When you come up with an extreme, enthusiast-class platform like Intel's nouveau Sandy Bridge E, you want the motherboard boys to come in and sort you out with a blazing mobo to showcase its full potential.

Generally you can count on Asus, and generally it's the Republic of Gamers range that delivers. The Rampage IV Formula is the first of the Republic of Gamers boards we've seen tailored to Intel's X79 specs and we were hoping for something a little more impressive. Especially given that £300+ price tag.

The gamers' boards are now the Sabertooth series, offering a decent balance of price, features and casual overclocking capabilities. The RoG boards are creating an even smaller niche, catering only to the very obsessive hardcore clockers. These guys aren't gamers – they're after numbers, looking to get the fastest silicon going simply for the sake of it.

Cajones, hombre?

The RoG Rampage IV Formula fits this category perfectly. The BIOS itself feels familiar enough at first, then you start to notice there seem to be many more settings than you might have expected, with names the casual user probably won't recognise.

There's little of the hand-holding you get from the auto-overclocking options of the Pro or the Sabertooth X79. Instead, you just get an option to start at 4.2GHz, almost like the board is looking down its nose at you for wanting it to do the hard work for you.

If you know what you're doing at the extreme end of the overclocking spectrum then I have little doubt you're going to be able to squeeze an awful lot out of the Sandy Bridge E chips you choose to blow up. If you're more of a casual clocker, like this here reviewer, then you might well be disappointed.

Speeds are impressive out of the box though, with the board consistently delivering the top Turbo score of our Core i7 3960X at 3.9GHz across the benchmarks.

TechRadar Labs

Multi-threaded CPU performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index: Higher is better
Asus RoG Rampage IV Formula: 11.33
Asus Sabertooth X79: 10.54

CPU encoding performance
X264 v4.0: Frames Per Second: Higher is better
Asus RoG Rampage IV Formula: 59
Asus Sabertooth X79: 49

Overclocking performance
Max OC: Gigahertz: Higher is better
Asus RoG Rampage IV Formula: 4.66
Asus Sabertooth X79: 4.8

But it's not about out-of-the-box speeds. We want to push the poor silicon to its very limits, but for some reason we can't. With the Sabertooth X79 and the P9X79 Pro we were hitting around 4.8GHz with the same chip. In this Rampage IV Formula we're unable to get far north of 4.6GHz.

To make matters worse, the Intel board we were sent with the chip will happily auto-overclock up to 4.625GHz with a simple twitch of a BIOS setting. There were none of the BCLK Strap/multiplier/ voltage tweaking shenanigans I had to pull to get the RoG anywhere near that speed. That's hugely disappointing given the price, as well as its stance as the overclocker's board of choice.

If you're handy with the LN2 then I'm sure you've got a better chance with this built-to-task board than any other. But no amount of pretty underslung LED lighting can disguise the fact that both the Sabertooth X79 and the fantastic P9X79 Pro boards are much better suited to anyone who doesn't have a tank of liquid nitrogen steaming away in the corner of their garage.

Having recently looked at the Sabretooth X79, it's now the turn of a motherboard a little lower down the food chain, the Asus P9X79 Pro.

This board is lower down in relative terms only though, as the X79 is a high-end, enthusiast chipset. That means any motherboard featuring this chipset isn't going to be exactly cheap.

The P9X79 Pro is about a tenner cheaper than the Sabretooth X79. And, you'd better sit down for this, nearly a hundred quid cheaper than Asus's flagship Republic of Gamers X79.

The P9X79 Pro is still packed with up-to-the-minute features, such as PCIe 3.0 support, USB 3.0 boost technology, SSD caching, Asus's new USB BIOS Flashback, an updated UEFI BIOS with new features and eSATA 6Gbps. So in fact you're getting an awful lot of board for that price tag and with a fair degree of future-proofing built in as a bonus.

