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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.
