ASUS M4A79T Deluxe
Category : 790
Published by Jean-Luc Hadey on 29.04.09
With the M4A79T Deluxe ASUS presents an ASUS AM3 motherboard which is based on AMDs 790FX chipset including the SB750 southbridge. Compared to the M4A78T-E (AMD 790GX chipset) this model has no onboard graphics. 
Furthermore the board comes with an eight phase power design regarding the CPU and a two phase design for memory- and HT-controller, four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, CrossFireX support, four DDR3 slots as well as a Realtek 1200 eight channel sound chip.
On the following pages you will see what the new ASUS M4A79T Deluxe is capable of.
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Specifications
| CPU | AMD Socket AM3 Phenom II / Athlon X4 / Athlon X3 / Athlon X2 AMD 45nm CPU AMD 140W CPU Support |
| Chipset | Nortbridge: AMD 790FX Southbridge: AMD 750 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB DDR3, 1600(OC)/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered |
| Multi-GPU | ATI CrossFireX |
| Slots | 4 x PCI-Express x16 (Dual Modus x16/x16, Triple x16/x8/x8, Quad x8/x8/x8/x 2 x PCI 2.2 |
| Sound | Realtek ALC 1200 8-Kanal-HD Soundchip |
| Storage | 5 x SATA 3 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1, JBOD) 1 x eSATA 3 Gb/s 1 x ATA 100/66/33 1 x Floppy |
| LAN | 1 x Gigabit LAN |
| Firewire | 2 x 1394a ports (1 via Backpanel, 1 via Mainboard Header) |
| USB | 12 x USB 2.0/1.1 Connectors (6 via Backpanel, 6 via Mainboard Header) |
| Fan connectors | 4 Connectors |
| Dimensions | ATX (30.5cm x 26.9cm) |
| Cables, various, tool's & software |
| 2 x CrossFire Bridge |
| 1 x ATX I/O bezel |
| 5 x SATA cables |
| 1 x IDE cable |
| 2 x Q-Connectors |
| 1x USB-/FireWire bezel |
| Driver and utilities CD 1 x User's Manual |
| Tools:ASUS TurboV, ASUS PC Probe II, ASUS Update, ASUS EPU6 Engine, ASUS AI Suite, 3DMark06, Corel Media One, Ulead PhotoImpact 12 SE, WinZip 11, Adobe Reader 8, Kaspersky Antivirus |
The M479T Deluxe delivery is a bit short but enough to set it up quickly. On the other hand if you are looking for useful software tools there is a whole bundle.
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Layout and I/O
The ASUS M4A79T Deluxe presents itself on a black and brown six layer PCB. A stable current supply you get via the 8 + 2 phases power design (eight phases for the CPU, two phases for memory & HT-Controller).
The layout is clearly arranged. All connectors are well placed and accessible. Installing new hardware is very convenient because on the whole board there is plenty of space around the bigger components. With its two, by 90 degree angled SATA connectors, ASUS lets the you arrange its cables neatly (3) and the onboard power- and reset button are very practical (4).
Looking at the capacitors ASUS uses all-solid models (Conductive Polymer Aluminium Solid Capacitors). These offer a higher life expectancy at the same temperature level compared to common electrolyte capacitors as well as a lower dissipation resistance.
Altogether there are four memory slots on the M4A79T which officially support DDR3-1066/1333. If you want to overclock the memory subsystem ASUS claims DDR3-1600 is also possible (5).
North- and southbridge as well as voltage converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passiv Heatpipe (6) cooling solution. Fortunately there is still enough space around the CPU socket to install even todays biggest air coolers.
If you are looking for external connectors on the M4A79T Deluxe mainboard you can find one Gigabit ethernet port, six USB 2.0 connectors, one Firewire port, one eSATA connector, PS/2 keyboard and mouse connector, optical S/PDIF connectors and 8-channel audio I/O. Additionally you'll also spot a practical CMOS Clear button.
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BIOS
Frequency | |
| FSB | Auto, 200 to 400 MHz |
| PCIe | Auto, 100 to 200 MHz |
Voltages | |
| CPU | Auto,1.0 to 1.9 V |
| RAM | Auto,1.5 to 2.8 V |
| Southbridge | Auto,1.1 to 1.3 V |
| Northbridge | Auto,1.2 to 1.25 V |
The BIOS ASUS delivers is very well structured. One can find all the settings he needs to make a perfect setup. The possibility to save up to eight different BIOS configurations is practical and gives you for example the opportunity to save your personal standard- and overclocking-settings. It is also possible to change all the settings using the Windows tool ASUS TurboV.