The new processors feature a quad-channel memory controller, which goes some way to explaining the crazy physical size of the chip and its corresponding socket on the board. Small it ain't and while some companies are happy to stick with four DIMM slots, Asus being Asus has gone the whole hog and, as it did with the Sabertooth X79, the P9X79 Pro sports a complete set of eight DIMM slots, two per channel. In theory, that means you can load up the board with a maximum of 64GB of memory.

In performance terms too the P9X79 Pro impresses. The Sabertooth X79 may be seen as the home overclocker's board of choice, but the P9X79 Pro seems just as capable of hitting 4.8GHz. An excellent result considering the Sabertooth only managed another 100MHz more. It may not have the looks, but it's still got the performance chops.

TechRadar Labs

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench R11.5: Index: Higher is better
Asus P9X79 PRO: 10.98
Asus Sabretooth X79: 10.54

CPU HD encoding performance
X264 v4: Frames per second: Higher is better
Asus P9X79 PRO: 57
Asus Sabretooth X79: 49

Memory bandwidth performance
Sisoft Sandra: Gigabytes per second: Higher is better
Asus P9X79 PRO: 39
Asus Sabretooth X79: 31

Overclocking performance
Core i7 3930K: Gigahertz: Higher is better
Asus P9X79 PRO: 4.8GHz
Asus Sabretooth X79: 4.9GHz

BIOShock

When the UEFI BIOS first made an appearance, Asus was quick to use the new technology to make life a lot easier when tweaking BIOS settings and it hasn't been sitting on its laurels. The latest version of the BIOS now includes a snapshot key (F12) to allow you to drop the BIOS settings on a USB key for either backing up or sharing, and a shortcut to allow access to the most oft-used information.

Also new is the USB BIOS Flashback technology, a neat way to flash the BIOS using a USB key and a special button on the rear I/O panel while just using ATX standby power.

The board also supports the very latest in USB 3.0 technology in the shape of the USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP). This simple new technological twist on the specifications enables the board to boost USB 3.0 speed by 170 per cent.

So, yes the board is still expensive but then it's loaded to the gills with new and future-proofed technologies. Whether you're going to use them all is a different matter.

We think Asus's take on the UEFI BIOS is something that other board manufacturers should really take note of, and this latest version is leaving them trailing even further behind.

Everyone and their dog in the motherboard market will be releasing new mobos based on the X79 chipset following Intel's release of the Sandy Bridge E processors. We've already had a play with one of Asus's top boards in the form of the Sabretooth X79, and now it's the turn of fellow Taiwanese outfit ASRock to get in on the action.

The X79 Extreme4 is the company's third tier LGA 2,011 offering after the Extreme7 and Extreme9. Those are the performance boards in ASRock's lineup, with the Extreme4 fitting right in the middle.

It's not the top overclocking board but it's got enough extras in the package to make a fairly compelling argument for itself. But are these features enough when you're still being asked to spend nigh-on £200 on a new motherboard?

False economy?

The value proposition becomes less of an issue when you're spending around £800 on the Core i7 3960X, or £400-odd on the Core i7 3930K. The difference between spending £200 and £250 on a board to get the most out of your CPU then seems less important.

That said, there is the notion that if you are spending that amount of money on a chip and need to pick up a bit more RAM for the ol' quad-channel shenanigans the X79 chipset has introduced, there needs to be somewhere you can save some cash in your build.

The thing is, as important as all the other components are, the motherboard is the facilitator. It's the piece of the puzzle that enables the entire machine to run at its very best. Do you really want to stint on that?

If we were still getting the same stock performance then we could probably accept that this was a reasonable place to save a couple of pennies. Overclocking is a relatively niche market after all, and if you're not planning to tweak your CPU's nipples then this won't present so much of a problem for you.

The stock performance of the X79 Extreme4 is fairly close in some respects to that of our favourite X79 board so far: the Asus X79 Sabertooth. There's almost parity in the Cinebench score, and even a serious boost on the memory bandwidth. The X264 and World in Conflict gaming scores suffer in comparison though.

