ASUS M4A89GTD PRO AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: -UNLOCKS CORES; I bought another manufacturer's version of the new 890GX motherboard and was extremely disappointed to find that it didn't offer core unlocking. Sold that board immediately and bought this one, never looked back! -ASUS QUALITY; I have to admit, ASUS is not normally a favorite of mine, because I prefer Award BIOSes over the AMI BIOSes used by ASUS. But I cannot deny that ASUS products simply reek of high-quality! The board is heavy (always a good sign), obviously painstakingly designed, and has all of the features I need (and then some) -STABILITY; This board is at least as stable as a competitor's offering of the same chipset. PRICE; I have often avoided ASUS in the past because many of their full-featured boards have had very "premium" price tags. But this time, they freaking nailed it! It's priced similarly to other offerings, and I'd be hard-pressed to think of a feature that is not included.

Cons: Just the AMI BIOS. It's a PITA to navigate (as much time as I spend there). But all the necessary features are present and accounted for, so really it's just going to be a matter of getting used to it. Not enough to knock off an Egg.

Overall Review: While ASUS will probably never be my first choice, I cannot in good conscience ignore them anymore. I truly love this board! And a huge thank-you to ASUS for making an extra effort to make core unlocking available by adding their own chip, since ACC has been removed from the 890GX chipset. This board is exactly what I wanted, and it runs my 555 Black Edition as a quad at 4GHz and rock-solid-stable. It is the best of the currently available motherboards based on the 890 chipset. If you buy it, you will be pleased, especially if you have a Phenom-II X2 or X3 that you would like to run as a quad. Kudos to ASUS! You have a new friend in me. (;

Pros: Very Stable, overclocks like a banshee (even using a not so desirable psu, or the greatest cpu heatsink; got another psu on the way and might go with better aftermarket cooling over what I ordered), nice and heavy pcb... no creaking or bending when lifting the board. The BIOS leaves a bit to be desired, but all the features and settings are there for some great overclocks, and being able to 'finally' save up to 8 onboard profiles (a godsend) has been great. Not a Pro or Con, but prepare for proper case cooling. Newer motherboards, processors, gpu's... they run hot and an insufficiently cooled case, or fans not creating good airflow through the case spell disaster for overclocking... heat is your enemy. And the power supply. Get a good 650W (single gpu) 750W or + (dual gpu) with enough amps on the 12V rail(s). My BFG 550W isn't up to the task to overclock the cpu/cpu-nb, the northbridge (if necessary... probably not with 3 sticks), and the Radeon 5770 I ordered for this setup.

Cons: If you go with a single gpu setup (not the integrated 4290, which serves its purpose for general use... but not anything other than low-settings @ lower resolution games) you have to use the bottom pci-e x16 slot to get full 16x bandwidth, instead of the 1st pci-e slot located closer to the cpu. What this means is that your single gpu setup is bunched down towards the bottom of the case where usually airflow is not the greatest. Why Asus went with the bottom slot for @16x... I don't know. It's tempting to take an egg off the product (or half an egg if it were possible), but I'll probably crossfire in 8x/8x mode soon, so the point becomes moot. It is/was a point of contention for me though... restricted airflow always sucks (no pun intended).

Overall Review: So far am really liking the board. It's been able to handle an air-cooled 3.8ghz phenom II 965 overclock, with a northbridge 2600 while barely raising voltages for either (HT left at 2000... anything above 2200 is tricky, and seeing no reason to do so in any case... which btw, this board did handle a HT 2200 without flaw). My phenom 965 easily hit the 4.0ghz mark, but quickly heated up during a Prime95 torture test and froze. Will have to get a better cooling solution than what I did to push it. The Geil PI ddr3 1600 7-8-7-24-2N 2gb x3 memory pack works flawlessly on this board (even at 1N timings). Not a memory hiccup yet at their rated settings, so time will tell on how far they can be pushed. And this board does support 3 sticks at a time. The manual makes it look like a no no, but it works right as rain. No dual channel mode for 3 sticks, but for phenoms, unganged is the way to go... research it and you'll see. Games in particular like unganged with phenoms, over ganged.

Pros: The Ability to unlock all 4 cores on my 550be cpu was a plus i tried another board with the same cpu and it would not run stable with all 4 cores unlocked however this board unlocked all 4 and over clocked them to 3.35 ghz could also choose to run 0-1-2 cpu's in triple core if you like or 0-1-3 if all 4 cores would not run stable you could find the 3 cores that will great job by asus on this one

Cons: getting used to asus bios since i have been a fan of other boards for a long time now

Overall Review: Amd 550be phenom II Asus m4a89gtd pro mb 4 gigs crucial balistix blue tracer 1333 ati radeon HD4850 xfx video card

Pros: My first computer build in a long line of continous computer ownage. I bought this board after painstakingly reviewing each and every board over and over. It definetly was worth it. The bios are great and easy to understand, it has sata 6 compability, and to boot it has the core unlocker software as well... though i use a 955 be so its kinda moot.... but tis still great. The board worked right out of the box, it is heavy and well adorned. The aestetically pleasing board has many bright hues of blue, which really make for a good showing. Best feature of all though, may be the hybrid crossfirex. cant beat 8x 8x for two cards plus the gpu hybrid for 3. Dont know if I will ever be able to pick such a great board again.... but i know where I will look.... Asus.

