In 2009, AMD will try to play catch up in technology with Intel. As we know, Intel already launched their 3 way DDR3 Core i7 while AMD hasn't even got a DDR3 solution on hand to compete with it in terms of price/performance.

In the later part of this year, we should see more products ready for the AM3 processor which feature a DDR3 memory controller within the processor itself. As the processor already incorporates a memory controller, older chipsets should work properly with the processors.

ASRock already has one board ready and it is model M3A790GXH128M.

From the outlook of this board, it looks just like the AOD790GX-128M we reviewed before. The M3A790GXH128M also features the same chipset AMD 790GX and South bridge SB750. Features wise looks similar to the AOD790GX-128M except the memory module used is changed to 4 DIMMs of DDR3.

Below are the specs followed by close up pictures of this yet to be launched mainboard on the next few pages.

Specs

- Support for Socket AM3 processor
- AMD 790GX + SB750 Chipsets
- ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
- Supports CPU up to 140W, FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s)
- Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology
- Supports AMD OverDrive™ with ACC feature (Advanced Clock Calibration)
- Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1333/1066/800 (4 x DIMM slots), Max. capacity up to 16GB
- Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3300 graphics, DX10 class iGPU, Pixel Shader 4.0, Max. shared memory 512MB
- Supports ATITM CrossFireXTM, Hybrid CrossFireXTM and 3-Way CrossFireXTM
- Integrated 128MB side port memory for iGPU
- 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (green @ x16 mode, blue @ x8 mode, orange @ x4 mode)
- Three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
- Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback
- 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1,RAID 5, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
- 1 x eSATAII 3.0 Gb/s connector, PCIE Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Supports 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board)
- Supports ASRock Instant Boot, Smart BIOS, ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver
- 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio, DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec)
- Windows® VistaTM Premium 2008 Logo Ready
 

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