When you do factor in overclocking, things start to look even worse for the X79. In the BIOS you can use the EZ overclocking tag, which will boot into Windows comfortably at 4.6GHz. So far, so good, but unfortunately it wont stay there. We managed a full Cinebench run through, but when it came to X264 the board throttled back all the way to 3.33GHz. Even at stock settings the Sabertooth will run at 3.9GHz when pushed to 100 per cent CPU load.

TechRadar Labs

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench: Index Score: Higher is better
ASRock X79 Extreme4: 10.56
Asus X79 Sabertooth: 10.54

Video encoding performance
X264: v4.0 FPS: Higher is better
ASRock X79 Extreme4: 55
Asus X79 Sabertooth: 59

Memory bandwidth
SiSoft Sandra: GB/S: Higher is better
ASRock X79 Extreme4: 38
Asus X79 Sabertooth: 31

CPU gaming performance
WiC: FPS: Higher is better
ASRock X79 Extreme44: 112
Asus X79 Sabertooth: 117

Another issue involves the memory profiling. The new XMP version 1.3 is meant to be more stable, but when we tried either the Corsair or G.Skill kits using the XMP profile we couldn't boot into our OS. Once we'd manually configured the RAM things were fine, but still it smacks of an immature BIOS.

Unfortunately, as things stand, this cheaper ASRock board isn't trustworthy enough to justify saving money on the platform costs. And we bet there wont be many system integrators picking it up either.

Asus Sabertooth X79: Overview

Intel's latest world beating beast, the Core i7-3960X, has arrived and so has its X79 chipset.

And that means a raft of fancy new motherboards based on the equally box-fresh X79 chipset. Intel's own DX79SI aside, our first taste of an X79 mobo comes in the form of the Asus Sabertooth X79.

Like previous Sabertooth branded boards, the emphasis is on bang for buck.

Well, relatively speaking.

All boards based on Intel's new X79 chipset are high end by definition. But compared to Asus's silly money RoG boards, the Sabertooth X79 is positively parsimonious.

Earlier Sabertooth boards like the P67 model model were distinct thanks to the so-called "Thermal Armour" feature which enclosed the vast majority of the PCB in a fan-cooled jacket, the better to manage airflow across critical components.

As we'll see, that's not a feature Asus has carried over for the X79 flavour.

But the Sabertooth still has plenty to offer.

Asus Sabertooth X79: Benchmarks

We pit this first X79 board against one of Asus's Republic of Gamers boards with a hex-core Gulftown chip at its heart.

The performance boost of the new chip is tangible at stock speeds but almost mind-blowing at the top overclocked settings of 4.8GHz.

Multi-threaded rendering performance

Single-threaded rendering performance

CPU encoding performance

Memory bandwidth

Overclocking performance

Asus Sabertooth X79: Verdict

The arrival of Intel's Sandy Bridge E might be a little perplexing in terms of Intel's new core-fusing strategy. We certainly weren't expecting Intel to roll out an eight-core chip with two cores turned off.

However, as far as the platform goes, it does represent a major overhaul.

Most obviously we've got a new socket, the pin-tastic LGA 2,011. But the socket isn't the only big change.

There are at least two further major upgrades and it just so happens that they push in opposite directions in terms of board design.

The first is the introduction of a quad-channel memory controller.

Whether it's worth any extra performance over the triple-channel controller of LGA1,366 is frankly a moot point. We're stuck with it. But what we can say for sure is that it makes board design a lot busier.

As a consequence the Asus Sabertooth X79 sports fully eight memory DIMM slots. That's two per channel.

Some X79 manufacturers are limiting their overclocking boards to four DIMM slots, claiming not adding in extra slots will aid overclocking. With the 4.8GHz we got out of our 3.33GHz rated chip that doesn't seem to be a problem for the Sabertooth X79.

Pushing the other way regards design complexity is the X79's single-chip architecture.

