The motherboard comes with 8 channel audio which is delivered by Realtek's ALC1200 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC. The rear I/O panel has analog 7.1 audio connectors as well as the Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF Out ports. A VIA VT6315N controller supports the 1394a on the back I/O panel and we spot a Realtek 8112 controller for Gigabit LAN.

That leaves six USB 2.0 ports, legacy PS2 ports for the mouse and keyboard, and an external SATA port.

The SB750 slapped onto the motherboard provides six SATAII internal ports and an eSATA port. The four memory slots support up to 16GB of memory and supports dual channel memory. Next to the processor socket you can see a new 8-phase VRM power design.

The ASUS M4A79 Deluxe motherboard has a total of 12 USB 2.0 ports with six of them being positioned at the bottom edge of the board as seen above.

With the M4A79 Deluxe selling for US $199 in the US, one can expect the next rev to be released as a DDR3 motherboard and to be priced in the same range. The DDR3-supportive model will be known under SKU M4A79T Deluxe.

• M4A79 Deluxe = socket AM2+ DDR2
• M4A79T Deluxe = socket AM3 DDR3

The "T" in the model name indicates DDR3. Anyway, back to the processors. Let's see how well they overclock and tweak.