AMD 890GX - ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB 3 SATA 6Gbps Review

AMD 890GX - ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB 3 SATA 6Gbps Review

Introduction

ASUS has always been a top player among AMD motherboards, with an established and impressive track record with past products, not least of which was the impressive Crosshair III Formula. With today’s introduction of its new 890GX northbridge, AMD is once again upping the ante in the integrated-graphics arena, enabling consumers to build computers for HDTV, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray playback that don’t required an add-in graphics card (AMD has already included HDCP support and an HDMI interface in its previous chipsets, the 690G and the 790G.) The new 890GX chipset also features an integrated Radeon HD4290 graphics unit that can decode any current high-definition video codec (H.264 being one of them.) As a result, CPU load is drastically reduced, so that even a humble AMD Phenom II X2 550 CPU (or even lower!) is sufficient for HD video playback.

AMD’s SB850 south bridge, the more important of today's announcements, features SATA 3 (6Gbps) with RAID 0,1,5 and 10, Gigabit Ethernet, HD Audio and two x1 PCIe 2.0 lanes. It also features 14 USB 2.0 ports but no USB 3.0 support. The USB 3.0 ports are implemented via an NEC chip elsewhere on the board. The SB850 is connected to the northbridge via a speedy ALink Express III interface, to make sure that the SATA 3 (6Gbps) implementation doesn’t fall short of much-required bandwidth. To add to that, AMD’s newest design doesn’t put any extra load on the power consumption.

The 780V and 780G chipsets were the first chips to be designed since AMD’s acquisition of ATI and were considered to be the earliest 'real' AMD chipsets. Since then, AMD has continued to improve on their chipsets and the 890GX/SB850 combination brings together the potent mix of SATA 6 Gbps and USB 3.0, along with a much improved IGP solution – the Radeon HD4290.

The ASUS M4A89GTD Pro forms the basis for the review platform today. It must be noted that this board marks the first native SATA 3 implementation from either Intel or AMD. None of Intel's chipsets currently integrate SATA 3 natively - they all manage by sacrificing PCIe lanes using add-in chips (at extra cost to the consumer). That AMD is first to market with SATA 3 speaks volumes about their design quality and speed.

The Board Layout