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Test environment
| Hardware | |
| Mainboard | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe |
| CPU | AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE, 3.2 GHZ, Deneb |
| Memory | Corsair 2 x 1GB DDR3 1800 MHz CL7 @ 1066 MHz 7.7.7.20 (Dual Channel Kit) |
| Graphic card | ATI Radeon HD 4850 1GB |
| Harddisk | Samsung 620GB F1 |
| PSU | Corsair HX 1000 Watt |
To test the mainboard on performance and stability we use the following games and benchmark programs.
Benchmark programs
Futuremark PCMark Vantage: Checks the system performance with five different tests: System, CPU, memory, graphics and HDD.
Futuremark 3DMark Vantage: Checks the systems gaming performance.
Sisoft Sandra XII 2008: Performance- and stability test through memory bandwidth, multi-media performance and arithmetic performance.
Super PI mod 1.5XS: Performance and stability test which calculates PI on a specified number of decimal places.
HD Tach 3.0.4.0: measures the performance of hard disks. We use HD Tach 3.0.4.0.
Games
- F.E.A.R (DX9.0c)
- Crysis (DX10)
Resolution: 800 x 600
Anit Aliasing: none
Filtering: by system
Details: medium
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Test results and overclocking
| PCMark Vantage | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| PCMarkSuite | 6672 | 6256 | 6413 |
| Memories Suite | 4952 | 4811 | 4747 |
| Gaming Suite | 7022 | 7697 | 8865 |
| Hard disk | 3946 | 3905 | 3733 |
| 3DMark Vantage (Punkte) | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Gesamt | 8377 | 8257 | 8583 |
| GPU Score | 7737 | 7070 | 7404 |
| CPU Score | 11139 | 16627 | 16430 |
| SiSoft Speicherbandbreite MB/s | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Integer | 11078 | 19007 | 18930 |
| SiSoft Speicherbandbreite MB/s | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | OK Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| Fliesskomma | 11800 | 19120 | 18940 |
| Diverse-Programme | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| SuperPi 1M | 21.258s | 15.383s | 15.325s |
| SuperPi 32M | 21m 19.668s | 14m.35.369s | 14m.31.484s |
| HD Tach USB-2.0-interface | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| CPU load | 4% | 2% | 3% |
| Burst (MB/s) | 31.2 | 35.1 | 35.7 |
| Read average (MB/s) | 29.8 | 33.5 | 33.4 |
| HD Tach SATA interface | |||
| CPU load | 4% | 1% | 2% |
| Burst (MB/s) | 226 | 232 | 218 |
| Read average (MB/s) | 92 | 94 | 93.5 |
| Resultaten in Bildern pro Sekunde (FPS) | ASUS M4A79T Deluxe | Asus Rampage II Extreme | Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 |
| F.E.A.R (DX9) | 639 | 645 | 644 |
| Crysis (DX10) | 62.09 | 63.05 | 64.12 |
With our overclocking attempts we are looking for the highest possible but still stable Busclock. As a stabilitytest we use 3DMarkVantage, WPrime 1.55, OCCT & SuperPI 1.5 which has to run a 32M calculation. Therefore the results can be considered as stable.
With the corresponding BIOS settings we were able to clock the CPU all the way up to 3824 MHz and the board to a Busclock of 239 MHz. Therefore the CPU needed 1.5 volts and a multiplyer of 16.
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Conclusion
With the M4A79T Deluxe ASUS has a very well priced mainboard in its portfolio. For approximately CHF 250.- (EUR 170.-) you get an ideal basis to build a AMD Socket AM3 system with a recent DDR3 subsystem. Furthermore the M4A79T Delux delivers stability, solid performance and overclocking features. Also the layout is very good and the BIOS gets points for being well structured and easy to configure.
You even get a Realtek 1200 onboard soundchip which delivers high quality sound and different practical tools,
Using an ASUS M4A79T Deluxe mainboard you get an optimal mainboard to build a recent and AMD socket AM3 based PC and especially gamer and overclocker will enjoy this system. Customers who don't want to move to a DDR3 based system we can recommend a M4A79 Deluxe for about CHF 200.- (EUR 140.-).
Resulting of the above mentioned reasons we give our OCaholic Top Hardware Award to this product.
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Author: jl.hadey@ocaholic.ch
Correcture: marcocap@gmx.ch
English translation, copy editor: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch