# ASUS Launches TUF Sabertooth 990FX GEN3 R2.0



## btarunr (Feb 18, 2013)

ASUS today announced the TUF Series SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0, the world's first AMD-based motherboard to feature PCI Express 3.0 for use with next generation high performance graphics cards. Up to three DirectX 11 graphics cards with 28nm GPU technology can be used via NVIDIA SLI or AMD CrossFireX to create desktop PCs with formidable graphics performance. 

SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 also features renowned ASUS TUF Series thermal design for superior heat removal. Like all TUF Series motherboards, it undergoes military and server-grade testing to ensure absolute stability, reliability, and longevity. SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 is backed by a five-year warranty.



 

 




*Military-grade components for superior reliability*
SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 meets strict TUF Series quality assurance standards, which consist of multiple-stage military and server-grade tests. TUF-certified alloy chokes, together with solid state capacitors and MOSFETs, ensure complete reliability even when the motherboard is subjected to intense use for prolonged periods. Four DIMM slots support up to 32GB DDR3 memory at frequencies up to 2400 MHz, aided by an eight-layered PCB that promotes faster memory performance while ensuring stability and compatibility with improved cross-component signal quality.

*Sophisticated thermal management copes with extreme heat*
TUF Series motherboards are designed to provide absolute stability and reliability under harsh operating conditions, and feature sophisticated thermal management to handle extreme heat. Both the Northbridge and Southbridge use dual-heatpipe heatsinks with CeraM!X micro-ridged coating that increases the effective heat dissipation surface area by around 50%.

SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 also features TUF Thermal Radar, which uses multiple heat sensors across the motherboard for real time temperature monitoring. Independent and automatic fan speed control then allows components to be cooled individually for maximum efficiency and operating stability.

The ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 motherboard will be generally available in the middle of March.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## dj-electric (Feb 18, 2013)

I wonder why the AMD Asus boards wont get full thermal armour


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## Raw (Feb 18, 2013)

*Too bad I don't BUY Asus anymore*

Too bad I don't buy Asus anymore...this looks like a nice board.

I gave up on them after last years ordeals I had with their customer service, twice.
They used to be a good company IMO, but no longer based on their CS and my experiences.
I think they still make good PRODUCTS though.
But it's just not worth the hassles with CS for me.
Not saying YOU should avoid them, just me, for now until I start hearing good things about their CS once again.


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## Solidstate89 (Feb 18, 2013)

My god, why do we still have PCI slots in 2013? Enough is enough already.


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## Kaynar (Feb 18, 2013)

Even if its not the classic "full armor", it looks really cool!


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## iO (Feb 18, 2013)

That green LED...


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## btarunr (Feb 18, 2013)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> I wonder why the AMD Asus boards wont get full thermal armour



Because the feedback for thermal armor from enthusiasts has been bad. I wouldn't be surprised if future Intel platform Sabertooth boards lack it, too. You'll also notice that with this board, ASUS tossed out olive-green from the color scheme.


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## micropage7 (Feb 18, 2013)

Raw said:


> Too bad I don't BUY Asus anymore...this looks like a nice board.
> 
> I gave up on them after last years ordeals I had with their customer service.
> They used to be a good company IMO, but no longer based on their CS and my experiences.
> ...



yeah but i dunno their product looks nice, i just add them in my list


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## FYFI13 (Feb 18, 2013)

Solidstate89 said:


> My god, why do we still have PCI slots in 2013? Enough is enough already.



There's a lot of hardware with PCI connections still. Without PCI i wouldn't be able to use my sound card and SATA Raid cotroller.


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## Ikaruga (Feb 18, 2013)

Dunno how it performs or if it's any good, but this board looks really great, +1 for the aesthetics.


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## progste (Feb 18, 2013)

looks beast


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## micropage7 (Feb 18, 2013)

FYFI13 said:


> Because i use them :/



so far pci still used by many cards
if we talk about today technology of course its not relevant but you may use your old hardware on that as long as it has driver for your OS


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## Solidstate89 (Feb 18, 2013)

FYFI13 said:


> There's a lot of hardware with PCI connections still. Without PCI i wouldn't be able to use my sound card and SATA Raid cotroller.



There's a lot of *old and deprecated* hardware that still uses PCI. I'm sure you can still find some old graphics cards that still use AGP, but I don't see any motherboards with AGP slots still on them.

On high-end motherboards there should NOT be any PCI slots; Period. It's inexcusable. It's like including a VGA output on the GTX Titan that's about to launch. I'm sure there's monitors that people use out there that still use VGA, but should the interface be included in a high-end card? No.


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## btarunr (Feb 18, 2013)

I've not come across a single PCI-Express sound card that comes within a light year to the audio quality of my brother's Auzentech X-Meridean PCI.


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## progste (Feb 18, 2013)

my creative x-fi platinum is still working fine, why would i have to change it just because some people say that "pci is old"
also there are already other boards that don't use pci anymore so i don't see the problem


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## arterius2 (Feb 18, 2013)

btarunr said:


> Because the feedback for thermal armor from enthusiasts has been bad. I wouldn't be surprised if future Intel platform Sabertooth boards lack it, too. You'll also notice that with this board, ASUS tossed out olive-green from the color scheme.



not really, I love the looks of the thermal armor on my z77 sabertooth. I'm sure they will continue implementing them on Intel boards, my only wish is that they would make the shroud metal, not plastic.


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## blibba (Feb 18, 2013)

btarunr said:


> Because the feedback for thermal armor from enthusiasts has been bad. I wouldn't be surprised if future Intel platform Sabertooth boards lack it, too. You'll also notice that with this board, ASUS tossed out olive-green from the color scheme.



