ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 Motherboard Review
Slots
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AMD 890GX chipset has one PCI Express 2.0 x16 lane that can be split-up into two x8 lanes if necessary. Translation: motherboards based on this chipset can have one or two x16 PCI Express slots, but they will work at x8 if two video cards are installed. They support CrossFire mode, as expected.
The north bridge chip also supports six PCI Express x1 lanes, while the south bridge chip supports two more.
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 comes with two PCI Express x16 slots working at x8 if both are used. The board comes with a loopback card installed on the first PCI Express x16 slot, which must be used if you don’t have a “real” video card. The instructions printed on this card says that it should be installed on the black PCI Express x16 slot, however there is no black slot on this board (the first PCI Express x16 slot where this card must be installed is light gray).
The motherboard also comes with one x4 and one x1 PCI Express slots and two standard PCI Express slots.
Figure 4: Slots.
