ASRock MoBo Supporting ''Zambezi'' Arrives Soon

ASRock is trying to be the first to produce an AM3+ motherboard supporting AMD "Zambezi" processors.

Based on artwork sent in by ASRock, the company is gearing up to be one of the first manufacturers to release a motherboard supporting AMD's next-generation "Zambezi" Fusion Black processors. The board will be named the ASRock 890FX Deluxe5 and based on the AMD 890FX + SB850 chipset.

Slated for a release by the end of February, the board's AMD3r2 (aka AMD3+) CPU socket will be compatible with existing socket AM3 Phenom II and Athlon II processors as well as the upcoming 8-core AMD3+ processors. For the gamer, the motherboard will support AMD Quad CrossFireX, 3-way CrossFireX and a two-card CrossFireX setup.

In addition, ASRock's 890FX Deluxe5 will include four DDR3 memory slots, two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots, two legacy PCI slots and one PCIe x4 slot. There will also be four USB 3.0 ports (two on the back I/O, two on the front panel), eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, two IEEE 1394 ports, 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC892 audio codec), THX TruStudio PRO and Premium Blu-ray audio support.

Two other notable features are the board's UEFI BIOS interface which supports bootable hard drives larger than 2 TB. There's also a Turbo UCC feature that allows the user to overclock the CPU while maintaining low power consumption with the press of a button.

"Enabling Turbo UCC, it will automatically help you to unlock the extra CPU core to enjoy an instant performance boost, and the system performance will boost up by overclocking CPU frequency, memory frequency and all related voltage settings," reads the product description. "Different from normal high-energy consumption for overclocking or system upgrading process, ASRock Turbo UCC can allow an energy-saving overclocking or system upgrade computing operation."

ASRock's upcoming 890FX-based motherboard arrives just before AMD is expected to introduce the 9-series chipsets supporting "Zambezi" processors in Q2 2011. The lineup will start with the AMD 990FX chipset with AM3+ and AM3 support for high-end motherboards followed by the 990X chipset with AM3+ and AM3 support for mid-level boards. The 980G chipset will round out the 9-series, offering integrated graphics for low-end systems but will not support older AM3 processors.

ASRock did not specify the actual price of its 890FX Deluxe5 motherboard, so stay tuned.