Introduction

How long has it been since you upgraded your motherboard? If you purchased an AMD motherboard that houses a 790 chipset and have had it since its release, it’s probably been at least three years. Truthfully, other than adding AM3 and DDR3 compatibility we haven't seen much out of AMD in the way of their mainstream or enthusiast level motherboards since the launch of the Spider platform. This is finally going to change and, for some, a long wait may soon come to an end.

AMD has launched their first all new chipset for the mainstream/enthusiast market and have named it the 890GX chipset, which also has a new southbridge chipset, the 850. The new 890GX motherboards will host some new innovations, such as the first native SATA 3 controller and USB 3.0. Other technologies include a new DirectX 10.1 IGP, the ATI HD 4290 with SidePort technology and compatibility with the upcoming 6 core AMD processors. Most motherboard manufacturers will be introducing their first AMD 890GX motherboards and Gigabyte will be among them.

The Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H will be the first of Gigabyte's models. The Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H will showcase both the AMD 890GX Northbridge and 850 Southbridge chipsets. The Gigabyte 890 motherboard will utilize the native SATA 3.0 technology, as well as USB 3.0, which is the NEC USB 3.0 controller. It is also ATI CrossFire and Hybrid compatible with one PCI-e 2.0 X16 and one X8 slot. With its USB 3.0 controller, transfer rates of up to 5Gb/s can be achieved, making it up to 10x faster than USB 2.0. The native SATA 3 forgoes the Marvel controller (3^rd party) that we have seen on some Intel motherboards and has the potential of up to 6Gb/s transfer rates via the AMD 850 Southbridge chipset.