Asus M3A79-T Deluxe

It seems whatever electronic you might have a need for Asus has a product for you with numerous varities on every chipset, various laptops, and the huge amount of consumer goods they produce. Today we'll be looking a product that's a unique combination of chipsets from AMD. Let's take a look at the Asus M3A79-T Deluxe and see what all it has to offer. What makes the M3A79-T Deluxe so different is the fact that it marries the Northbridge of the AMD 790FX chipset with the brand new SB750 Southbridge. Until now most boards were still using not only the older SB700 but rather the antiquated SB600 from ATI. The SB700 made it's debut with the 780G integrated graphics chipset and more recently the SB750 with the follow-up the 790GX. For those who don't know the SB750 solves a number of problems with SouthBridge performance all around from the USB bus to SATA. It also adds in full RAID 0/1/5/10 support. The major new feature though is support for AMD's new Advanced Clock Calibration which allows for much higher and more reliable overclocks through AMD's Overdrive and the BIOS. AMD haven't released many details on how it works but suffice to say it does and it extends Phenom overclocking greatly. Combine this with the 790FX Northbridge chipset with Quad PCI-e 16x Crossfire support and you have the ultimate AMD motherboard. Looking at the rear I/O panel the M3A79-T Deluxe features six USB 2.0 ports, 1 Gigabit port, 8 channel HD audio through coax and optical S/PDIF connections, Firewire support, 1 PS2 Keyboard or Mouse port, and a LAN port. Ususally for a board this high-end there will be two Gigabit ports but it's not a huge loss and it covers everything else. There's room for additonal expansion of USB and Firewire ports with add-on brackets. Internally the board sports one floppy disk connector, an IDE connector, six SATA ports, four PCI-Express 16x slots, two PCI slots, four DDR2 1066 RAM slots. The board supports HyperTransport 3.0 of course as with other Socket AM2+ motherboards. Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe is one of their first Socket AM2+ boards and sports the 790FX with the older SB600 Southbridge. Not only do we do all our performance testing against it but also we wanted to see how similar the boards were. As you can see they are nearly identically physically with a few minor adjustments. Accessories include two Asus Crossfire bridge cables, IDE cable, floppy adapter, six SATA cables, 2 SATA-to-Molex power adapters, a Q-Shield, multi-function module with 2 USB 2.0 ports and a 1394 port, and the Q-Connector kit. All of Asus' now standard features are sported here with their AI line for better overclocking and power consumption and ExpressGate which we looked at in depth previously. More information on the AI software can be found here. The BIOS is a standard high-end Asus BIOS which means plenty of options and features coupled with a BIOS that is easy to use and user friendly once you learn your way around it. With the SB750 chipset overclocking seems to have become much more standard and we're not seeing a lot of variance with AMD's Advanced Clock Calibration. With our Phenom X4 9950 BE we hit 3.3GHz which is where we've reached with other SB750 chipset based boards. Here are the spec from Asus. CPU AMD Socket AM2+ / AM2 Processors for AMD® Phenom™ FX / Phenom™ / Athlon™ / Sempron™ processors AMD Cool 'n' Quiet™ Technology Supports CPU up to 140W Chipset AMD 790FX/SB750 System Bus Up to 5200 MT/s Up to 5200 MT/s HyperTransport™ 3.0 interface for AM2+ CPU 2000 / 1600 MT/s for AM2 CPU Memory 4 x240-pin DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR2 1066/800/667 Memory Dual Channel memory architecture *Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per channel only. Refer to www.asus.com for the memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists). **Due to OS limitation, when installing total memory of 4GB capacity or more, Windows® 32-bit operation system may only recognize less than 3GB. Hence, a total installed memory of less than 3GB is recommended. Expansion Slots 4 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slots with ATI CrossFireX™ support (@ dual x16, triple x16 / x8 / x8, or quad x8 modes) 2 x PCI 2.2 CrossFire Supports ATI CrossFireX™ graphics cards; up to Quad CrossFireX™ Storage Southbridge 1 xUltraDMA 133/100/66 6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports Support RAID 0,1,5,10 Marvell® 88SE6111 SATA controller 1 x External SATA 3Gb/s port (SATA On-the-Go) LAN Marvell® 88E8056 Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI NET 2 Audio ADI® AD2000B 8 -Channel High Definition Audio CODEC - Supports Jack-Detection, Multi-Streaming, and Front Panel Jack-Retasking - Coaxial / Optical S/PDIF Out ports at back I/O - ASUS AI Audio 2 - ASUS Noise Filtering IEEE 1394 LSI® L-FW3227 controller supports 2 x 1394a ports (1 at mid-board; 1 at back panel) USB 12 USB 2.0 ports (6 ports at mid-board, 6 ports at back panel) ASUS AI Lifestyle Features ASUS Quiet Thermal Solutions: - ASUS 8+2 Phase Power Design - ASUS Fanless Design: Heat pipe solution - ASUS Fanless Design: Stack Cool 2 - ASUS Q-Fan 2 ASUS Express Gate: - Access the Internet in 5-second* boot time without entering Windows - Friendly picture manager interface *Actual boot time subject to hardware configuration. ASUS Power Saving Solutions: - ASUS AI Gear 2 - ASUS AI Nap ASUS Crystal Sound: - ASUS