However, it's not enough to offset those extra DIMM slots and the upshot is that the Sabertooth X79 has lost the "Thermal Armour" cladding seen in the Sabertooth P67. There just isn't space to plumb in the fan.

Instead, Asus has rigged up an enclosure around the rear panel, complete with a small fan to extract the worst of the hot gases from the chipset.

Further cooling efforts involve beefy heatsinks throughout.

Another highlight of Asus's implementation of the X79 chipset is a new take on SSD caching.

Think of it as a more user-friendly version of Intel's smart cache. Asus's effort is much easier to set up. In fact, you can add it any time you want after installing the OS on a normal magnetic hard drive.

Simply connect your caching SSD. Fire up the Asus app, click "cache" and that's it. You can carrying on working while the system sets up the cache and you don't even have to reboot on completetion. Clever, eh?

Finally, in the name of improved stability, Asus has extended its digital power management from the Vcore to the memory controller.

That should make using aggressive settings a more realistic long-term solution.

Elsewhere, it's largely standard X79 fare.

That means support for both NVIDIA's SLI and AMD Crossfire X multi-GPU platforms amd native SATA 6Gbps (the SSD caching features leverages a Marvell 6Gbps controller) but no native USB 3.0 (the latter comes courtesy of a third party chip).

We liked

Asus's RoG boards are all very well if money's no object. Back in the real world, the Sabertooth series offers a much more realistic compromise between performance, features and price.

The chipset cooling and overclocking support look very solid. We certainly squeezed some great numbers out of the new Core i7-3960X.

We disliked

Not a great deal, if we're honest.

One thing you will miss if you're in the habit of improvising rigs is are onboard power and reset switches. They don't appear here. It's also difficult to know precisely how good the performance is with so few current frames of reference.

Final word

As X79 boards go, the Sabertooth is competitively priced, has all the crucial features and looks built to las.

Zotac A75-ITX WiFi - Overview

Zotac is really making a mark for itself as a motherboard manufacturer, especially in the small form factor arena, and this Zotac A75-ITX WiFi certainly looks to continue that trend.

We checked out the Z68-ITX WiFi a little while back and its combination of packed PCB and impressive performance made it an incredibly interesting prospect for a wee Intel Sandy Bridge machine.

More suited to the smaller PC though is AMD's Llano APU. In a form factor where space is at a premium having decent graphics power on-chip makes for a well-rounded machine in a very tight space.

Intel's Sandy Bridge may also have integrated graphics but that hardly gives you much power beyond a little light media play and standard web-crawling.

The Llano APUs though have discrete-class graphics prowess, maybe not of the high-end calibre, but certainly far better than anything we've seen before.

So what compromises have been made to the A75 platform to squeeze it down into this small form factor?

Zotac A75-ITX WiFi - Benchmarks

You can see from the results below the CPU component of the Llano APU is being hobbled by the motherboard itself. In both the Asus ATX and MSI mATX boards the chips perform far better at straight, traditional CPU tasks.

On the gaming side though there is no such compromise in performance; good news for the mini PC gamer.

CPU rendering performance

CPU gaming performance

DX11 gaming performance

Zotac A75-ITX WiFi - Verdict

Inevitably there's less space on the motherboard itself to allow more than two DIMM slots and a single x16 PCIe connector, but in such a small form factor neither represent a massive compromise.

Indeed given the restraints having a discrete GPU in the PCIe slot places on the CPU component of the Llano APUs you could argue that maybe you don't need one at all.

That said dropping in a small discrete card, like a half-height AMD Radeon HD 6670, gives you a hell of a boost in graphical performance with Llano's Dual Graphics functionality.

We notched up over 25fps in DiRT 3 at 1920x1080 on the Ultra settings, and for a tiny PC sat beneath your HD tele that wouldn't be bad at all.

You'd need a rather chunkier GPU to be able to do that on an Intel platform.

