ASUS M4A78T-E 790GX AM3 Motherboard Review

Hardware Installation

In the Hardware Installation section we examine how major components fit on the motherboard, and whether there are any serious issues that may affect installation and general functionality. Specifically, we are interested in determining whether the motherboard has adequate clearance levels in all critical areas.


Both the 24-pin ATX connector and 4-pin CPU power connector are ideally located, and there are zero issues accessing either of them.


On the AM2/AM3 platform, CPU coolers can only be installed in one orientation. In our case, the Thermalright Ultra-120 clears the low-profile MOSFETs cooler and it overhangs the first DIMM slot. This is actually slightly problematic because it makes installing and remove memory modules harder than it should be (particularly since we had to remove the 120MM fan every time), and it may prevent the installation of modules with particularly tall heatspreaders.


Clearly, there are no concerns about memory clips coming into contact with the back of the graphics card, and you can clearly see the sizeable gap between the CPU cooler and the northbridge cooler, which should ensure that even the largest heatsink will fit without issue.


When you install a dual-slot graphics card in the first PCI-E x16 slot there is a loss of access to one PCI-E x1 slot, but the other is still usable. It remains usable even when two dual-slot graphics cards are installed in the system, but obviously the the space is tight and only single-slot add-on cards will fit.

When a dual-slot graphics card is installed in the second PCI-E x16 slot there is a loss of access to one PCI slot, but the the other is still usable. Installing a dual-slot graphics card in the second PCI-E x16 slot doesn't create any compatibility issues, however...


...it does come awfully close to the five SATA ports. Thankfully, ASUS' engineers did a good job ensuring that none of the ports were lost in the name of multi-GPU goodness.


There is nothing on the back of the motherboard that interferes with the Thermalright's backplate, and there is nothing on the back that should create compatibility issues with other models either.