When it rains, it pours and the leaks about AMDs upcoming 900-series of AM3+ chipsets are now appearing on a daily basis. A detailed spec sheet of Asus six upcoming AMD 900-series chipset motherboards have tipped up on a Swedish website and although we have no idea what any of the boards except the already leaked M5A99X EVO will look like, we do at least know what features theyll come with.
So first up we have three AMD 970 boards, all three are full ATX boards and all three has a pair of x16 slots configured in x16 and x4 mode. The entry level model is the M5A97 which has a 4+2 VRM design and it has six SATA 6Gbps ports and three headers for six USB 2.0 ports as far as internal connectors are concerned. Around the back were looking at two USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, 7.1-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet. This board doesnt feature Digi+VRM , but has all of the other common Asus features.
Next up we have the M5A97 Pro and Evo, both featuring a 6+2 phase Digi+ VRM design, six intenral SATA 6Gbps ports, three headers for six internal USB 2.0 ports and the EVO model also has an internal pin header for two USB 3.0 ports and a FireWire port. Around the back we have two USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1-channel audio with the EVO board also sporting a FireWire port.
The M5A99X EVO weve already seen thanks to the leaked image on Thursday, although it seems like we got a couple of specs slightly wrong. It turns out that the board has two internal SATA 3Gbps ports, not two SATA 6Gbps ports as we thought. It also has a rear eSATA and an eSATAp (powered eSATA/USB combo port), but the rest was pretty much spot on except the VRM design which is 6+2 rather than 8 phases.
On the high-end side we have the TUF Sabertooth 990FX which as the name gives away is based on the 990FX chipset. Here were looking at an 8+2 Digi+ VRM design, four x16 PCI Express slots in a dual x16 or x16 plus dual x8 and a x4 slot. Internally we again have six SATA 6Gbps ports, two SATA 3Gbps ports, headers for four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a FireWire port. Around the back the board has two USB 3.0 ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA, one eSATAp, Gigabit Ethernet, a FireWire port and 7.1-channel audio. Special features includes a return of Asus CeraM!X heatsinks, the TUF Thermal Radar, the various TUF components and a range of other more or less important stuff.
Finally we have the ROG Crosshair V Formula which as expected is the top of the range board, which is another 990FX board. We have the same slot configuration here as on the TUF board with four x16 slots in either dual x16 or x16 plus dual x8 and one x4 slot. On-board connectors consist of seven SATA 6Gbps ports and two front USB 3.0 ports. Around the back we have four USB 3.0 ports, 12 USB 2.0 ports, although one of them is dedicated to ROG connect, one eSATAp 6Gbps port, Intel powered Gigabit Ethernet and 7.1-channel audio with SupremeFX X-Fi 2. This board will also ship with Asus ROG ThunderBolt and comes with all the usual ROG features youd expect to find.
Overall a pretty decent line-up of boards, well just have to wait and see what the final boards look like. Its anyones guess what these boards will be priced at, but were hearing rumours of some very and we mean VERY competitive pricing on AMDs upcoming AM3+ CPUs in as much as youll get an eight core AMD CPU for about the same price youd pick up a Core i7 2600K. That sounds like a pretty good bargain to us, especially as most of the other CPUs will be priced lower than that.
Source: Sweclockers
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