GIGABYTE GA-990FXA Motherboard review

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA Motherboard review

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA Motherboard review

ProsStill in production with support from Gigabyte. The motherboard has a stable UEFI BIOS and decent overclocking potential.
Works with AM3 and AM3+ chipsets.
Will work with any DDR3 memory module though speeds above 1866MHz require an AM3+ processor.
Cheap and reliable design that has stood the test of time.
Allows SLI and Crossfire with up to two cards.
32GB of memory support.

Cons
Outdated technology that will not match up to the cheapest configuration available today.
Gigabyte can pull support for this motherboard any day now that AM4 motherboards are available for almost the same cost.
990FX is a high-end chipset from yesteryears and as such is best coupled with a good AM3+ processor. This purchase only makes sense if you have a spare AM3+ chipset lying around.

Features:

CPU AM3+ Socket:
Support for AMD AM3+ FX processors
Support for AMD AM3 Phenom II processors / AMD Athlon II processors
Hyper Transport Bus

5200 MT/s
Chipset

North Bridge: AMD 990FX
South Bridge: AMD SB950
Memory

4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
Audio

Realtek ALC889 codec
High Definition Audio
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
Support for Dolby Home Theater
Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN

1 x Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots

2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2)
2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2)
2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4 (PCIEX4_1, PCIEX4_2)
(All PCI Express slots conform to the PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
1 x PCI slot
Multi-Graphics Technology

Support for 2-Way/3-Way/4-Way AMD CrossFireX and NVIDIA SLI technology
Storage Interface South Bridge:

6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3_0~SATA3_5) supporting up to 6 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID5, RAID 10 and JBOD

2 x Marvell 88SE9172 chips:
2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2 x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors (including 1 eSATA/USB Combo connector) on the back panel supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1
USB South Bridge:

Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 ports on the back panel, including 1 eSATA/USB Combo connector, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers)

2 x Etron EJ168 chips:
Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
IEEE 1394 VIA VT6308 chip:
Up to 2 IEEE 1394a ports (1 port on the back panel, 1 port available through the internal IEEE 1394a header)
Internal I/O Connectors

1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
1 x PCIe power connector
8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
1 x CPU fan header
2 x system fan headers
1 x power fan header
1 x front panel header
1 x front panel audio header
1 x S/PDIF Out header
3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
1 x IEEE 1394a header
1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header
1 x clearing CMOS jumper
1 x clearing CMOS button
1 x power button
1 x reset button
Back Panel Connectors 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
1 x IEEE 1394a port
7 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
1 x eSATA/USB Combo connector
1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector
1 x RJ-45 port
6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
I/O Controller

ITE IT8720 chip
H/W Monitoring

System voltage detection
CPU/System temperature detection
CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
CPU overheating warning
CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
CPU/System fan speed control
BIOS 2 x 32 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
Support for DualBIOS
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Unique Features

Support for @BIOS
Support for Q-Flash
Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
Support for Download Center
Support for Xpress Install
Support for Xpress Recovery2
Support for EasyTune (Note 6)
Support for Easy Energy Saver
Support for Smart Recovery
Support for Auto Green
Support for ON/OFF Charge
Support for Cloud OC
Support for 3TB+ Unlock
Support for Q-Share
Bundle Software

Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
Operating System

Support for Microsoft Windows 7/ Vista/ XP
Form Factor E-ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 26.3cm.

you guys are constantly asking me for my two cents regarding motherboards and today we're taking a look at the gigabyte 990 FX 8 UD 3 so stick around because this motherboards guaranteed to tickle you where it matters now this particular motherboard the UD 3 is for the AMD AM 3 plus socket but if you've got Intel don't worry because the UD line is available in Intel sockets as well the 990 FX does boast a lot of the features that you would expect from a

high-end motherboard it does have crossfire and SLI supports you can run your favorite graphics cards regardless of the platform AMD or Nvidia it's also boasting some new technology here with two times the copper PCB and a new glass fabric PCB it's designed to be a little bit more moisture resistant and a lot stronger the UD 3 does have some high humidity

protection which is perfect for those of you that live in wet climates it does feature a dual UEFI BIOS which is perfect in case you have a BIOS failure you're not going to break your motherboard and perhaps most important of all it does feature all Japanese solid capacitors so you're not going to deal with any of that dreaded coil whine inside the box here you are going to find your 990 FX au d3 user manual a multilingual installation guide book you'll find four solid