But still performance does suffer. The straight line CPU scores are a way down compared with the sort of numbers we've been getting out of either ATX or micro-ATX desktop Llano boards. Looking at either Cinebench or the CPU score from Shogun 2 and the performance of the Zotac A75-ITX is noticeably off the pace.

Thankfully that's only on the CPU side – if you look at the gaming performance of the Llano APU in the little Zotac board it stands toe-to-toe with the larger boards out there.

And as you're unlikely to be doing any seriously processor intensive tasks on such a small box, at least you shouldn't be expecting to, that's not a major problem either.

As such you wouldn't be expecting it to be much of an overclocking board either, despite the huge amount of processor head-room the A-series, desktop Llano chips have in them. This seems to be where one of the main areas of compromise lies; there is no way to boost the performance of the APU.

In the BIOS there is an option which looks like it ought to up the multiplier, but as the A-series multipliers are locked down, a la Sandy Bridge, there's nothing happening in the performance stakes. It's a bit of a shame given what we've managed to squeeze out of the A-series chips before, but for an inexpensive little board serious CPU performance isn't a necessary requirement.

But being an inexpensive little board is. Unfortunately you're paying quite a premium for the size of the Zotac A75-ITX WiFi, even our favourite A75, the Asus F1A75-V Pro is well over a tenner cheaper and that does have the performance chops.

We liked:

The fact there is so much squeezed into the Zotac A75-ITX WiFi is impressive. With such serious connectivity options too that's no mean feat; there's dual Gigabit ethernet ports on the back with twin WiFi antennae sticking out too.

The lack of compromise on the gaming performance too is a very welcome surprise, especially given how hobbled the CPU component seems in this board.

We disliked:

Sadly that CPU performance is a shame. It's not a huge issue in small form factor boards, but knowing you're missing out on performance you have actually paid for is disappointing.

As is the lack of any overclocking possibilities that we could see with the long legs of the AMD A-series APUs.

There's also the fact it is rather more expensive than better performing, though larger motherboards. Even the mATX boards keep the CPU parts ticking over nicely.

Final word:

So if form factor is an issue for you, then you're going to have to pay for it.

But still, Zotac has crammed a huge amount onto this tiny slab of PCB and as the basis for a fully-functional Fusion mini PC it's hard to beat.

The ECS A75F-A is a new member of its Black Series family of motherboards. The Black Series is home to the company's range of performance products and anyone used to seeing the Black Series Intel boards with all their added razzmatazz may be a bit shocked by this board.

It looks, dare we say it, a wee bit dull by comparison. When you first get the A75F-A Black Series out of its box there's a feeling that something is not quite right and that's down to the slightly narrower width. There's nothing wrong with being thinner than normal, indeed inside some cases it's a blessing not being as snug as a standard width board.

Solid performer

When it comes to performance the A75F-A is up there with the best of them, but in terms of overclocking the A8-3850 the A75F-A Black Series couldn't quite hit the 3.7GHz heights achieved by the Asus F1A75-V Pro.

Getting it to run stably at 3.5GHz (600MHz over the standard clock) is still none-too shabby an overclock.

The BIOS offers support for memory speeds up to 1,866MHz and while 1,600MHz was fine the same couldn't be said for the low voltage 1,866MHz we tried.

It doesn't help when the BIOS doesn't allow you to set the voltage you need and you have to keep going back to the PC Health section to see what the memory voltage is. Time consuming and frankly a right pain.

TechRadar Labs

AMD A-Series

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index: Higher is better
Asus F1A75-V Pro: 3.42
ECS A75F-A Black Extreme: 3.45
Gigabyte A75-UD4H: 3.46
MSI A75MA-G55: 3.4

CPU gaming performance
Shogun 2: Frames per second: Higher is better
Asus F1A75-V Pro: 20
ECS A75F-A Black Extreme: 16
Gigabyte A75-UD4H: 17
MSI A75MA-G55: 19

There's not much in the way of fancy extras on the A75F-A but this isn't a put-down, in fact it makes a change to see a motherboard not crammed to the gills with unnecessary extras, but there are still better boards around for the cash.

