Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 review

The Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 is an AM3+ motherboard that uses AMD’s 990X chipset and supports its range of FX, Phenom II and Athlon II processors. This chipset sits between AMD’s high-end 990FX and slightly lower spec 970 chipsets, both in features and in terms of price.

This usually means a good balance between cost and features, and the M5A99X EVO R2.0 doesn’t disappoint with a good range of expansion options and ports that will satisfy most users.

It has three PCI-E x16 slots. You can use two graphics cards in the main slots for SLI or CrossfireX, although the slots both run at x8 speed when used together. The third PCI-E x16 slot runs at just x4 speed all of the time, so is better for other expansion cards. There are also two PCI-E x1 slots and a single PCI slot for older cards to choose from as well, although one of the PCI-E x1 slots will be blocked if you install a graphics card with a large cooler.

You will need to install a graphics card, as the AM3 and AM3+ CPUs don’t have integrated graphics and you can’t get integrated graphics on this chipset.

You certainly won’t be short on USB ports, as there are two USB3 and eight USB ports on the back panel, as well as one USB3 and three USB headers on the motherboard. There’s also one FireWire, two eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet and an old PS/2 ports, as well as optical S/PDIF output with six audio jacks for 7.1 surround sound.

Performance was just as we expected and our AMD FX-8350 processor and 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM achieved an overall score of 90 in our benchmark tests. This is exactly on target for this kind of processor.

The simple UEFI BIOS makes it very easy to make adjustments. There’s even an automatic overclocking setting that will optimise your system speed and help you get a bit more performance out of your system. Should you want to take full control, you’ve got all of the settings you need to make all of your own adjustments.

The M5A99X EVO is a great motherboard and its dual graphics card slots are useful if you really want to use SLI or Crossfire X. However, you can get more features, if you’re willing to spend a bit extra, with the excellent Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5.