AMD 790GX chipset - Foxconn A7DA-S motherboard review

The success (or relative lack thereof) of AMD's Phenom processors and, largely speaking, the platform around which it is built has already been discussed to death, and really doesn't warrant any more column inches than has already been afforded it.  However, whatever you have to say about both Phenom and the AMD chipsets on which it resided, there can be little doubt that the company are working hard to get it right, in much the same vein as the firm's graphics division toiled away until its labours finally bore fruit in recent months.

We may still be waiting for AMD's 45 nanometre Phenom processors, but until then AMD have been beavering away on the motherboard chipset side of things to strengthen that part of the equation from the already respectable 790FX chipset that launched alongside Phenom.  First we saw the introduction of the 780G chipset, complete with integrated graphics, as well as witnessing the SB600 south bridge undergo a die shrink to become the smaller, 55 nanometre, SB700.

The subject of today's review utilises the 790GX chipset and makes further progress on both of these counts - On the one hand, the Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics of the 780G chipset becomes the Radeon HD 3300 here, while on the south bridge SB700 is replaced by SB750, which has one extremely interesting trick up its sleeve...

So, there's plenty of new stuff to talk about here, all rolled into the single package which is the subject of today's review - Foxconn's A7DA-S motherboard.