Asus M4A79-T Deluxe

Asus M4A79-T Deluxe

Manufacturer: Asus
UK Price (as reviewed): £153.91 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $189.99 (ex. Tax)

With DDR3 prices, AM2+ CPUs are soon to be a thing of the past as they'll quickly be replaced by AM3 processors that sport both DDR2 and DDR3 memory. What's more, good AM2+ motherboards pretty difficult to find and so that begs the question: is an AM3 solution the answer if you're an AMD stalwart?

We really did like the M3A79-T Deluxe, that is, before we killed it overclocking an Athlon X2 7750 last December. That problem aside, the board was stable, fast, and generally great for overclocking, so we hope the evolution of this - the M4A79-T Deluxe - should be all that and more.

That said, the two boards aren't exactly alike and there are minor changes for the M4A79-T we'll delve into in due course.

In the box

• Five SATA cables (two of which include 90 degree connectors)
  
• IDE cable
  
• PCI bracket with two USB 2.0 and one 6-pin Firewire port
  
• One CrossFire-X bridge
  
• Asus Q-Connector for front panel and one pair of USB 2.0 pin-outs
  
• Metal rear I/O shield
  
• Manual, driver disk and Asus sticker
  
• Asus Turbo Key guide

Asus throws in just about everything, including a full set of SATA cables, a mixed USB and Firewire bracket, the CrossFire bridge - every cable and extra connector that should be needed. As always the Q-connectors are surprisingly useful and we recommend using them, and Asus's manual is informative. The end result is there's a complete bundle, so well done Asus.