14 DAY TRIAL // With AMD's FX-Series processors expected to arrive in less than a month from now, we should expect quite a few new AM3+ motherboard models to come our way in the upcoming weeks, much like the 990FXA-UD3 1.2 that was recently introduced by Gigabyte.
The board is powered by the AMD 990FX North-bridge chipset that is combined with SB950 South-bridge controller and supports not only the upcoming FX-Series CPUs but also processors from the Phenom II and Athlon II series.
These will be powered by an 8+2 phase VRM, and the whole motherboard was designed using the UltraDurable 3 Classic technology.
Right bellow the CPU socket, four DIMM slots are available providing support for memory speeds up to 2000MHz.
The remaining expansion options include a pair of PCI Express x1 slots, a single 32-bit legacy PCI Express slot, and no less than four PCI Express x16 slots.
Only two of these are able to support x16 speeds, as the two other are linked to the SB950 south-bridge and are PCI-Express x4 electrically. As a result, Gigabyte's board is limited at supporting 2-way CrossFireX and SLI setups.
As far as storage is concerned, the 990FXA-UD3 comes equipped with the standard six SATA 6Gbps ports driven by the AMD SB950 controller as well as with a pair of 3Gbps eSATA connectors.
These are driven by a third-party JMicron JMB363 controller and are joined in the back of the board by a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet port powered by a Realtek RTL8111E IC and by 8 channel HD audio driven by a Realtek ALC889 codec.
Two more USB 3.0 ports can be routed to the front of the case by connecting them to an on-board pin-header.
Pricing has not yet been finalized, but the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 1.2 should end up costing somewhere around US $160 (118 Euros). (via TechPowerUp)