14 DAY TRIAL // Showcased for the very first time at this year's Computex fair, Biostar's TA990FXE AM3+ motherboard for AMD's upcoming FX-Series processors is getting ready to reach retail, since the Taiwanese company has recently finalized the design of this board.
Just as its name implies, the motherboard is based on AMD's 990FX chipset which features support for no less than 40 PCI Express lanes.
Biostar routed those to a pair of PCI Express x16 slots, which are color-coded red and are compatible with 2-way CrossFireX and SLI setups, while four of the remaining lanes have been routed to a third PCIe x16 slot working at x4 speeds.
In addition to these, the motherboard also features a pair of 32-bit legacy PCI slots, a PCI Express x1 port, and storage is provided by five SATA 6Gbps ports driven by the AMD SB950 south bridge controller.
The sixth SATA slot has been routed to the back of the TA990FXE as an eSATA connector.
Also on the rear I/O panel, Biostar has installed two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit LAN port, a slew of USB 2.0 connectors, and various inputs and outputs for the integrated 7.1 HD audio codec, including digital and coaxial S/PDIF out.
Two additional USB 3.0 ports are available through an on-board pin header that is placed near the left edge of the board.
Under the USB 3.0 header, Biostar has installed the on-board Power and Reset buttons as well as a BIOS debug display.
CPU power is provided by a 4+1 phase VRM with support for 140W CPUs, which is cooled by a pretty large aluminum heatsink connected to the north bridge cooler via a heatpipe.
No details regarding pricing and availability were disclosed by Biostar at this time, but the FX-Series processors should arrive on October 12, so the TA990FXE is expected to arrive sometime around this date. (via HardwareLuxx)