Asus Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard Review

The board itself is an attractive ‘army camouflage' design with green and grey heatsinks populating the PCB. The ‘TUF' board design is no gimmick – it uses ‘TUF' chokes, solid capacitors and MOSFETs … military grade versions, independently certified outside the control of ASUS. TUF chokes are basically alloy chokes, made of a compound which combines various types of metal instead of just Iron, which is used in traditional versions. This can enable the support of up to 40A of current, 25 percent higher than regular designs. The single piece packaging should also eliminate the emission of vibration noise, aiding long term durability. This product also includes an exclusive ‘anti static chip' which is a protective circuit design to negate static damage to the board. It is built to the ATM Form Factor standard measuring 30.5cm by 24.4 cm.

The board utilises the ASUS DIGI+ VRM design to ensure the highest standards of power delivery. The 8+2 digital architecture provides high power efficiency, generating less heat to enhance longer component lifespan and to ensure minimal power loss. Digital 8+2 power phase design expands the modulation spectrum for improved stability and to lower VRM switching noise by dynamically detecting system load.

Asus claim an exclusive feature for this product, a switching power design which works not only for CPU and memory, but for other components such as graphics cards, LAN and USB 3.0.

The ‘E.S.P (Efficient Switching Power Design)' dramatically improves system efficiency and reduces heat generation', according to ASUS.

The board has strategically positioned heatsinks to ensure that it delivers adequate cooling, even under high load, overclocked conditions. There is plenty of room around the CPU socket for installation of the biggest heatsinks, including the Noctua NH D14. Always a good initial indication that the engineers spent some time thinking about the layout. The heatinks are multi layered ridged design to ensure that heat is transferred quickly and radiated outwards.

Asus use ‘TUF CeraMIX', this is a heatsink coating technique which uses ceramics to actively conduct heat away from the system. This replaces the traditional anti oxidant to dissipate heat better with its microscopic irregular surface and enlarged area. Asus recommend that none of the heatsink modules are removed as it can bend the tubing. There is also a ‘TUF Thermal Radar' option added to the board … a fancy way of saying that there is thermal monitoring and subsequent fan control to ensure that temperatures remain in check. The Thermal Radar however can calculate ideal fan speeds based on user configuration.

The Sabertooth 990FX has support for 4 DDR3 DIMM modules, allowing a total of 32GB of memory. Speeds of 1866/1600/1333/1066mhz are supported in the bios. Next to the memory slots is the MemOK! button which ensures that the machine will boot, regardless of the memory installed. This rescue feature can help patch potential boot problems with specific modules and timings. We can honestly say we have never needed this feature, but it will certainly be a useful option if you are experiencing a memory boot problem on some level. There are also several fan headers in this vicinity (6 in total), which is good to see.

This board has a strong focus on delivering the ultimate gaming performance, it supports both SLI and CrossfireX configurations in 2,3,4 way implementations. (Configurable as x16, x16/x16, x16/x8/x8, (black slot x4) depending on how they're populated).

There are eight SATA ports on the Sabertooth 990FX motherboard, six of which are SATA 6GBps capable (bronze), these are controlled by the AMD SB950 Chipset. The two on the right are controlled by the JMicron JMB362 processor and are SATA 3GBps capable.

Along the bottom of the board is a SPDIF out header, an IE1394 header, two USB headers and a clear RTC header. To the right is the system panel connector, ASUS supply a handy Q-Connector Kit meaning you can fit all the header cables to the adapter outside the case.

Back panel connectivity is very comprehensive

• 1x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse combo port
• 1x Optical S/PDIF Output port
• 1x Power eSATA 3GB/s port (green)
• 1x eSATA 3GB/s port (red)
• 1x IEEE1934a Port
• 1x Lan (RJ45) port
• 2x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (blue)
• 10x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• 8 Channel audio I/O ports

Our AMD Phenom II X6 1100T installed.

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