Gigabyte announced the GA-MA790FXT-UD5P, their first AMD "Dragon Platform" qualified motherboard with next generation AMD AM3 Phenom II processors support.

Sportting the new AMD AM3 socket, the Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P supports the highest performing ever 45nm AMD Phenom II processors featuring HyperTransport 3.0 and integrated DDR3 memory controller. The motherboard is able to reach memory speeds up to 1666+MHz (OC) for blazing fast memory access for today?s latest applications and games with greater energy efficiency. It also features a 8+2 CPU VRM power phase design, able to handle the power demands from 140W CPUs with ease.

The motherboard is equipped with the AMD 790FX North Bridge offering Dual x16 PCI-E 2.0 graphics interfaces to deliver up the latest ATI CrossFireX support. Plugging in dual graphics cards also enables support for up to 4 monitors.

The Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P also delivers AMD OverDrive support, allowing high-end users the ability to fully customize and monitor the performance and settings of their system. In addition, high-end performance junkies will love the latest EC AOD-ACC Embedded Controller, which allows AMD Phenom II Black Edition CPUs to be overclocked using the AMD OverDrive utility.

The new board is part of the company's Ultra Durable 3 motherboards. The motherboard design introduces 2 ounces of copper for both the Power and Ground layers for lower system temperature, improved energy efficiency and enhanced stability for overclocking. It also feature Japanese Solid Capacitors boasting 50,000 hours of operation, Ferrite core chokes with higher energy efficiency compared to the commonly used iron core chokes and Lower RDS(on) MOSFETs that features a lower resistance, which reduces power consumption and heat generation.

Connectivity options are key to any high end system, and the GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P delivers with a combined total of up to 10 SATA 2.0 device support. In addition to the 6 SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) ports from the SB750 (with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD support), the GA-MA790FXT-UD5P provides an additional 4 SATA 2.0 ports through the onboard JMicron controller (JM363 & JM322 with RAID 0, 1, and JBOD support), enabling GIGABYTE's Smart Backup technology which allows users to connect up to 4 SATA 2.0 devices for effortless hardware-based RAID data protection on-the-fly. The GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P also features Dual Gigabit LAN connections with Teaming, which allows 2 single connections to act as 1 single connection for twice the bandwidth to improve overall throughput.