black sata3 connectors which should be more than enough to connect all of your peripherals you've got your rear i/o plate and you do have an SLI bridge that comes with the motherboard this is interesting to me considering its dual compatible with crossfire but it does not include a crossfire bridge so you'll definitely want to keep this in mind if you're going with AMD graphics cards now if you're anything like me you probably are turned off by the blue PCB on

other gigabyte motherboards but don't worry because they've listened to your cries and now they've given you this sexy black and gunmetal coloured motherboard this thing is just beautiful to look at especially if you have a window in your case you're gonna want to show this bad boy off socket why is this thing as an am3+ FX compatible socket but it is also backwards compatible with your Phenom am 3 and your old am 2 m2 plus sockets the Southbridge on this

motherboard is a passively cooled sb9 50 tips set providing you with six native SATA 3 ports with superfast gigabits per second link in raid zero one five and 10 support I really love the fact that the SATA ports are labeled right on the motherboard right next to the SATA ports there's no question about which device is plugged in where slot wise this motherboard does come with 2 PCI Express 1 X 4 PCI Express 16 X although only two of them are actually wired to the

Northbridge you do get a standard PCI slot this is one of the only high-end AMD motherboards still offer a PCI slot the UD in the name refers to the ultra durable heat sinks that are installed on all of the key components on the motherboard that generate a lot of heat the vrm is the North Bridge the South Bridge they're all very durable very quality copper heat sinks which keep your motherboard running nice and cool for a nice long life the IO side of your

motherboard contains all of the connections you would expect to find on a high-end motherboard you've got more USB ports and you could ever possibly use you've got two powered SATA connectors on the back you've got USB 3.0 LAN fiber-optic you've got your 7.1 analog surround and a ps2 port taking a close look at the PCB you can see that new glass fabric material that it's boasting on the box it's very smooth it's got a nice dull finish to it it's not shiny

and it's very very detailed and it's awesome designs like this that really make this motherboard stand out in the crowd one of the most common problems that new builders have when putting together their first computer is not knowing where to plug in all the different connections well this motherboard clearly labels it out there right there for you with all the USB ports and gigabyte it even takes it one step further by color-coding all of the front panel connectors for

you so there's no question about where all those little wires go and last but not least you're given four connectors for your fans your CPU fan a power fan on the right you've got a system fan down on the bottom right and you've got a system fan too on the bottom left and they're very easily accessible so there you have it guys that's been the js2 sense review of the gigabyte Ga 990 FX a ud3 motherboard for your AMD am-3 plus FX processor don't forget this

motherboard is available in intel versions so if you're in the market for a brand new high-end motherboard check out the UT series from gigabyte .

the gigabyte GA 990fx aud seven motherboard this is the high-end top-of-the-line board that gigabyte is offering for the m3 plus platform now let's take a look at the box and the accessories when I first saw the box I were thinking wow this is huge it's very shiny obviously and the top it says gigabyte shining of course the largest text will get to see is the model number of this motherboard which is 990fx aug seven on top it also tells us it's ultra cool ultra durable ultra

power efficient and ultra performance supports the AMD FX series cpus but it also is backward compatible with in three CPUs which are a phenom tools for example supports both AMD crossfire and nvidia sli a plus two phase power design and it's pair and it's part of their ultra durable 3 series boards three three threes on board acceleration basically stands for three x USB power use b3 puno and cedar 3 and the center there's a mighty image of the heat sink to the rest on this motherboard this box is shiny and every side but we kind of get the same

information every time we turn it around on the back of the box will get loads of information even a short layout demonstration where things are located at gigabyte states that this board should stand out with their MOSFETs use B power and two times copper PCB there's even a cover to open we get a small window and see a little bit of the board itself on the left side there are images of the heatsink same information on this side leg on the back of the box once

unboxed up the shiny package we get another box which is black enters larger window for the board now now let's open this box up and see what's inside we get two smaller boxes one of them with the accessors and the other one with the motherboard let's start with the accessories inside there is a manual with drivers Priya thick manual as UNC multilingual installation manual and another manual for Black Sea 26 gigabit per second cables two of them are

rectangled black crossfire bridge looks really nice 4-way SLI bridge another crossfire bridge as a lie bridge 3-way SLI bridge color-coordinated I oh shoot that's really nice to have this will make things a lot easier for many people and lastly a gigabyte and don't be home theater sticker and now to the mat board box let's open this up looks very nice matte black piece be and huge heat seems awesome i love the way this board is laid out and its design is very beautiful