Cons: My only con is that the screen that boots says i have 3 cores unlocked.... but i have 4 unlocked.... but its not really a problem, ran some tests works just the same as when it said 4 unlocked.

Overall Review: Great board, didn't arrive DOA- and I was worried that it would... but honestly the only time people really write reviews on here is when something is wrong, or really really right... hence why I am writing this review! Buy it!!!

Pros: I just built a completely new computer, When I received the mother board I noticed that the PCIE switch card was missing. The empty sleeve was still in the box. Which leads me to believe that this box had been opened and the switch card was removed. I paid for a retail box not an opened box. I notified New Egg customer service . It was surprising how they took responsibility and made it right to me immediately. This board and new egg rocks.

Cons: None so far.

Overall Review: This board is obviously more advanced than I am. As I am 55 years old this maybe the last computer that I need to build. Thanks new egg for making it happen.

Pros: great motherboard!! O.C.ing is cake with this mobo is cake it really makes it easy to oc even for beginners takes literally 3 clicks to OC from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz. Also has a lot of great advanced features. Everything worked great right out of the box. The board is nice and heavy(built solid). Great board for beginners and experts

Cons: Had to take away an egg for the sound. Sound is soooo important to me. The onboard sound is terrible unless you have some reduced bin speakers you wont know but if you use high quality audio equipment it really shows. The lows are really distorted and don't come out clean had to really fiddle with EQs to get a decent sound and i know its not my speakers they work just fine on my old system. SOUND CARD IS NEEDED Good thing i had M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496 plugged it in and WOW what a difference.

Overall Review: Great Mobo overall except for the audio so be sure to get a sound card. I've been noticing that sound is always the most neglected part of the mobo good thing they make sound cards. Case: In WIN Maelstrom Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD XD CPU: AMD Phenom x4 Black Edition 955 RAM: Crucial DDR3 Ballistix 1600 Graphics: (onboard) ATI Radeon HD 4290 Sound:M-AUDIO Audiophile 2496 PSU: OCZ Stealth stream 700W HDD:(4) WD Caviar Green (one at 500GB the second 1TB) Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB and one at 350GB

Pros: First, I give this board 4 eggs since I am not a pro and can't say that this thing is the best ever. I will say that I had no problems with install and that this thing rocks with 8gigs of RAM(1600, which it did accept). I have gotten 7.3 and 7.5 accross the board with the Windows Index. The drives were a easy install and so were the the bios modes. I am somewhat a self taught computer geek now, but this board makes it easy for us to seem better at it then we are.

Cons: The only thing that I might say is a con is that when I installed the dirvers, the ethernet driver disappeared and was not running properly. Quick fix for me was to run a wireless card on my system and it works perfectly now.

Overall Review: My specs for my system with this board are as follows: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack HIS IceQ H567Q1GD Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity60039906 (N82E16814161334) XION Power Real 800W ATX Power Supply Everything is running amazingly and with no hiccups. I have this all plugged into a plasma TV and is running at 1080 HD. I have yet to really find any problems.

Pros: This board is unbelievably amazing. I'm a computer tech at a local repair and custom build shop and this is my board of choice. The BIOS overclocking utility is well done as always, thank you asus/amd. The placements of the motherboard is well designed, and works wonderfully in my HAF 932 case. The speed enhancement from the SATA 6gb/s Hard Drive is a recognizable difference from my previous build. Cannot wait for more USB 3.0 support hardware to come out ;] There is a more updated BIOS on the ASUS website than what comes on the board so be sure to get that for better hardware support. I am very skeptical of the IN OS system overclocker that comes with the board but it works VERY well, my AMD 965 Phenom II x4 3.4 Ghz runs smoothly at an Overclocked 4.3 Ghz at 38C under load on stock cooling(with Artic Silver Thermal Paste).

Cons: Had some trouble with my ram being read on first boot, but I held down the ram reset button and it fixed the problem, then was able to manually set my ram to 1600. But not really a con since there is a problem with the ram doing that and the motherboard has a utility to fix it.

Overall Review: My build: -ASUS M4A89GTD PRO AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard -COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case -AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor OC'd to 4.3 Ghz -G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory -Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support59419749 -ASUS EAH4870/2DI/1GD5 Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card -OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ700MXSP 700W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS