Asus reminds us all that AMD’s desktop CPU technology is overdue for replacement
For those people who like AMD’s desktop chips, the drought of new products in this sector has lasted very long indeed.
Checking back, I first reviewed the Asus M5A970 Evo AM3+ motherboard in 2011. And now in 2016, Asus has sent me another motherboard based on the identical chipset and socket. That’s nearly five years later!
That it's done this does actually suggests that a market still exists for those wedded to the AMD FX series, which always represented a great price/performance deal.
What this chipset needs is a revamp, but while we wait for that, Asus has endeavoured to enhance the 970 chipset in its Pro Gaming/Aura in many subtle ways.
But before we go there, how can the AMD 970 chipset (in reality the 870…) and its SB950 buddy perform when tested these days?
What’s rather disconcerting is that this is still a decent performer when coupled with a 8 or 9 series FX processor, and there's more than enough grunt to run games if you combine it with an effective AMD or Nvidia video card.
These processors don’t have an integral GPU, so a video card is a necessity, as is DDR3 RAM and the usual complement of SATA drives.
The AMD 970 + SB950 might be ‘old school’, but it works quite effectively in terms of the performance and functions that PCs were meant to deliver five or more years ago.
Where it shows its age, though, is with the I/O services, because the 970 chipset predates USB 3.0 and lots of other advances that we now generally take for granted.
To make up for these limitations, Asus has splashed all manner of discrete silicon on it, all with the intention of bringing the 970 Pro Gaming Aura up to modern spec.
It's added no less than two ASMedia chips, one to support a pair of USB 3.1 Type-A ports (red ones) on the rear, and another to provide two USB 3.0 ports via a 20-pin header. More would have been nice, but you do get eight 2.0 ports on the back without the need to deploy a single header.
This board is, unless I’m mistaken, the only officially approved Nvidia SLI implementation on an AMD platform. Yes, it might technically work on others, but this one is actually certified to function.
There are two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots that operate in 8x/8x in multi-GPU mode, a couple of x1 ports, and a pair of legacy PCI for those who need them.
So where is this motherboard not up to specification? There are a few things about it that I’m not thrilled about, the first of which is where it decided to place the LEDs for the Aura effects.
They’re under the heatsink for the 970 chipset, which is lined up with the first 16x slot and therefore where a big video card will mostly obscure it. Considering the time Asus spent on these lights and the ways you can control them, you’d think someone might have noticed this blatant design flaw.
There's also a LED track running from the Supreme FX chip along the cart slot edge of the board. This is red, and only red, regardless of what colours you’ve selected on the Aura cluster. This doesn’t seem like joined-up thinking, which is unusual for Asus.
Some might consider the lack of PCIe 3.0 a problem, but numerous tests have revealed that on a single GPU PCIe 3.0 or 2.0, it makes very little difference to performance. Yet it might have implications for the M.2 slot.
This is rated at PCIe 2.0 x4, providing a maximum bandwidth of 2GB/s. I’ve already tested PCIe M.2 SSDs from Samsung that can achieve 2.5GB/s read speeds, but only over a PCIe 3.0 x4 connection. This won’t affect those who use SATA M.2 cards on this interface, but it could hold back a Samsung 950 Pro M.2 or similar.
Generally, I liked the Asus 970 Pro Gaming/Aura, as it reminded me that AMD can design some solid platforms, even if it's a bit useless at following them up or marketing them as effectively as Intel.
For those heavily invested in an AMD FX processor and DDR3 RAM, this board gives them a system revamp at minimal cost, so they can enjoy at least a feature flavour of what a modern motherboard has to offer. In most respects this works, even if I’m less convinced by the lighting aspects than some might be.
And until AMD delivers its next-generation desktop CPU ‘Zen’ at some point this year, boards like this one are the only option without going Intel.
Nice board, an affordable price, great features and a bag full of nostalgia thrown in for good measure. Mark Pickavance
Old AMD technology dragged kicking by Asus to 2016.