When we flip the board we can see the new AM3 socket. Mind you that AM2+ motherboards can support AM3 processors as well. Yet Socket AM3 motherboards can not support Socket AM2+ processors. Keep that in mind. The socket design and power circuitry can support processors with up to a 160 Watt TDP, so there will be no issues with even the most high-end processors.

Relocated is the 8-pin power connector. No closer to the edge of the motherboard, actually a very good location, close-by the PSU.

The board supports four unbuffered non-ECC DDR3 SDRAM DIMM sockets and up to 8 GB (tested by ECS) of memory can be installed on the board. For AM3 processors, DDR3-800/1066/1333 is supported.

Under the copper colored heatsink the SB750 (Southbridge) chip is located. It actually can support 12 USB connectors compliant with USB 2.0 from an embedded USB controller. The SB750 also supports a P-ATA IDE for one IDE port (up to 2 IDE devices) with UDMA-33, ATA-66/100/133 support from an embedded IDE controller.

The board has six S-ATA II ports with up to 300MB/s from the chipset with RAID 0,1,0+1,5 support. Though it's fake-raid (CPU based). It also has one eSATA port.