide DDR3-1866 memory support natively, providing a supporting CPU is installed. Also available is an IOMMU connection, allowing virtual machines to directly access hardware capabilities, rather than offering a software interface using hardware emulation. Although not natively supported in the Windows environment at this time, this feature is more intended for Linux users.

The AMD 970 chipset offers a single PCIe 2.0 x16 connection for a single graphics card, while the 990X allows that link to be split into two separate PCIe 2.0 x8 connections, for multi card configurations. The 990FX chipset features two full PCIe 2.0 x16 connections for graphics, with options to split the links into two separate PCIe 2.0 x8 links, as decided by OEM board layout and design. An extra x4 link is also available, and the AMD SB950 Southbridge chipset houses most of the I/O functionality, such as the six native SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

Of course, that leads to today's product, the ASUS M5A97 EVO. Will it offer an evolution for AMD products, as its name suggests? We put it through the paces, and find out.

Packaging

The ASUS M5A97 EVO comes in what has become standard packaging for ASUS in 2011. The striking black box with green and white lettering is common among all ASUS products, with the exception of the “ROG” series, which has packaging all its own. The simple, but effective design carries very few things on its front face, with just eight logos showing which socket the board supports, and the included ASUS technologies found inside. The rear of the box goes into much greater detail, describing briefly each main technology, while a diagram of the board itself sits nicely on the left side, pointing out all of the board’s features in an easy-to-understand fashion. ASUS deserves a bit of commendation for their package design; coupled with a very straight-forward naming scheme for all products, the box not only looks good on store shelves, its simplicity allows consumers to immediately spot the product they need, without fancy graphics and oodles of logos that might detract from what's really in the box.


Upon opening the box, we find the board right on top, wrapped in a protective anti-static bag. ASUS uses this internal packaging layout for all current products, with the motherboard right on top, so inspection of products at the store is a simple and easy task. Under the board we find the included accessories, which seem pretty sparse in comparison to some of the other products that have undergone torture in our bench station. However, being priced as it is, we did expect as much, and while we would have liked to have seen a bit more here, this is a trivial issue for a product in this price range.