The big difference between this 990FXA-GD80 and MSI's much cheaper 970A-GD45 (besides the befuddling array of characters) is the chipset.

The 990FX chipset will let you play with multiple graphics cards, whether they're Nvidia or AMD-flavoured. So if you're one of those rare slobbering maniacs with two Nvidia graphics cards and a penchant for AMD processors, this board will allow you to play out your sick SLI fantasy.

Does that justify double the expense of the 970A-GD45? Certainly not – let's hope there's more on offer than just versatile GPU support and a lightening of the wallet.

At £135 it's looking quite an expensive proposition. It does little more than right the wrongs of cheaper boards – ASRock's Fatal1ty 990FX Professional and the Asus Crosshair V Formula shower extra features on the ever grateful user. So, whatcha got, MSI?

Okay, well it does have the OC Genie. The 248 per cent performance boost it promises is complete rubbish of course, but it's a hassle-free way to overclock and a great starting point for further tweaking.

TechRadar Labs

AMD 9-Series

CPU video encoding performance
X246 v4: Frames per second: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 33
Asus M5A99X EVO: 33
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 33
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 32
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 33
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 33
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 33
MSI 970A-G45: 33

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index score: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 5.86
Asus M5A99X EVO: 5.86
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 5.86
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 5.72
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 5.78
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 5.83
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 5.74
MSI 970A-G45: 5.71

OC control

You can take a bit more control over overclocking in this BIOS of course, and even change exactly how that OC Genie button works when you press it – how far it ramps up the FSB, or CPU clock ratio, let's say.

The big issue though is the price. At £100-odd we could understand its feature set compared to the competition. At £135, said competition is just too close in price and too good – this board's capable, but out-classed by its rivals.

For Joe PC enthusiast, it's often a worry buying a cheap motherboard. How cheap can you go before boards don't have the features you need?

Manufacturers must be faced with a bit of a quandary in how to spec out their low-end boards too. This 970A-G45 from MSI is very cheap, so inevitably some sacrifices have had to be made to keep the cost down.

Most prevalent is the chipset. Unlike 990X and 990FX boards, models built around the 970 chipset don't support the brand new flavour of AMD-based SLI, but they do support two AMD graphics cards in CrossFireX configuration.

SLI slam

That makes sense for a £75 board, although it might frustrate owners of multiple Nvidia cards. As a rule of thumb, AMD chipsets play nicer with AMD graphics cards anyway, so you may be backed into a corner as far as GPU choice goes, but at least it's a corner with benefits.

In other areas, it's pleasantly bountiful for such a cheap mobo. Like its 990FXA-GD80 cousin (and most 990FX boards) it heaps six SATA 6Gbps ports on its slender PCB.

That's great on paper, but alas, their placement gives away the 970A-G45's weaker breeding. With a graphics card occupying the top PCI-e slot, the SATA ports lie awfully close to its fan, making it quite a hassle to drop in and pull out cables.

TechRadar Labs

AMD 9-Series

CPU video encoding performance
X246 v4: Frames per second: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 33
Asus M5A99X EVO: 33
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 33
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 32
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 33
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 33
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 33
MSI 970A-G45: 33

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index score: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 5.86
Asus M5A99X EVO: 5.86
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 5.86
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 5.72
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 5.78
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 5.83
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 5.74
MSI 970A-G45: 5.71

Verdict

Still, thanks to the similar performance of all AMD's chipsets you won't lose out in that regard.

A cup of sugar, a cup of dirt; if you're looking to save money this motherboard won't bite you on the bottom with a glaring lack of features, but it's hardly luxurious.

This high-end Gigabyte 990FX motherboard actually represents something quite new from the Taiwanese manufacturer; namely a high-price, high-performance AMD motherboard.

