ASUS M4A89GTD USB 3 review - Introduction

Aah, we merely released our first AMD890GX motherboard review a couple of days ago, and the new chipset is well received. But of course there are many more ODMs out there that have been preparing a new board based on the 890GX chipset from AMD.

The AMD 890GX chipset, the first in the 800 series, with that G in GX for IGP, Integrated Graphics Product.. A motherboard chipset that is based of the recently introduced AMD 785 chipset, it has been revised though and is now paired with the all new AMD SB850 Southbridge chip. Keywords for this chipset are more processor compatibility, better IGP performance, increased bandwidth for the new technologies, embedding a Gigabit Ethernet into the SB850 chip and what surprised us ... AMD has already added a SATA 6G controller into that SB850 chip ready for you to use.

Today we'll have a look at an offering from ASUS, namely the M4A89GTD Pro USB3. A motherboard carrying that new SATA6G controller and sure ASUS dropped a USB 3.0 controller onto this model as well.

What many people however initially expected (yours truly included) was early adoption of USB 3.0 into this chipset as well, this is the one thing that won't be happening. But with a lot of bandwidth and interfaces available on the new chipset we'll see ODMs simply add a USB 3.0 controller chip from NEC onto their motherboard, making sure that most of the 890GX motherboards out there will get support for USB 3.0 as well. And that would make the AMD 890GX motherboards to date the most versatile, up-to date and future ready motherboards for sure.

So yeah, let's have a peek at what we are reviewing today, the all new ASUS M4A89GTD Pro motherboard. Totally yummie to the eyes, grand in performance and extensive in its features. Have a look, after which we'll quickly step into out reference AMD 890GX snippet, and then head onward into the review.