great color scheme to me it looks very muscular especially with the heat sinks looks very neat and tidy tons of features and possibilities this motherboard uses the AMD 990fx SP 950 chipset which now also supports nvidia sli very muscular heat sinks as mentioned before but here's a closer look you get lots of PCI Express slots here and even a standard PCI slot aluminum and copper nice mix on top it is ultra durable very nice as well here are the phases a plus to design

obviously and it's also good idea to have more phases just like on this motherboard here if you're installing high-end CPUs that have a higher TDP the socket is black as you can see and it's an 83 + socket that supports the latest AMD FX series gpus the board offers for ddr3 memory dimms and ease will run in dual channel mode also it will run memory up to eighteen sixty six megahertz but also 2000 megahertz if your overclock max supported amount is 32

gigabytes of memory near the SATA connections you get one auxiliary power connections for powering up graphics cards over the slots we get a 286 a bit per second connections two of them two gray ones run of the Marvel 88 se9 172 chip and the remaining six run of the MDS be 950 southbridge chipset right here you can see the CMOS battery and the debug LED which will help you solve problems when the system fails here are the color coordinated front panel

headers TPM connection USB 3.0 we got three USB 2.0 headers even at 1394 header which is firewire and high-definition front panel audio of course another thing I like but this board is that there are onboard buttons as you can see we got three here this one to power on and off the system the other one to reset the last one with the protection is the clear see mouse button this will actually reset all your bias settings default save settings this comes in hand you want

overclocking but don't push this button while the system is running here are the heat sinks they are connected with a good heat pipe the North eat sink is cooling down the 990fx chipset and V RMS the South heatsink is cooling the SP 950 chipset but now let's get to the motherboards back panel everything is color-coordinated here as well we get to USB to Pune connections here 1p is 2 comma port for mechanical keyboards for example optical s/pdif out and coaxial s/pdif

out one I eeee 1394a ports are basically firewire esata USB combo port esata 6 gigabit per second connector to USB 2.0 ports another esata connector to USB 3.0 port one rj45 lan so gigabit lan port and two USB 2.0 and onboard analog audio ports so brilliant i owe nothing to complain has everything you could need in my opinion on this board we get 6 PCI Express slots two of them run at x 62 @ x 8 and 2 at x 4 so if we're going for two way traffic setup used a 2x6

slots for a three-way used to X 16 and 1 x 8 slot or 1 x16 and 2x eight slots for four-way use 2 X 6 10 and 2 x 8 slots this will work for both AMD crossfirex accent nvidia sli now i'm showing you the locations of the fan headers the first one year the socket is the cpu fan header near the memory dimms is a power fan header the system fan one is between front panel header and debug LED and the last one is system fan too which is located between a 1394 header and use

be 210 header so altogether we have four fan headers three when we don't add the cpu fan header because you have to connect it anyways the eat 24 pin power connection is located on the right side of the motherboard and it's idle place and the 8 pin ATX 12-volt connection is located in the top left corner good location as well this motherboard features the dual bias option this means you have to bias chips on the board and when you flash your bias and

something is corrupted the backup biased chip will automatically use the backed up working bias file and transfer it to the main one so if something goes wrong you're always on the safe side a lot of that feature good work gigabyte this is the end of the review and let's get to the conclusion the gigabyte GA 990fx aug seven a motherboard showed us its best sites and from what I've seen I really liked this board brake cooling luxe features and performance pros for

this motherboard are it has a beautiful black theme that it supports up to 40 AMD crossfirex accent nvidia sli and a plus 2 phase power design then I like the duo buys feature I like the onboard power reset and clear CMOS buttons then there's the debug LED and the heavy durable heat sinks I only have one thing to say for it cons it doesn't have the best price performance ratio but other than that it's one of the best motherboards you could get I give this motherboard a 9 out of 10 and definitely recommend it.
I always love it when there's a new egg box on my porch because awesome things come with new egg there's some very lightly filled air package things there that of a customer ID don't need that ah and this is what we're looking for so don't need that either yeah so this is what the front of the box looks like as you can see there's no award logos or anything like that like gigabyte really likes to stick on their boxes this is actually pretty clean looking box and that is because this is a revision one motherboard it's a brand new motherboard so yeah if we turn it

