Testing:

The following hardware was installed onto the ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ motherboard for testing purposes:

» AMD 1090T 3.2GHz processor
» 8GB G.Skill Sniper DDR3 memory
» Cooler Master Storm Enforcer case
» Thermaltake Frio CPU cooler
» Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ solid state drive
» Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive
» Seagate 7200.12 1.0TB hard drive
» LG Blu-Ray burner
» Corsair CS600 power supply
» ASUS GTX 560Ti video card



The DVD that ASUS includes with the M5A99X EVO includes their ASUS AI Suite II. This was previously looked at in the Sabertooth 990FX review. The AI Suite II includes software to overclock your CPU within Windows, monitor various sensors, and record the results of those sensors.

The ASUS utility automatically overclocked the CPU from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz, I wanted to see if I could get any more out of the system. First, I tried using the built in optimization tool, which detected that it would take the CPU a bit further to 4.1GHz; unfortunately it wouldn't boot into Windows at those settings, a quick BSOD and the system would reboot. Slowly adjusting the FSB and multiplier I was able to get a stable overclock of 3.7GHz, which is the same overclock I was able to get on the Sabertooth 990FX.

In addition to benchmarking the M5A99X EVO at stock speed, results were recorded with the processor overclocked. These results were compared to those obtained with the same components installed on ASUS' 990FX Sabertooth and a M4A89GTD motherboards.

The following tests were run on the configurations described above:

» Performance Test 7.0
» Windows 7 Experience
» CrystalDiskMark 3.0
» Heaven v1.0
» Thermal Results