Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB Motherboard Review

Board Features, Slots and Specs

The bottom 16x PCI-E slot is the primary graphics slot, a layout that’s fairly common with AMD motherboards. By default, the two 16x slots operate in a dual-8x configuration; a switch card (see main photograph) must be placed in the white PCI-E slot to yield 16x speed in the primary blue slot.

However, we found that no matter which configuration we used for the switch card and our test graphics card, we couldn’t obtain 16 lanes of bandwidth. If you mistakenly place the switch card in the blue slot, the board will refuse to boot too. A neater way to achieve the switch card’s intended purpose is to use dedicated ICs soldered to the board to automatically switch the PCI-E lanes. However, this adds a significant amount to the overall price of a motherboard.

Asus was keen to point out that while it was happy for us to review the board it sent us, it was an early pre-launch sample (it was in the lab for a month before the chipset even launched) and that the issue may be resolved in a BIOS update. We should also point out that we didn’t see much sign of slowdown from our graphics card in our gaming tests due to the ‘limited’ PCI-E bandwidth.


Aside from the graphics slots, you’ll find a 1x and a 4x PCI-E slot, and two PCI slots. CrossFireX and Hybrid CrossFireX are supported, with the latter using the IGP plus a limited choice of budget-priced graphics cards.

Also present are FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA and a PS/2 port. Six USB ports can be found on the rear I/O block, two of which support USB 3. Audio is provided courtesy of a Realtek ALC892 8-channel HD codec, with the usual array of outputs, plus an optical S/PDIF out.

Finishing off the backplate are D-Sub, dual-link DVI and HDMI outputs for the IGP. However, the orientation of the socket on this board means that a large heatsink could clash with tall DIMMs.

Specifications

• Chipset: AMD 890GX
  
• CPU support: Socket AM3 Phenom II, Athlon II and Sempron 100-series
  
• Memory support: 4 slots: max 16GB DDR3 (1,866MHz)
  
• Expansion slots: Two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots (electrical: one 16x or two 8x), one 1x PCI-E, one 4x PCI-E, two PCI
  
• Sound: HD Audio via Realtek ALC892 with 8-channel support
  
• Networking: Realtek 8111E Gigabit Ethernet
  
• Ports: 6 x SATA 6Gbps, 1 x PS/2, 13 x USB 2, 2 x USB 3, 2 x FireWire, LAN, 4 x surround audio out, line in, mic, optical S/PDIF out, eSATA, DVI, D-Sub, HDMI
  
• Dimensions (mm): 305 x 244 (ATX)