around look at the back you can see they're promoting the USB 3.1 versus 3.0 it has an MDOT two port which is a PCI Express second-generation 4x slot so that's that's really cool in a new board and let's go ahead and open it up there's no tape on this so we're just going to open it up as you can see I'll turn it around for you there it's in an anti-static bags got like a little tray here so we'll go ahead and pull this tray out and see what came with it it's got a black sli bridge it's

got looks like yeah there's two clear or silver clear SATA cables there's actually four of those there's a gigabyte multilingual installation guide I don't need that we've got the i/o panel here which has oh okay it's black with pink writing and some yellow type on there as well which is interesting and it's got it's got another little header thing we'll figure out what that is that's the

G connector not sure exactly what that is but it's something for headers on your motherboard so they've got the manual here there is a installation CD which we don't need that and there's a sticker it's a g1 gaming sticker if you want a round sticker for your computer and there might be absolutely nothing else in here so yeah there's the manual so we're going to go ahead and look at the motherboard itself so we don't need that and we'll figure out how to open this anti-static bag there is one piece of scotch tape holding it closed and there we go this is the gigabyte

G a 990 F X gaming motherboard so as you can see it's a it actually looks a little Spartan without all those PCI Express slots like you're really used to and that's because of this little tiny m dot 2 connector which is a 22 by 80 connector so it goes all the way up to 80 as you can see there is a little screw included with the mf2 connector which is really nice it has six SATA three six gigabit per second connectors and it has three 16x slots one of those the last one is an 8 X

electrical and there are three PCI Express 1x slots as we look over the motherboard here the the Southbridge the the Northbridge got heat piping that goes between all of it the the actual heat spreaders are black with kind of a brushed aluminum look there so on the back io panel here we have a ps2 port which is just both purple and green for either a mouse or a keyboard and depending on if you even have any ps2 peripherals still around these yellow USB ports here

are USB 2.0 and they're advertised as having clean power for an audio DAC for you audio files out there although gigabyte did include some extra audio stuff that we'll talk about here in a minute there's two more USB 2.0 ports a USB type-c 3.1 connector right here a USB type a 3.1 connector to USB 3.0 ports a killer land port right here with indicator lights on it and two more USB 2.0 ports and of course your audio array here which actually has the optical audio

included in the normally six plug thingamabob are there so if we turn this over there's actually some dip switches here for the onboard audio and that's interesting because this little tiny thing right here will throw in some b-roll here so you can see it better now this little tiny thing right here is the interchangeable op-amp it comes with a Texas Instruments I think burr brown audio and you can actually pull this out and change it out with a few other different types of op amps

for the onboard audio so that's kind of interesting something gigabyte is doing I'm not sure how it sounds of course I haven't had a chance to check it out so as you look here it's got that black and black and red color scheme going it really looks quite nice it's got these silver PCI Express shields as you look down at the bottom here the headers have a serial port header if anybody still use a serial port it does have a front audio header here and that works with both of the

main audio profiles it has front USB 3 from USB 2 from USB 1 so it actually has three USB 2.0 front headers it has one USB 3.0 front header and a TPM port as well as all of your front headers for your case connectors moving up here you have one CPU four pin PWM connector one four pin system fan connector a power fan and a second system thin connector which is another three pin gigabyte likes to do that for some reason they'll give you one PWM and one

regular three pin it's kind of annoying but whatever up here at the top we have a power switch so this is actually pretty cool I like power switches on motherboards I don't know why but they're really cool and it has a little readout here which I think shows you the CPU multiplier but I'm really not sure we'll have to look into that a little bit more it has a CMOS switch and a reset switch and you have your standard 24 pin connector here and an 8 pin connector for

motherboard power over here so I think that pretty much covers the overview of the gigabyte GA 990 FX Jeff was actually going to join me for this video but he had some kind of flu or crud or something like that so you guys won't get to meet him quite yet but yeah one more thing I did neglect to mention both of these PCI Express 16 exports are true 16x and they can both run at the same time it is second-generation PCI Express because it is AMD and they haven't

released sin yet and yeah it's kind of sad but both of these are 16x so you can run two cards either in nvidia sli or AMD crossfire both of them are supported one interesting thing about the m-dot 2 port is actually that it can run either as SATA or PCI Express 4x so when I was reading through the manual you actually can use the SATA drive raided in with all of your other SATA ports so I thought that was kind of interesting if you bought the same kind of m dot 2 as you

have standard 2 and 1/2 inch SATA connectors and that's our overview of this board .

