Event Coverage

HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2011 Editor's Choice - Part 2

By Team HardwareZone - 4 Mar 2011

Best Mainstream Motherboard for AMD (AMD 890GX)

Best Mainstream Motherboard for AMD (AMD 890GX)

While there has not been a major shift in CPU architecture on the AMD front last year, there have been new, updated chipsets that crucially, trump Intel in having SATA 6Gbps support first. The mainstream AMD 890GX chipset is a minor upgrade over the AMD 790GX, with a slightly improved graphics core that has a newer UVD and support for DX10.1. And of course it has SATA 6Gbps, though USB 3.0 is still unavailable except through third-party solutions.

Nominees:

  • ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
  • ECS A890GXM-A
  • Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
  • Jetway HA09
  • MSI 890GXM-G65

And the Winner Is...

The ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 takes the best AMD 890GX motherboard crown for its new Core Unlocker feature.

The ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 gets our nod for the best AMD 890GX board this year. It was one of the first to introduce a feature to unlock the hidden cores on AMD processors. The layout was one of the best we have seen and ASUS has augmented it with USB 3.0 support. Other factors like overclocking and power consumption also favored it, which made it an easy choice for Best Mainstream AMD board.

Other boards that grabbed our attention include the Jetway HA09, which had an interesting mini PCIe slot, but was let down by a poor layout and uncompetitive pricing. MSI's 890GXM-G65 was another close contender, but this mATX board that suffers slightly from the limitations of its form factor. MSI has also opted for its OC Genie Lite feature, which is less useful than the full-fledged OC Genie.

Scoring Breakdown
Criteria/Model ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 ECS A890GXM-A Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H Jetway HA09 MSI 890GXM-G65
Performance 8.5 8.5 8.0 7.0 7.5
Features 8.0 7.5 8.5 8.0 8.0
Value 8.5 8.0 8.0 7.5 8.0
Overall 8.5 8.0 8.0 7.0 8.0
Price S$249 US$120 S$229 US$130 US$130

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end. 

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