After a Year and a Half since the initial release of the 790FX Platform & Quad Core Phenom Processors we Finally see the Tides Turning Drastically in AMD's Favor. For those of us who have been on the 790FX Platform since its release and debugging the problems associated with Phenom and the 790FX Platform Bios we can all agree that all of our collective hard work has paid off. I would like to take the time to acknowledge and thank all of you who have contributed many, many hard intensive hours in debugging this Platform and you should all be congratulated for your dedication and hard work because together we have turned what was considered the Red Headed Step Child of the tech industry into a major contender against AMD's Rival Intel !

Now we Take a Closer Look at THE "New" D.F.I LanParty DK 790XB-M3H5 the first Release in a Series of 3 Motherboards to be Released from D.F.I based on the the AM3 Platform SB750 with DDR3 Memory Support. I will be reviewing the CPU , NB , RAM Performance of this Motherboard and the quality of Workmanship of the Bios.
This Review is Dedicated to Franky HSIEH & his Mom






BOX & ACCESSORIES




~ 4 x SATA cable
~ 2 x Molex to 2 x SATA connector
~ 1 x Pata HDD cable
~ 1 x Crossfire link cable
~ I/O back panel
~ Package of Easy Grab Cmos jumpers
~ User manual
~ ABS installation guide
~ Driver disk



The Motherboard












Product Specs


CPU

* AMD® Phenom™ II processor
* HyperTransport 3.0 (5200MT/s) HyperTransport 1.0 (2000/1600MT/s)
* AMD OverDrive provides tuning options using the new “Advanced Clock Calibration” overclocking feature.
* Socket 938 AM3 45nm

CPU Socket

* Socket AM3

Chipset

* AMD chipset - Northbridge: AMD 790FX - Southbridge: AMD SB750

System Memory

* Four 240-pin DDR3 DIMM sockets
* Supports DDR3 1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz
* Delivers up to 21Gb/s bandwidth at 1333MHz
* Supports dual channel (128-bit wide) memory interface
* Supports non-ECC unbuffered DIMMs
* Supports up to 16GB system memory Windows® 32-bit operating system is unable to accurately detect more than 4GB system memory. Therefore, if you are using this operating system, we strongly recommend that you install a less than 3GB system memory.

Expansion Slots

* 3 PCI Express (Gen 2) x16 slots - 2-way CrossFire at x16/x16 or x16/x4 bandwidth - 3-way CrossFire at x16/x16/x4 bandwidth
* 3 PCI slots

BIOS

* Award BIOS
* CMOS Reloaded
* CPU/DRAM overclocking
* CPU/DRAM/Chipset overvoltage
* 8Mbit SPI flash memory

Audio

* Realtek ALC885 8-channel HD Audio Codec
* High-performance DACs with 106dB dynamic range (A-Weight), ADCs with 101dB dynamic range (A-Weight)

LAN

* Marvell 88E8056 PCIE Gigabit LAN controller
* Fully compliant to IEEE 802.3 (10BASE-T), 802.3u (100BASE-TX) and 802.3ab (1000BASE-T) standards

Serial ATA with RAID

* Supports up to 6 SATA devices
* SATA speed up to 3Gb/s
* RAID 0/1/0+1(10)/5/JBOD/AHCI

IDE

* One IDE connector allows connecting up to two UltraDMA 133Mbps hard drives

Rear Panel I/O Ports

* 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
* 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
* 1 optical S/PDIF-out port
* 1 coaxial RCA S/PDIF-out port
* 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports
* 1 RJ45 LAN port
* Center/subwoofer, rear R/L and side R/L jacks
* Line-in, line-out (front R/L) and mic-in jacks

I/O Connectors

* 3 connectors for 6 additional external USB 2.0 ports
* 1 connector for an external COM port
* 1 front audio connector
* 1 CD-in connector
* 1 IrDA connector
* 1 CIR connector
* 6 Serial ATA connectors
* 1 40-pin IDE connector
* 1 floppy connector
* 1 24-pin ATX power connector
* 1 8-pin 12V power connector
* 2 4-pin 5V/12V power connectors (FDD type)
* 1 front panel connector
* 6 fan connectors
* 1 diagnostic LED
* EZ touch switches (power switch and reset switch)

Power Management

* ACPI and OS Directed Power Management
* ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
* Wake-On-PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
* Wake-On-USB Keyboard/Mouse
* Wake-On-Ring
* Wake-On-LAN
* RTC timer to power-on the system
* AC power failure recovery

Hardware Monitor

* Monitors CPU/system/chipset temperature
* Monitors 12V/5V/3.3V/Vcore/Vbat/5Vsb/Vdimm/Vchip voltages
* Monitors the speed of the cooling fans
* CPU Overheat Protection function monitors CPU temperature during system boot-up

PCB

* ATX form factor 8 Layer PCB
* 24.5cm (9.64") x 30.5cm (12")




Bios


Screen Shots