ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard

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Introduction :

When presented with the Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H now follows with a motherboard ASUS 890GX from the house. ASUS has provided us this time, the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3. At first glance, both motherboards are equipped quite similar. Both USB 3.0 and SATA 6G Pro/USB3 belong to the repertoire of M4A89GTD. There are two PCIe ports for a possible interconnection of two ATI graphics cards in Crossfire. A special feature of the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 offers in comparison to the Core Unlocking Gigabyte mainboard a function for which even the PCB itself will be made directly to advertising. This allows the user in his Phenom CPU, for example, has only three cores, unlock the fourth core - provided this is technically correct. Whether to offer the M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 Activation options in addition to the CPU cores, and puts even more has the potential of overclocking in respect of the board, will clarify this test.

The M4A89GTD Pro / USB3 will have 10 stages to feed the CPU VRM, capable of supporting up to 140W AMD CPUs, 2-phase VRM to power four DDR3 DIMM slots, gambling AMD Chipset AMD 890GX + SB800 with support for DirectX 10.1. Offer up to six SATA 6Gbps and a controller for a JMicron IDE port. In the game of expansion slots find two PCIe x16 (x8/x8), two PCI, one PCIe x1 and PCIe x4. Connectivity, see 8 +2 channel HD audio with SPDIF output, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, FireWire, and VGA video outputs, DVI, HDMI.

Well, the color scheme prefers the black and blue (something like the Gigabyte is often used lately). In this fashion we add heatsinks with heatpipes and memory banks of two different colors, so you know what each channel (dual in this case). Aesthetically there are not many differences from other nameplate, except for some details that we will see later. We have a general plan of the board here :

In the area around the CPU socket we see that we have the classic clamp plate AMD, here is black. On this point there is nothing interesting, except that the ATX power connector is in front of banks of memory and 8-pin ATX is next to the upper passive heatsinks. These cover the various phases of power of the plate (8 +2 phase) and aid in cooling.

Focusing on chipsets, we have to say that the 890GX offers high performance, high definition and high efficiency (all high, come on). Basically, the difference from previous models is that it incorporates integrated graphics ATI Radeon HD 4290, which is a model slightly higher than previous generations. It can be combined with the 5450 performance for additional hybrid. It supports DirectX 10.1. This chart (goes to 700 MHz core speed) supports Blu-ray maximum native resolution and rescaled and decoding MPEG2, VC-1 and H.264. But without a doubt, the greatest advantage of the chipset, which is manufactured at 55 nm, is that natively support the SB850 SATA 6 Gbps, something that has this board and that is a major step forward in the standardization of this interface.

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Impressions :

The PCB held in dark brown ASUS has assembled a heat pipe, which is responsible for cooling the power supply to the CPU and 890GX. When the voltage converters come to fix push pins into play, the North Bridge cooler is fastened by screws. Unfortunately, only two of the six SATA ports are angled, the remaining four are somewhat unfavorably placed at the bottom of the mainboard. One IDE port is still there for older drives, a floppy port on the other hand, waived ASUS.

The BIOS is typically mounted in a socket. There is no dual bios not. Overall, it would have been allowed to be a little more fan connectors. When using a video card must be inserted switch in the top PCIe slot, a VGA, so that the bottom PCI slot full 16 lanes available.

The 8 +2 phase power available to this motherboard are able to feed more hungry AM3 processors and can deliver 140W fearlessly and more power. Something remarkable in this motherboard is the 8-pin connector for power phase, which was elevated to the level of the sink to make it simple cable connection from the source of power. Another advantage of this motherboard is that all capacitors are solid state. In the left upper corner you can appreciate the ASUS EPU chip, energy savings by detecting the load which is under the processor and is thus moderating the power delivery to make it into perspective only when necessary.

This chip is no longer a stranger to you, but still deserves a presentation as everyone else, the AMD 890GX with his SidePort H5TQ1G638FA Hynix 128MB to 1333MHz.

In one corner we have the SB850 south bridge, the JMB361 controller that delivers internal IDE port and an eSATA on the rear panel. It is also possible to see the six ports SATA 6Gb / s, with them is the BIOS chip just below the south bridge. The clock generator on this motherboard is ASUS 9LPRS477CKL ICS chip, which together with the quartz crystal has its beats time you should follow. The audio codec Realtek ALC892 8-channel provides support for both analog and digital outputs, in addition to an ASUS Noise Filter, all to give the best at the lowest cost. From left to right is the VT6308P VIA driver that supports two IEEE 1394 ports (one internal and one at back panel) in the middle is the tiny driver that delivers Realtek RTL8111E Ethernet port on the rear panel. Finally, the NEC chip is delivering D720200F1 support for two USB 3.0 ports available.