AI Audio 2 - ASUS Noise Filtering ASUS EZ DIY: - ASUS Q-Shield - ASUS Q-Connector - ASUS O.C. Profile - ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2 - ASUS EZ Flash 2 - Onboard Switch Overclocking Features Intelligent overclocking tools: - AI Overclocking (Intelligent CPU Frequency Tuner) - AI Booster Utility Precision Tweaker 2: - vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.0125V increment - vDIMM: 36-step DRAM voltage control - vChipset (NB): 16-step Chipset voltage control SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) - FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 600MHz at 1MHz increment - PCI Express frequency tuning from 100MHz up to 150MHz at 1MHz increment Overclocking Protection: - ASUS C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall) Special Features ASUS MyLogo 2™ Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x PS/2 Keyboard / Mouse combo port 1 x Optical + 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out ports 1 x External SATA port 1 x IEEE1394a port 1 x LAN (RJ45) port 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 8-channel Audio I/O ports Internal I/O Connectors 3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports 1 x Floppy disk drive connector 1 x IDE connector 1 x COM connector 6 x SATA connectors 1 x CPU Fan connector 2 x Chassis Fan connectors 1 x Power Fan connector 1 x IEEE1394a connector Front panel audio connector 1 x S/PDIF Out header Chassis Intrusion connector CD audio in 24-pin ATX Power connector System Panel (Q-Connector) 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector Power on Switch Reset Switch BIOS 8 Mb Flash ROM AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.5, ACPI 2.0a, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2 Manageability WOL by PME, WOR by PME, WOR by Ring, Chasis Intrusion, PXE Accessories 2 x ASUS CrossFire bridge cables 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable 6 x Serial ATA cables 1 x 2-port Serial ATA power cable 1 x Q-Shield 1 x User's manual 1 x Multi-functional module (1-port IEEE 1394a + 2-port USB2.0) 1 x Q-connector Kit (USB, 1394, system panel; Retail version only) *The floppy disk drive cable is purchased separately Support Disc Drivers ASUS Express Gate ASUS PC Probe II ASUS Update ASUS AI Suite AMD OverDrive Utility (AOD) Anti-virus software (OEM version) Form Factor ATX Form Factor 12 x 9.6 ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm ) Let's move onto performance. Here is our test system CPU AMD Phenom X4 9950BE Memory Corsair XMS Dominator 4GB Hard Drive Western Digital 750GB Heatsink Zalmaan 9700 Display Samsung 20" LCD Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 with Catalyst 8.9 drivers. We tested the transfer rates of our Western Digital 750GB to tested AMD's SB750 southbridge. Burst Speed Average Write Speed CPU Utilization Asus M3A79-T Deluxe 208.6MB/s 72.7MB/s 3% Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe 205.1MB/s 70.7MB/s 2% We see a slight boost from the newer Asus board here with hard drive performance. Next we tested external USB 2.0 transfer rates with a WD Raptor hard drive. Burst Speed Average Read Speed Asus M3A79-T Deluxe 31.5 MB/s 27 MB/s Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe 30.8 MB/s 29.5MB/s Not a huge difference at least with our Raptor tests in USB performance between the two. Next we tested game performance which we didn't expect a change but to be cover all bases. Cryis CPU Bench UT3Flyby 3DMark 2006 Asus M3A79-T Deluxe 19.8 fps 103.2 fps 8657 Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe 19.9 fps 102.3 fps 8613 No real difference between the two that can't be explained by just variables in testing. Power consumption is something we also wanted to test to see if there was any difference between the SB750 and SB600 chipset. Idle Load Asus M3A79-T Deluxe 150W 200W Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe 163W 210W We do see a slight difference in about 10W abut the M3A32-MVP Deluxe was the version with the Wi-Fi module which could explain the difference in power. Either way it isn't a significant amount. Finally we come to overclocking testing the SB750's ACC versus regular overclocking through the M3A32 BIOS. Phenom X4 9950BE Overclock Asus M3A79-T Deluxe 3.31GHz Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe 3.11GHz This is where we see the largest difference between the two boards with the M3A79-T Deluxe able to reach 200MHz higher overclock than the one with the SB600 chipset. A fairly large difference between the two. Conclusion: We're glad to see Asus fill the void of a 790FX chipset with four PCI-Express 16x lanes with the newer SB750 chipset. The older board definitely needed that step up and Asus has done an excellent job in implementing it. We were surprised though by overall how little difference it seemed to make compared to the board with the SB600 chipset except in regards to overclocking. If you already have the M3A32-MVP Deluxe it definitely doesn't seem worth the upgrade just for the SB750 chipset but if you're not, and you need Quad PCI-E Crossfire then this is the board to get. For the most part though we feel most will likely be okay with dual 8x Crossfire of the 790GX but there are always those who want to push things further. Pricing: The M3A79-T is available at MWave for $192 right now. This is roughly a $40 increase over the Asus 790GX motherboard. Score: 96%