Asus M4A79T Deluxe review
A great AM3 motherboard for those who want to build a high-end AMD PC. It's also a great performer, but the price puts it out of reach for some.
Asus’s M4A79T Deluxe is by far the most expensive AMD motherboard here, but it does plenty to justify the price.
It has an AM3 processor socket, so it will work only with the latest Phenom II and Athlon II processors. It can accept up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM in four dual-channel memory slots.
The most unusual thing about this board is its four PCI-E x16 slots. It supports quad-CrossFire, so you can fit up to four graphics cards. This may interest flight sim fans and other users who require massive multi-monitor setups, but it’s overkill for most users. Fortunately, the PCI-E x16 slots can also be used for other PCI-E expansion cards. There are also two PCI slots.
The motherboard has AMD’s 790FX Northbridge and SB750 Southbridge. It has one IDE and one floppy connector, plus five SATA ports and an eSATA port. A Realtek ALC1200 processor provides 7.1 audio, which it can output via optical or coaxial S/PDIF outputs or six multi-purpose mini-jack ports. There are two PS/2 ports on the back, six USB ports and a FireWire port, and there’s a bracket in the box for an extra FireWire and two more USB ports.
The M4A79T Deluxe has a brilliant specification and is very overclockable, but what really stands out is its performance. It’s the fastest AM3 board we’ve seen, with an overall score of 106 in our tests. If you’re serious about building a high-performance Phenom II PC, this is the board to buy, if you can afford it.
Basic Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Rating | ***** |
| Processor socket | AM3 |
| Form factor | ATX |
| Size | 305x244mm |
| Processor support | Athlon II, Phenom II |
| Processor external bus | 200MHz (2GHz HyperTransport) |
| Chipset north bridge | AMD 790FX |
| Chipset south bridge | AMD SB750 |
| Passively-cooled north bridge | yes |
| Integrated graphics | No |
| Supported memory type | DDR3 1066/1333/1666 (overclocked) |
| Maximum memory speed | PC3-10600 |
| Memory slots | 4 |
| Maximum memory | 16GB |
| Dual-channel support | yes |
Buying Information | |
| Price | £126 |
| Supplier | http://www.ilgs.co.uk |
| Details | www.digital-fusion.co.uk |
Internal Ports | |
| Power connectors | 1x 24-pin ATX, 1x 4-pin ATX |
| PCI-E x16 slots | 4 |
| Dual graphics architecture | CrossFireX |
| PCI-E x4 slots | 0 |
| PCI-E x1 slots | 0 |
| PCI slots | 2 |
| Fan headers | 4 |
| Floppy ports | 1 |
| IDE ports | 1 |
| Serial ATA ports | 5 |
| RAID chipset (max disks) | AMD SB750 (5x SATA II, RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD) |
Features | |
| Wired network ports | 1x 10/100/1000 |
| Sound (ports) | Realtek ALC1200 (6x analogue out, optical S/PDIF, coaxial S/PDIF) |
| USB2 ports / headers | 6/3 |
| Firewire ports / headers | 1/1 |
| Legacy ports | 2x PS/2, serial header |
| Other ports | eSATA |
| Cables included | 1x SATA, 1x IDE |
| Brackets included | 1x combined bracket with 8-pin FireWire and 2 USB ports |
| Software included | None |
Setup and Overclocking | |
| Voltage adjustment | CPU/RAM/Chipset |
| CPU clock max adjustment | 600MHz |
