ASRock Mobo Supporting ''Zambezi'' Arrives Soon
ASRock is trying to be the first to produce an AM3+ motherboard supporting AMD "Zambezi" processors.
Based on artwork sent in by ASRock, the company is gearing up to be one of the first manufacturers to release a motherboard supporting AMD's next-generation "Zambezi" Fusion Black processors. The board will be named the ASRock 890FX Deluxe5 and based on the AMD 890FX + SB850 chipset.
Slated for a release by the end of February, the board's AMD3r2 (aka AMD3+) CPU socket will be compatible with existing socket AM3 Phenom II and Athlon II processors as well as the upcoming 8-core AMD3+ processors. For the gamer, the motherboard will support AMD Quad CrossFireX, 3-way CrossFireX and a two-card CrossFireX setup.
In addition, ASRock's 890FX Deluxe5 will include four DDR3 memory slots, two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots, two legacy PCI slots and one PCIe x4 slot. There will also be four USB 3.0 ports (two on the back I/O, two on the front panel), eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, two IEEE 1394 ports, 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 audio codec), THX TruStudio PRO and Premium Blu-ray audio support.
Two other notable features are the board's UEFI BIOS interface which supports bootable hard drives larger than 2 TB. There's also a Turbo UCC feature that allows the user to overclock the CPU while maintaining low power consumption with the press of a button.
"Enabling Turbo UCC, it will automatically help you to unlock the extra CPU core to enjoy an instant performance boost, and the system performance will boost up by overclocking CPU frequency, memory frequency and all related voltage settings," reads the product description. "Different from normal high-energy consumption for overclocking or system upgrading process, ASRock Turbo UCC can allow an energy-saving overclocking or system upgrade computing operation."
ASRock's upcoming 890FX-based motherboard arrives just before AMD is expected to introduce the 9-series chipsets supporting "Zambezi" processors in Q2 2011. The lineup will start with the AMD 990FX chipset with AM3+ and AM3 support for high-end motherboards followed by the 990X chipset with AM3+ and AM3 support for mid-level boards. The 980G chipset will round out the 9-series, offering integrated graphics for low-end systems but will not support older AM3 processors.
ASRock did not specify the actual price of its 890FX Deluxe5 motherboard, so stay tuned.


The article says it will support quad Crossfire X...
But it also says there are only 2 pcie 2.0 slots...
And the picture shows 3 slots...
What is it? 2, 3, or 4?
Now where did I put that old AT/XT computer case?
Please, for the love of God, stop putting IDE/floppy connections on a new mobos!
The article says it will support quad Crossfire X...
But it also says there are only 2 pcie 2.0 slots...
And the picture shows 3 slots...
What is it? 2, 3, or 4?
I don't know about the quad CrossfireX claim though...
Quad Crossfire ~ two, dual GPU cards populating the two PCIe2.0-16x slots.
"I really think this 890 chipset based motherboard should have two IDEs, not just one."
"No PATA, XP installation from another machine was not happy."
Motherboard companies are listening. Be real. It's time to move on. There is no AMD board without PCI. Most AMD boards still come with ribbon cables in the box. There is something wrong with with this picture. At least a lot of Sandy Bridge mobos have ditched the 20th century.
AsRock had a contest recently to suggest new mobo ideas. I see that the suggestions to ditch the legacy devices are going unheeded. I think it's just common sense. If you're still using a eide hdd, you don't --just-- need a new motherboard. You need a clue.
QFT.
It amazed me that anyone would buy a brand new high end motherboard, to use with decade old hardware. But a quite recently built a PC for someone who wanted to re-use his old IDE disk drive. Some people are pretty stupid.
Why i have to lose this option?
Or spend $50 on a 1TB SATA hard drive that would be faster and probably have 3x storage.
The chipset and CPU aren't tied at the hip. For example, there are boards that support AM3 chips but use the older 7xx northbridge. I am sure that at some point we'll see AM3 boards with a newer chipset, but in the meantime the 890FX is being utilized. Thankfully 890FX + SB850 has proven to be a solid combo. Of course the most important pieces are in the processor itself anyway.
I highly doubt it. Most systems sold on the market don't even have a discrete graphics card, let alone two or more. The enthusiast, DIY market is actually a relatively small portion of overall system (and therefore CPU) sales.
Besides, SLI support is up to Nvidia. If Nvidia decides to continue making chipsets for AMD CPUs, you'll see SLI boards. But I sort of doubt it, since on the GPU side Nvidia and AMD are in fierce competition.