Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 Motherboard Review: AMD's 890GX Chipset Makes Its Debut

Julio Franco

Posts: 9,092   +2,043
Staff member
Today we'll be looking at the new AMD 890GX chipset, featuring Radeon HD 4290 integrated graphics and SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) support. Showing off the 890GX is the Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3. This new AM3 motherboard features a 10-phase CPU VRM supporting future AMD CPUs with a 140W TDP, namely the upcoming hexacore processors. All-in-all this is an impressive looking motherboard and should be the perfect catalyst for showing off AMD's new 890GX chipset.

Read the full review at:
https://www.techspot.com/review/252-asus-m4a89gtd-amd-890gx/

Please leave your feedback here.
 
Will they be making this into a model that uses ddr2? I have a phenom II 940 and I don't want to buy a new processor and memory.
 
You don't need to buy new processor on this board (if current processor AM3 / Atlhon II , Phenom II). Just buy new RAM.
 
As far as chipsets go with IGPs, AMD has been hitting the right notes since their 780G. I'm looking forward to some mATX motherboards.
 
Hi.

1- As far as I know, full duplex mean double the speed, but over 2 directions! That mean 2GB/s in one direction and 2GB/s in the other, NOT 4GB/s in 1 direction!

2- By using 2 GPU, you don't loose the x4 PCIe slot, you only loose the 1x. The x4 is 2 slot away of the first x16 slot. The second x16 only have a regular PCI slot after it.

3- The second x16 slot from the CPU is actually the first one to use in a single GPU configuration. You MUST put the little black board in place in the first slot in order to get x16 lanes on the second slot. If you don't, the second slot will work at only x8. If you put your single GPU in the first slot, it will work at only x8. You mention not noticing any drop in speed. Confirm with GPUZ that you GPU is running at x16.

4- You said "This is not something that can be done with H55/P55 or H57 motherboards as an additional PCI Express controller must be installed."

There is no such thing as "Additional PCI express controller"! What you have are PCIe Switch / bridges, such as the PLX or the NF200. Those devices MUST be linked to the system through EXISTING PCIe lanes!

The Gygabyte implementation of USB3 /SATA3 on the P55 platform is to re-allocate x8 lanes of the x16 lanes from the CPU to this this task. That disable the second x16 slot and reduce the first one to x8. Asus use a PLX switch to bridge 4 PCIe 1.1 lanes into 2 PCIe 2.0 lane from the P55 chipset. They preserve the full x16 lanes to the CPU, but at the cost of a huge bottleneck between the PLX and the P55.

Regards,

Ramon
 
I really don`t know what to choose :

Crosshair III Formula or M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

Any advice , maybe a VS Review? :>

Thanks
 
I am surprised (as ever) that when you test a MB targeted for HTPC that you do not test the MB stability in terms of suspend resume with/without various USB devices plugged.. No one seems to be doing this, which remains a hugely important point for most users of HTPC (and the ever ending most nagging problems that does not seem to go away)
Hope you will do a suspend /resume cycle test in upcoming htpc mb test (how many can you do until it crashes...)

Kent
 
Hey Kent, that does not sound like a very scientific test which is probably why no one does it.
 
I bought this board 2 months ago so far I am not very happy. I tried two different video cards both freeze up randomly and now my on board network card is not working.
 
AMD uses 45 nm SOI while Intel uses 32nm High-K that is why AMD processors uses more power....so wait for the coming fab in new york to glue AMD processors in 32-28-22 nm High-K process
 
This may seem like quite a silly question. But does this mobo allow for nVidia GPUs? If not? What's a good mobo that's similar and is nVidia SLi capable?
 
Well, 1 nVidia GPU. I think the motherboard is only ATI Crossfire compatible for multiple cards.
 
Hey,
I just bought new comp.: this mobo+1055t+ati radeon6850...
any idea why the system frezzes when i try to install win7-64x , but ig goes smoothly when i put my olg graphic card instead of the new one.
Installed win7 with my old grep.card and replaced it with my new one , same story .. system frezzes when lounching windows.no err messages what so ever.

i put built in graph card on disable in bios.

(sorry for bad english)
 
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