ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX Pro Reviews

In our previous review we praised Asus Crosshair V Formula mainboard, because it was beyond comparison with the participating competitors. Of course, the question we ask today is: is Asus Sabertooth 990FX better or worse? The correct answer will be: this board is different, but it is just as good. Let’s compare the two. The boards support the same processors and memory, have the same number of graphics card slots with the same operational configuration. The boards differ by the number and variety of onboard controllers. Asus Crosshair V Formula has three USB 3.0 controllers, while Asus Sabertooth 990FX - only two, which is still more than enough. Asus Crosshair V Formula supports SATA and eSATA 6 Gbps, while Asus Sabertooth 990FX support 3 Gbps, but has more ports and also has IEEE1394 (FireWire) support. Just like other “ROG” (Republic of Gamers) mainboards, Asus Crosshair V Formula may be manipulated from a different computer due to “ROG Connect” technology, while Asus Sabertooth 990FX supports “Thermal Radar” technology just like other “TUF” (The Ultimate Force) mainboards. Asus Crosshair V Formula is priced at about $240, while Asus Sabertooth 990FX will cost significantly less – around $190. However, the biggest advantage of the Asus Sabertooth 990FX is its five-year warranty. And don’t be scared by the title of our today’s review: “five years with Bulldozer processor” doesn’t at all mean that you have to stay with their current not particularly successful Zambezi modification. Later on new Bulldozer models will come out, which will obviously be better than the current ones, but Asus Sabertooth 990FX mainboard will still be ready for them. Moreover, five years is just the warranty period, and in reality this board may last six years or even more. So, it is not quite correct to ask, which Asus mainboard is better. They are both good, each in its own way.

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.

Despite this slight flaw, the Sabertooth performed similarly to more expensive boards and was much faster than its nearest competitors in some circumstances. Gigabyte’s 990FXA-UD7 and the Crosshair V Formula offer some extra lavishness in terms of overclocking, features and general pizzazz (waterblocks will be easier to buy for them too). However, the Sabertooth is a fast, well featured and competitively priced board that offers the most sensible option for anyone who wants maximum performance from an AMD system.

For now, it is nice to see that AMD has finally released the official chipsets and boards that will support Bulldozer. Asus took a big lead here with their SABERTOOTH product, but historically speaking MSI is not all that far behind. A few BIOS fixes and perhaps a revision, and we have a competitive part from MSI that actually costs $10 less than the rather lean and sparse TUF product.

ASUS has seemingly built an very solid 990FX board, but we truly just don't know since we don't have AMD FX processors to put in the board. This just leaves us with a whole lot of meh feelings. It is not ASUS' fault. It is squarely AMD's fault. AMD and Intel have both fully borked its motherboard partners this year. First Intel with a huge chipset recall and now AMD with another no-show. Yawn. If you are building now, you are crazy to build anything else besides a Sandy Bridge system unless the $200 price point of the processor is outside of your budget.

ASUS hit the mark with the Sabertooth 990FX! The Sabertooth 990FX was able to dig its teeth into everything we threw at it and be the dominant force in the charts! If you're in the market for a motherboard the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX should be at the top of your short list!

Asus has brought some great features and aesthetics to this chipset. Their TUF features are really nice because of their stability enhancements and thermal properties. This board also comes in at a very reasonable price for what you’re getting in the box. Asus has been a trusted name in computer hardware for many years now. They also feature some of the best technical support in the business.

Because the Sabertooth 990FX is so good though, and quite reasonably priced considering all the functionality that has baked in, we can overlook the aforementioned issues. We can even turn a blind eye to the fact that the new 990FX chipset is nothing revolutionary. The build quality, performance, features, and 5 year warranty speak for themselves, but right now there is relatively little incentive to buy a 990FX-based motherboard until the AM3+ Bulldozer processors are released.