ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard Review

By now you've heard of ASUS unless you have been living in a cave with Osama or this is your first read on the subject of premium computer hardware. I'll skip the usual ASUS brief and get right to it. We are looking at the ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3. As many times as I have had to type that lately I'm really hating the marketing guy who came up with the name for the board. In spite of that, the M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 is actually quite interesting. It's got USB 3.0 support and SATA 6G support. While those things are cool it is the Core Unlocker that I am excited about. Picture if you will a world in which you can buy a sub-$100 dual core CPU and unlock 4 cores with the push of just one button. Sound good? Even if you are the type of guy who drops $999.99 on the latest and greatest Extreme Edition CPUs you have to admit that a quad core CPU for $100 is pretty awesome. If you don't think that's awesome you either don't understand what that means or you need a defibrillator.

In any case that's the thing that excites me most about this board. I'll cover the feature in greater detail later on in the article. In fact I was so impressed by the feature I devoted an entire page to the topic. Aside from that the board has a lot going for it on paper at least. Integrated Radeon 4290 GPU, Hybrid CrossfireX, CrossfireX support, SATA 6Gbps, USB3 support, and a well rounded feature set. This board isn't as full featured as some flagship offerings we've seen from ASUS but it is certainly aimed at the enthusiast. Albeit a more budget minded one. The Core Unlocker is proof of that thinking in my opinion.