ASUS M4A78T-E 790GX AM3 Motherboard Review

BIOS Rundown

Everyone knows that the best designed, most feature-rich motherboard can easily be rendered mediocre by a subpar BIOS. Thankfully, as you will see below, ASUS has outfitted the M4A78T-E with an intuitive, tweaker-friendly BIOS. This is BIOS version 0801, which was recently supplanted by the newer version 1001.


To start off, we have the M4A78T-E welcome logo and the traditional AMI POST screen. Next up is the Main tab, it features the standard storage device list and even a basic System Information section. This System Information section lists some rudementary specification info, including the BIOS date & version, the type of processor and the amount of memory installed.


Ai Tweaker


As on all non-Republic of Gamers models, the Ai Tweaker is where all the fun happens. It is in this tab that you can find all the vital tweaking options pertaining to the CPU multiplier, CPU base frequency, DRAM frequency, CPU/NB frequency, HT Link speeds, etc. As you can see, aside from the CPU base frequency, which is entered manually, all the important system frequencies have user-friendly drop-down menus. All the voltages options are manually entered, which we actually prefer since it is generally quite a bit faster.


Memory & CPU Sub-Menus


Within Ai Tweaker, there are two sub-menus which reveal a mightily impressive number of memory options. We aren't sure if all AM3 motherboards are like this one, but we were certainly pleasantly surprised to this such in-depth options on a mainstream model.


Advanced Tab


In the Advanced tab, you can enable and disable various AMD-specific technologies like Cool'n'Quiet and also access the very popular Advanced Clock Calibration option. This is the setting that allows you to potentially enable the fourth core on Phenom II X3 720 BE processors and unlock the extra cache on the X4 810 models. There is no guarantee that it will work on your own processor, but when it does, it is apparently sweet feeling (...we were not so fortunate with our own 720). This tab also gives you access to the various chipset features, such enabling/disabling the IGP and tweaking its numerous settings. You can even overclock the IGP, if you are so inclined.


Power Tab


The Power tab allows you set how your computer can resume from various suspend/standby modes, and it gives you access to the Hardware Monitor. As usual we wouldn't mind a few more temperature and voltage readouts, but sadly what is provided is actually above-average. The venerable Q-Fan fan control functions are also found within the Hardware Monitor.


Boot Tab


The Boot tab is essentially where you set storage device priority and select the boot drive, you can also set supervisor and user passwords, and disable the M4A78T-E welcome screen.


Tools Tab


The last section contains EZ-Flash 2, which is a built-in utility that greatly simplies the BIOS updating process. You can easily update your BIOS from a ROM file located on your hard drive(s), USB flash drive(s), or even a CD. It's quick, painless, and it takes the worry out of BIOS flashing.

The ASUS O.C Profile feature gives users the option to save and switch between BIOS profiles, for example an everyday profile and a benchmarking profile. Not only is this infinitely quicker than manually inserting every setting, but the profiles can be saved and shared among other Rampage II Extreme owners. We are glad to see that ASUS have listened to our recommendations, and increased the number of profiles from a meager 2 to a more reasonable 8 profiles.

Lastly, in this section, you can configure or disable the ExpressGate instant-on OS and utilize the AI NET 2 to diagnose your network before booting into the OS.


Overall, this is a functional, intuitive BIOS with an abundance of options, and it is excellent for a mainstream motherboard. We wish there was further monitoring functionality, but that is really the only minor shortcoming.