Gigabyte has obviously long-supported the AMD side of the PC world, but until now hadn't released a serious top-end product in that market.

The GA-990FXA-UD7 is most definitely a serious board. Like the Asus Sabertooth 990FX, this board supports SLI as well as the standard CrossFire setups. In this UD7 trim we're talking about full four-way SLI support too.

The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 retains the SATA 6Gbps support from 8 series boards, and Gigabyte has made full use of this by including 8 SATA 3 ports.

Rival motherboard the Asus Sabertooth 990FX isn't really leaving anyone wanting by including just six SATA 3 and two SATA 2 ports, but it's worth bearing in mind when figuring out why the Gigabyte board is pricier.

Sadly, there's no native USB 3.0 support as many were hoping. It's still handled by an onboard controller limiting the number of ports. It has just four USB 3.0 ports and 14 USB 2.0 ports.

Gigabyte's board looks great too, which is a pleasant surprise after its gimmicky Assassin enthusiast range.

Fitting any cooler shouldn't be a problem and despite cramming four GPUs into its little beige mouths, it's less of a space hog than some four-way SLI boards we've seen.

TechRadar Labs

AMD 9-Series

CPU video encoding performance
X246 v4: Frames per second: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 33
Asus M5A99X EVO: 33
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 33
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 32
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 33
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 33
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 33
MSI 970A-G45: 33

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index score: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 5.86
Asus M5A99X EVO: 5.86
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 5.86
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 5.72
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 5.78
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 5.83
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 5.74
MSI 970A-G45: 5.71

Verdict

So, if you've got around £200 to spend on a motherboard, and you want a high bang for buck ratio, the bucks, if you can chuck in the extra few, must go to the Gigabyte board.

The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 justifies its price tag with its performance, tons of ports and four-way SLI.

The top-of-the-range AMD 990FX chipset in the Asus Sabertooth 990FX motherboard is all about adding support for AMD's formidably titled and mysterious Bulldozer CPUs.

Those eight-core, quad-mod Bulldozer chips should at the very least match the Intel i7 2600K pace for pace. Intel's chip is a four core, eight-threaded affair, while the Bulldozer chip will have eight actual cores.

All that processing magic will appear on store shelves in Zambezi quad-mod chips before you'll be digging your winter coat out, but for existing AMD CPU customers, the Bulldozer-ready Asus Sabertooth 990FX still has features to offer right now.

First, there's a landmark moment for AMD boards and multi-GPU. It's SLI and it's available across a range of the 9-series boards. Gigabyte's GA-990FXA-UD7 will actually support 4-way SLI or CrossFireX setups, while this Sabertooth can hack three-way support.

This is quite a big selling point for loyal AMD gamers – these are the first motherboards to support Nvidia's multi-GPU tech, and the very fact it's included suggests Bulldozer has the grunt to match SLI'd GPUs.

Sabertooth comes without that TUF thermal armour that gives its P67 iteration that odd look, but still sports the rugged design and heatsinks painted in ubiquitous military tones.

There's plenty of space to fit a cooler, the side mounted SATA ports are out of your GPU's way, and it's compact enough to fit in most cases despite supporting three GPUs.

TechRadar Labs

AMD 9-Series

CPU video encoding performance
X246 v4: Frames per second: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 33
Asus M5A99X EVO: 33
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 33
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 32
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 33
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 33
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 33
MSI 970A-G45: 33

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench 11.5: Index score: Higher is better
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX: 5.86
Asus M5A99X EVO: 5.86
Asus RoG Crosshair V: 5.86
Asus Sabertooth 990FX: 5.72
Gigabyte 970A-UD3: 5.78
Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H: 5.83
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7: 5.74
MSI 970A-G45: 5.71

Verdict

It's not the beast performing motherboard we've seen, but the military stylings betray the serious overclocking performance you can get out of the Sabertooth.

Ultimately, the excellent build quality and Bios make this motherboard another great Asus offering.