Here we have the power phase for RAM, and along with these two switches with a push. The first left is MemOK!, Troubleshoot button that allows compatibility with memories and operates when the user presses to automatically solve the problem, setting up the reports so that the system starts properly. The two switches that are seen on the right are respectively the Key II Turbo activating the automatic overclock the platform without leaving your desk, and finally the second switch and more "important" is one that allows you to unlock hidden core processors that have them. Core Unlocker This operates automatically when activated, if doing nothing else.

Features :

ASUS motherboard has the M4A89GTD a few nice features built-Pro. Part of it is the core Unlocker which the disabled cores of a CPU can enable it, insofar as these are not defective. While this certainly is attractive for the end user, we have in the current financial position of AMD concerns in such official functions.

Furthermore, there is an option to automatically overclock the CPU and the onboard graphics, which is called Key II Turbo. The manual setting of all parameters is of course still possible. 3.0 In order to ensure support USB, NEC has the known controllers used ASUS, which has a lane PCIe 2.0 with 500 Mbytes / s bound is about. SATA 6 Gbit / s chipset is supported by default, which means there is no action necessary.

Equipment :

The many recent reviews of ASUS motherboards in this chapter had inherited little criticism, but this time was chief engineer and board designers apparently taken leave. While the missing power and reset buttons for the most retail, there are a few strange decisions.

The first thing you notice are the memory slots. These have the new mounting system with just a bracket, which is certainly known to the faithful reader. Only this time around these slots are placed upside down. The real benefit in connection with the limited space in the top slot for a graphics card is so over. But the cards themselves have strange phenomena. The first card is the lower PCIe x16 slot plugged into. Moreover, in the single-operation an additional (included) VGA Switch card in the top PCIe x16 slot to be inserted. This is reminiscent of the beginnings of the PCI Express bus. In recent years this has always allows the software side. By the decision of the lower slot to put the video card, ports but also the accessibility to the SATA difficult if a slightly larger card is installed in the housing.

The ATX panel of the ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 has one eSATA, one FireWire, einwn PS2, one Gigabit LAN and four USB 2.0 ports. The two blue USB ports comply with the standard 3.0. The sound can be picked off six analog inputs / outputs on. In addition, an optical digital output is available. Will the integrated graphics used, the image via DVI, HDMI and VGA. These are the other side port 128 megabytes of memory available.

This board is also still one FireWire and two USB 2.0 ports four times to find. SATA 3.0 channels is made available to six. One IDE port and eSATA port is the JMicron JMB361 controller realized about. For fans are a total of two 4-pin and two 3-pin connectors provide the chipset is passively cooled.

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BIOS :

The box of the motherboard and BIOS the first image have the same reason to put it in some way, but in the latter we can highlight the nuclei unlock option that has the motherboard.

In the BIOS it will review the most relevant paragraphs, among which are the Ai Tweaker, where you can manipulate everything you need to overclock a platform as it should. Another option that we can highlight is the automatic overclock that owns this motherboard, which takes about five minutes to automatically manipulate the frequency of the processor and memories, including their voltages.

Here's the other half of options that can not be seen in the first image, which you can see some video settings and useful integrated calibration options on load voltage when some voltage lines, such as the processor.

All voltages and some important settings that are in the two previous images can be summarized in this table are below where we highlight the small steps at voltages more important of the plate, ie we have at our disposal a wide range of voltages, well above the average.

These are all time available to the user memory, that in all fit the profile of the buyer of this board, an overclocker, but not that makes his life an extreme adventure, only those who need more performance than the average without investing in a more powerful processor or memory.

The always useful hardware monitor, where temperatures can be more important, the speed of the fans and some of the power supply voltages, with the vcore. We also have Q-Fan settings, which is very useful for those who are lovers of silence and do not work hard to get it.

Platform and Methodology :

The platforms with which to compare the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 are the following, also be exploited to see if the new Catalyst 5.10 give us some improvement against the excellent comparative Catalyst 10.3A.

Methodology -

Today we will remain conservative, as the testing methodology we use is the same as that already used. We will go through an extensive battery of tests on the motherboard that we have today as host, along with two motherboards with similar characteristics, a 890GX chipset previously reviewed and another with the H55. Each test will run three times on each plate at least and then the results will be average, so they are more reliable. The results for this analysis were generated previously and because the drivers have not changed dramatically the performance for these platforms is that they were used comparatively.

