I recently received the ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO from ASUS Australia, It has been awhile since playing with an AMD setup and i must say it was great fun, reminds me of the old days when AMD were the kings. AMD was also very generous with giving me a AMD 555 cpu and KINGSTON donated a set of Hyper X 2000 c9 duel channel kit of memory. This new ASUS board is packed with extras USB 3 and SATA 6 RAID, Turbo unlocker and the biggest bonus the new feature called CORE UNLOCKER with a simple flick of a switch next to the ram sots you instantly unlock up to 4 core's from your duel core AMD CPU, No need to play with bios to unlock your cores anymore.

OVERVIEW:























KINGSTON DDR 3 HYPER X 2000 C9 DUAL CHANNEL MEMORY:






SPECIFICATIONS:

CPU

* AMD Socket AM3 ;Phenom™II /Athlon™II /Sempron™ 100 Series Processors, AMD 140W CPU Support, AMD Cool 'n' Quiet™ Technology, Supports 45nm CPU

Chipset

* AMD 890GX/SB850

Memory

* 4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 2000(O.C.)*/1333/1066 Memory
* Dual Channel memory architecture

Expansion Slots


* 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 support ATI CrossfireX (dual x8 speed)
* 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x4
* 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1
* 2 x PCI

VGA

* Integrated ATI Radeon™ HD 4290 GPU
* Multi-VGA output support: HDMI, DVI-D and RGB ports
* Supports HDMI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200 (1080P)
* Supports DVI with max. resolution 2560x1600 @60Hz
* Supports RGB with max. resolution 2560x1440 @75Hz
* Support H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, DirectX10.1 and OpenGL2.0
* Support Shader Model 4.1, Universal Video Decoder (UVD) 2.0
* Max. UMA Memory Size: 512 MB
* 128MB DDR3 1333 sideport memory support
* Hybrid CrossFireX support

Storage

* SB850 Chipset
6 xSATA 6.0 Gb/s supports RAID 0,1,5,10
* JMicron® JMB361 PATA and SATA controller
1x Ultra DMA 133/100 for up to 2 PATA devices

1 x External Power eSATA 3.0 GB/s port

Audio

* ALC 892 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
- BD Audio Layer Content Protection
- Support 192khz/24bit True BD Lossless Sound
- DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC
- Supports Jack-Detection, Multi-Streaming, and Front Panel Jack-Retasking
- Optical S/PDIF Out ports at back I/O
- ASUS Noise Filter

LAN

* Realtek® 8111E Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI NET2

Rear Panel I/O Ports

* 1 x DVI
* 1 x D-Sub
* 1 x HDMI
* 1 x S/PDIF Out (Optical)
* 1 x IEEE 1394a
* 1 x LAN(RJ45) port
* 8 -Channel Audio I/O
* 1 x PS/2 Keyboard (Purple)
* 1 x Power eSATA
* 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
* 2 x USB 3.0 ports

Internal I/O Connectors

* 4 x USB connectors support additional 8 USB ports
* 1 x IDE connector
* 1 x IEEE 1394a connector
* 1 x CPU Fan connector
* 1 x Power Fan connector
* 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
* 1 x Chassis Fan connector (4-pin)
* 1 x Chassis Fan connector (3-pin)
* 1 x S/PDIF Out Header
* 1 x Core Unlocker Switch
* 1 x Turbo Key II Switch
* 1 x MemOK! Button
* Front panel audio connector
* 1 x COM connector
* 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
* 1 x 24-pin ATX Power connector
* 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector
* System Panel

BIOS

* 16 Mb Flash ROM , SPI, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.5, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3

Accessories

* 1 x Ultra DMA 133/100 cable
* 2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s cables
* 2 x Serial ATA 6.0Gb/s cables
* 1 x Q-Shield
* 1 x VGA Switch card
* 2 in 1 Q-connector (USB, System panel; Retail version only)
* User's manual

TEST RIG:
ASUS M4A89GTD-PRO MOTHERBOARD
KINGSTON HYPER X 2000C9 DDR3 MEMORY
ASUS GTX 285 MATRIX GPU
CORSAIR HX1000 PSU
AMD PHENOM X2 555
WD 160GB HARD DRIVE








OVERCLOCKING:

The best stable overclock on this AMD Phenom X2 555 was 4013GHZ with 3 cores enabled, unfortunate i couldn't get 4 cores stable with an overclock but i was pretty happy with 4ghz from 3 cores. I was hoping i could get more from the RAM but the best i could get it to run at was 1856mhz with c9 seems to still be some memory clocking issues on AMD.


BENCHMARKS:


















ROUND UP:

I found this board to be great fun and playing with AMD again is a good refresh, overclocking on this board was extremely simple i also tested the auto AI TURBO overclock feature with gave me an instant stable 3.6ghz, I could not fault this board apart from the memory clocking i would have liked to achieved 2000MHZ + from this setup but it just did not seem possible.

PRO'S:

PRICE
SATA 6
USB 3
TURBO
CORE UNLOCKER

CON'S:

MEMORY CLOCKING


BIG THANKS TO MATT FROM ASUS AUSTRALIA FOR THE MOTHERBOARD, KINGSTON FOR THE MEMORY AND AMD FOR THE CPU.

UNCLE FESTER.