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA Motherboard review

the gigabyte 990 FX au d3 this is definitely not a new motherboard it's been out for a little while but it's a very popular motherboard on the newegg.com website and it's very good choice for anyone looking to build an AMD based system first off with the 990 FX chip set you get unlock performance so I get full overclocking features available with if you're going to go with a higher-end AMD processor it's also an ultra durable 3 motherboard which means it has twice

the copper used in the PCB design also our Japanese solid capacitors it's also got some other features listed down here it's an AM at three socket motherboard so fully ready for am3+ CPUs that includes the FX series from AMD and this board does ship with the new am3+ CPU BIOS installed if you go back several months depending on when you watch this review

originally some of the 990 FX boards that came out had BIOS actually were not compatible with FX processors this one ships with that bias installed so you should be good to go if you're going to go with an FX series unlocked processor from AMD I also get the 9 series chipset so 990 FX Northbridge and 950 Southbridge from AMD against more info about the capacitors

triple USB power for charging devices more quickly of course USB 3.0 I also get SATA revision 3 by virtue of the 950 Southbridge chipset 108 decibel signal-to-noise ratio blu-ray appropriate sound integrated they also get a dual BIOS which means you can switch back and forth between them so you can add a different settings set up or you can use one bios for overclocking and then switch back to a default if you're having any troubles you also get support for three

terabyte plus hard drives the hybrid EFI technology here allows you to actually boot from hard drives larger than three terabytes which if you go back to older BIOS versions you could not boot to any drive that was larger than 2.2 terabytes then some more information about the SATA and USB capabilities let's take a look at the back here we have some more in-depth

information about a lot of the stuffs that I talked about on the front so I won't go over it in too much detail you do get on/off charge capability so via special USB ports on the board you can charge your devices even while it's not plugged in as well as you get oh I should mention hei or AMD I should say crossfire X support for two-way crossfire X as well as two-way SLI

compatibility next up let's take a look at accessories to see what comes in the box apart from the motherboard you get a gigabyte case bench so you can pop that on your computer case to advertise what type of component you're using inside you get an sli bridge here for 2-way SLI it's actually long enough that it can go across six slots there's a couple of different video card configurations that you can have in there again also crossfire X supported from this

motherboard the crossfire X bridge is usually come with the video cards themselves you get four serial ata cables they're black just like these here now they all have clasps on the end it looks like you get two that have L brackets on one end and two that have straight plugs on either and so variety therefore depending on how you have your drives configured and installed here is your 990 FX AUD three motherboard manual very important to keep on hand while

you're doing your build you also get a installation and driver disk here so that will have some of the software included with the board but also have default drivers that were available at the time that this disk was stamped which means that there's probably new ones available if you go over to the gigabyte website and it's best to use the most up-to-date ones so download your

drivers from gigabyte rather than installing them off the disk you get a multilingual installation guide book as well so if English is not your first language that should help you out with the installation and you also get an input/output shield here for the back of your case so you can see they're color-coded all the ports on there so you can tell which are which that's wraps up for accessories let's take a closer look at the motherboard so here's a look at the 990 FX au d3

motherboard altogether as you can see it's got a mostly black aesthetic with some grey heat sinks scattered throughout I'm going to start off here by flipping it around and showing you guys the back so you can see it's a black all black PCB has a real nice clean look to it and the heatsink at least for your Southbridge is mounted with Philips head spring loaded screws so

you can remove that if necessary take a look at the front of the board I'm going to point out the fan headers first off there's four of them total you got a four pin pwm enabled CPU fan header right here at the top they have a three pin power fan or chassis fan header right here another four pin system fan header down here on the right side and then finally one more system fan header down here next to the firewire port let's go over all the features of the board in detail