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System Testing :

Starting the evidence we see that the ASUS platform is almost equivalent to its par ECS, which have excellent performance in these conditions, although the M4A89GTD is a few tenths faster.

The performance of a core 890GX both boards is very similar, as are the graphics performance, but when evaluating the scale with more cores ASUS platform is a step back from the ECS, which is detached by a margin that no is negligible. However, it is known that ECS motherboards have an excellent performance in scenarios like this, but always saved ASUS something up his sleeves and usually smells overclock.

Both writing and reading the 890GX platform go hand in hand, but both are behind the excellent performance shown by BIOSTAR motherboard along with the same memories.

As for reading data through 6Gbps SATA ports and USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel, ASUS is on the way in reading of data in our Intel SSD X25-M 80GB and on the other hand, the Reading USB 2.0 ports we averaged 30.9 MB / s, just over 3 MB / s that your pair ECS.

Continuing with the calculations we see that when we turn to the platform iterations ASUS goes one step ahead of his counterpart ECS and one step back BIOSTAR platform, thanks to its processor is capable of placing in the top of this test.

Graphics Tests :

The first test plot of volume and back on the platform we tested ASUS gives us a very similar result can be obtained with the ECS 890GX.

Without much news we have a very similar result in the test 3DMark DirectX 10, which gives us a very homogeneous results for 890Gx platforms, making it clear that ASUS does not aim to be the best default performance but expects to have other features their products that make them attractive to buyers.

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Because both plates have a 890GX HD 4290 integrated video with the same frequency of the GPU and memory, is that we have a result so close between the two plates and a difference that is not possible to attribute a win between the two plates, what is clear is that both are better solutions than the integrated video Intel HD Graphics.

In Far Cry 2 we see a slight decrease in performance on the M489GTD PRO/USB3, but you can still play but with a lower resolution and quality.

Overclock :

Started by something other than hanging around its brain for a long time and is the ability to unlock nuclei despite having an AMD 890GX. Our victim is known to all II X3 Phenom 720, which as everyone knows has a hidden core which we have had the opportunity to unlock other motherboard. Not take into account what CPU-Z says 1.53 in the north and south bridge, you know that this board has the 890GX + SB850.

Mented After activating the switch plate, a process that must be done with their M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 off, start the operating system, CPU-z open and fortunately we saw that we had four active cores with the cache first and second level of this fourth core. With this we can say that the feature Core Unlocker passed the test of whiteness.

Entering overclock and a good boost with the release of nuclei, we wanted to take this as far 890GX to let us go with a Phenom X4 II 965, in this configuration combining frequency at the frequency of memory and north bridge, achieving 1846 -MHz to 3000 MHz memory and to the north bridge, nothing less than you might expect for this motherboard. Another important thing is that ASUS reports a maximum frequency of 1866MHz overclocked to this board, value not far from what we achieve. The timing of these reports were configured in such a way that we could work stably as reports were overclocked, ie we are about the specifics without raising the voltage of the modules of 1.65 volts.

To achieve this there was no need external cooling, Stack Cool system 3 was sufficient to cool the CPU power phase, the bridge north and south.

Conclusion :

The performance of the platform was almost equivalent to a similar plate with the same AMD 890GX and highlighted the level of configurations that has the BIOS, the assistance programs that incorporates the ASUS CD, the possibilities for much overclock ease, unlocking hidden core and of course the quality of workmanship that is well above what we're used to seeing. High-quality components can go further than with common hardware and BIOS set to explore the user can safely overclock.

After the test session are satisfied with the performance, without being the best at everything was impeccable, as well as we could reach at least 3000MHz for the north bridge with just over 1800 MHz in the reports at the same time, so that this platform may be useful for any session a little more extreme overclock. Something apart from all this is that support USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 are still a beautiful adornment and the hardware support is still low and these features do not add as much as they could in the final result we get on the platform, making it expect that when we have these products in large quantities motherboards support these two standards take off and start generating turnover.

In general, if you want to buy a motherboard that lets you work in everyday life and also overclock when you need it, without having to worry if you go with the motherboard, the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 is what you need.

Positives :

• Excellent overclocking margin that can scale further with patience.
• The cooling system Cool Stack 3 is sufficient for moderate overclocking adventures.
• Core System unlock hidden by a switch.
• Auto Overclock is activated by a switch.
• BIOS sufficiently complete.

Negatives :

• The Catalyst 5.10 no comparative advantages against 10.3A Catalyst for HD 4290.
• No buttons are integrated power and reset.
• Small accessory package considering it is a ASUS motherboard.