ECS Elitegroup A990FXM-A (V1.0) Pro Reviews

We spent a couple of weeks with the ECS A990FXM-A before beginning our review. As always, we do spend a fair bit of time using the board for daily tasks and gaming to get a real feel for the board, and to look for any possible issues users might encounter. During the testing period with the ECS A990FXM-A, we encountered several issues that left us dumbfounded, and required close investigation as to pinpoint the source of the problem. At first, overall performance left a bit to be desired, and power consumption was way too high. A BIOS update managed to fix the performance issues, and did drop power consumption a bit, but we still noticed a 50W increase in power drawn via the EPS 8-pin connector compared to other products running the same CPU. Upon investigating the problem, we noticed that the default voltage applied to our CPUs was well over what it should be, and this was tested to be true with multiple CPUs. We notified ECS about the problem, but in the time since ECS has failed to provide a fix for this problem in particular. Combined with the non-working memory dividers, we are forced into a situation where we cannot recommend this product under any circumstances; for fear that the higher voltage applied to the CPU may shorten the lifespan of ANY installed CPU. Considering ECS has shown us they are capable of much better, we are left hugely disappointed in the ECS A990FXM-A, and we hope that ECS does not have this problem with other products. This situation might be acceptable for low-end products, but it is definitely not acceptable for a high-end product. If it worked well, the included accessories, Bluetooth, and IDE justify the $240 price tag,but it's hard to accept the pricing with so many issues present. If ECS can provide a fix for the current problems via a BIOS update, this board comes at a small cost, all things considered.

Overall, I quite like the board when it works. When it doesn't work, however, it's sufficiently aggravating. The only other 'problem', which is one that AMD needs to address, is the lack of Bulldozers to use with AM3+ boards such as this one. None of the features that are specifically geared toward these as of yet unreleased processors are able to be used and I have a sneaking suspicion that this board and others like it will shine a little brighter once they are. Until then, I can only recommend it based on what's available now, and as it is, I would stick with an 890FX based board if that's what it would replace unless Bulldozer is on your radar. If this would be a first upgrade in five years, I would also recommend it to be future-proof for Bulldozer. As a sidestep upgrade or a switch from Intel, I would wait for BD to be released first. On the whole, a good board.

The A990FXM-A is a good option if you want a motherboard for your current or future AMD CPU with several additional features, such as three PCI Express x16 slots, two eSATA-600 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, a Bluetooth receiver (by the way, this is the first time we’ve seen this feature on a motherboard from this manufacturer), a POST diagnostics display, on-board optical SPDIF output, and an ATA-133 port. And, of course, it comes with four USB 3.0 ports and six SATA-600 ports.