I'm going to start here in the bottom right as you can see you have your front panel connectors there how's the mobile plastic casing they're color coded on the back there so more easily let you determine which is which that's that you have a TPM header if you end up that sort of thing they also have a USB 3.0 20 pin header right there so you can hook up a couple front

panel USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports now you get one two three USB 2.0 headers right here the red one here is compatible with that triple power USB 2.0 design so you can use that it'll have the always-on power and will also charge your devices more quickly a couple more USB 2.0 headers next to that you have a comm header the aforementioned system fan header three pin right there a firewire out and then finally your front panel audio connectors which is right

below all of your audio devices and hardware for the board next up let's talk about the PCI Express and you have PCI Express generation 2 hour 2.1 ports right here if you're starting to get a couple x1 slots here at the top and in the middle you get a couple x16 physical slots as well as wired for x16 so the second one here and the fifth one here are the ones where you will want to install your video cards so you actually get triple triple slot spacing in between those so it

does have support for dual or three slot video cards in between those you have a x16 physical but wired for x4 PCI Express slot you got another one of those x4 slots down here at the bottom then finally a legacy PCI slot right there if you've got an older PCI device you need to plug in moving on to the right we have the gigabyte heat spreader right over here which is directly above the Southbridge the SB 950 south bridge chip from AMD now that's going to power

several things on the board but it also has a controller hub for your CLI ta so all six of these serial ata ports here are shada revision3 that's six gigabit per second so it does support your high speed SSDs and also has some raid configuration options available through that moving up the side of the board I should also mention those are all side facing which you could

probably see anyway but that helps to prevent those from conflicting with any longer length video cards you might have moving up the side of the board here you have a 24 pin main motherboard power connector and then next to that you have all of your ddr3 slots just to pull up some information for myself to reference here you have these for ddr3 slots it's dual channel ddr3 so you'll want to install at least two sticks of memory at once it's best to go with 1.5 volt

ddr3 dimms so if you go with 8 gigabyte DIMMs which are the max supported on a per diem basis for this you can get up to 32 gigabytes of system memory installed and it does support standard speeds up to 1333 and 1600 this is going to depend on what processor you have installed but to support overclock speeds of up to 2,000 mega transfers per second now again

over here is the am3+ socket and I was talking about what type of CPU might actually have installed there it's compatible with a range of processors from AMD Andy has kept their sockets the same for the most part as I've gone through their upgrade cycles so actually have compatibility with the Athlon 2 phenom 2 as well as most am-3 processors and am3+ FX

processors which chances are if you're buying this board brand new you're going to go with an FX processor for that and the am3+ sockets are distinguished because they are black as opposed to the white coloration that's used with the m3 and prior AMD sockets you also have this Universal mounting solution here for aftermarket heatsink fans so most a.m. 2 a.m. 2 plus or AM 3 after marquee heat sinks heatsink fans will work with this socket and most of them do

attach directly to that which usually negates the need to install a new motherboard backplate that's going to vary though so you can reference the gigabyte website for the full list of compatibility options for CPUs and you should reference your aftermarket heat sinks Bank heatsink fans compatibility guide to make sure it will work with this particular socket now we dozen 990 FX Northbridge chipset on this motherboard as well and it has this sort of raised

gray heatsink right there gives a bit more surface area to keep that chip cooled off you will want to have some airflow going over that as well to make sure that everything stays nice and cool also with the am3+ socket right here you have your power delivery area you have eight plus two phase power delivery for your overclocking needs another heatsink right here to cool off the VRMs to make sure that that area stays nice and cool especially if you're going with an

overclock very important for that and I finally have your 8 pin supplemental CPU power connector up there definitely want to have that plugged in make sure you have a power supply that can deliver enough juice for your entire system again particularly if you're going to be interested in overclocking any of the AMD processors you might have installed here let's finally take a look at the inputs and outputs on the back of the board starting off to the far left you

have a combo ps2 port right here so that can work with a mouse or keyboard yeah all these red ports here are USB 2.0 ports all of them have the enhanced power delivery as well as the always-on function that we talked about earlier so you get plenty of those actually two four six eight of those total back here you have an optical Toslink connector here for optical audio out you also have a FireWire port you have a couple serial ata or external eSATA ports right here

those are both serial ata revision3 six gigabit per second compatible you get a couple USB 3.0 SuperSpeed ports here so that gives you the availability of up to four USB 3.0 ports total two here on the back and then two more available via that internal header you get your Gigabit Ethernet port right there then finally you get your audio you should mention the audio is real tech alc889a codec supports up to 7.1 channel audio out and that's going to wrap it up for this

video once again this has been the gigabyte 990 FX AUD 3 motherboard featuring the 50 SB Southbridge the 990 FX North Bridge and the am3+ socket with out-of-the-box compatibility with Andy's newest line of FX processors I'm Paul with Newegg TV .