ASUS M4A89GTDPRO/USB3

Asus' M4A89GTDPRO/USB3 is one of the first motherboards on the market to pack AMD's new 890GX corelogic chipset and appears good value straightaway.

On the feature front the Asus offers multi-GPU CrossFireX compatibility, USB3.0 support and is equipped with D-Sub, DVI and HDMI output ports. The last output is important when using the onboard GPU to output HDCP content to HDTVs.

The Asus proved quirky when it came to building our rig around it however. While
the board worked flawlessly with all our components and the OS installation was
hassle-free, the machine repeatedly froze while installing the ‘AMD USB filter driver' from the supplied driver CD. We were never able to get past this, so we eventually had to skip installing this.

Like the Gigabyte 790FXTA-UD5 the Asus is equipped with a feature packed BIOS. You can modify voltages, frequencies and more but unlike the Gigabyte's BIOS, the
M4A89GTDPRO/USB3 alerts you when it thinks you're going to change something that will prevent your system from booting. For example when we set the ‘DRAM Frequency' at 1600MHz a message appeared and alerted us to the fact that additional
voltage might be necessary for the modules to function.

The Asus proved a strong performer; it was the second fastest motherboard in this
grouptest on the whole.