Thanks for the info. So what's the point in Sabertooth now, besides another colour scheme for RoG?


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## btarunr (Feb 18, 2013)

blibba said:


> Thanks for the info. So what's the point in Sabertooth now, besides another colour scheme for RoG?



Ceram!x heatsinks, higher quality components, 5-year warranty.


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## blibba (Feb 18, 2013)

btarunr said:


> Ceram!x heatsinks, higher quality components, 5-year warranty.



I feel like that should be their Pro boards. Oh well.


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## symmetrical (Feb 18, 2013)

Solidstate89 said:


> There's a lot of *old and deprecated* hardware that still uses PCI. I'm sure you can still find some old graphics cards that still use AGP, but I don't see any motherboards with AGP slots still on them.
> 
> On high-end motherboards there should NOT be any PCI slots; Period. It's inexcusable. It's like including a VGA output on the GTX Titan that's about to launch. I'm sure there's monitors that people use out there that still use VGA, but the interface be included in a high-end card? No.



I'm assuming you are only referring to the PCI slot and not PCIe right? (noob question)


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## Prima.Vera (Feb 18, 2013)

Can anyone explain me in details what exactly are "Military-grade components" ??

Btw, for the PCI hater from here, I have both a PCI X-FI Sound Card and also a PCI digital HD TV tuner that works flawlessly.


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## blibba (Feb 18, 2013)

symmetrical said:


> I'm assuming you are only referring to the PCI slot and not PCIe right? (noob question)



Yes, you assume correctly I think.


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## Xzibit (Feb 18, 2013)

btarunr said:


> Because the feedback for thermal armor from enthusiasts has been bad. I wouldn't be surprised if future Intel platform Sabertooth boards lack it, too. You'll also notice that with this board, ASUS tossed out olive-green from the color scheme.



I have the Sabertooth Z77

Aside from the asthetics and higher tolerant compnents its not as fast as the Pro or Deluxe and I think thats where the complaints come that its expected for the higher premium.

If you take the armour off it runs cooler.  The series is to be durable and the armour adds another layer of longevity to prevent dust build up against elements.

I just dont like cleaning dust that often


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## Ferrum Master (Feb 18, 2013)

Prima.Vera said:


> Can anyone explain me in details what exactly are "Military-grade components" ??



From old time ie 50ties those are electronics parts that have more roughed working specs. 

Same batch spare parts that have proven to work under higher more extreme temperature deltas and voltages and have more robust package and survives higher mechanical force shock etc...


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## Am* (Feb 18, 2013)

Can someone explain to me why the hell this and loads of other AMD motherboards have 32GB RAM (4x DIMMs) support, when the platform's flagship FX 8350 cannot even fully use 16GB?


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## blibba (Feb 18, 2013)

Am* said:


> Can someone explain to me why the hell this and loads of other AMD motherboards have 32GB RAM (4x DIMMs) support, when the platform's flagship FX 8350 cannot even fully use 16GB?



Would you rather it only had two RAM slots? This way you can buy 2*4GB or 2*8GB today, and if you want more in a few years, you don't have to replace all your sticks.

Besides, if you were using an FX8 to run a great many virtual machines (a task that it is very well suited for), you might well need 32GB of RAM.


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## NeoXF (Feb 18, 2013)

This looks a lot like my future AM3+ & Piledriver summer refresh build... if Intel fails to deliver with Haswell (and it will).


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## progste (Feb 18, 2013)

Am* said:


> Can someone explain to me why the hell this and loads of other AMD motherboards have 32GB RAM (4x DIMMs) support, when the platform's flagship FX 8350 cannot even fully use 16GB?



because your informations are wrong and the 8350 can actually use 32 GB under certain circumstances

of course it is debatable if you actualy need that much ram ATM but why should they take away the possibility to do so?


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## Reefer86 (Feb 18, 2013)

maybe just me being stupid but whats actually diffrent, what makes this a rev 2 over the first one?


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## MightyMission (Feb 18, 2013)

I Loved my PCI soundcard(audigy 2zs platinum pro) an affordable super low latency (5ms) that had everything I needed including MIDI I/O,i would buy another board with PCI on it for that reason alone


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## Edgarstrong (Feb 18, 2013)

Don't they release new versions of this AM3+ Sabertooth a bit too often?


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## KissSh0t (Feb 18, 2013)

Nice motherboard is nice.


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## cadaveca (Feb 18, 2013)

Hmm, interesting. PCIe 3.0 on 990FX!?!


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## Norton (Feb 18, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Hmm, interesting. PCIe 3.0 on 990FX!?!



ASUS is real good at hiding the bridge chip. (tucked in quietly between the 2 upper PCIEx 16 slots)  

Can't locate any info on which chip they used....


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## Jorge (Feb 19, 2013)

Asus pulls another con job on the technically clueless with PCIe 3 which is of no value at all currently - other than to dupe the technically challenged into spending their money. Asus has really been doing some questionable marketing in recent years IMO, and that of other enthusiasts.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Feb 19, 2013)

Jorge said:


> Asus pulls another con job on the technically clueless with PCIe 3 which is of no value at all currently - other than to dupe the technically challenged into spending their money. Asus has really been doing some questionable marketing in recent years IMO, and that of other enthusiasts.


Highly neg there dude.
I agree its not for a  990fx owner as its pointless but if I was buying now nothing else is out thats am3+ and pciex3 (though muted likely) so id at  least have a look


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Feb 19, 2013)

Meh


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## ThunderStorm (Feb 19, 2013)

[H]@RD5TUFF said:


> Meh



Have to agree with you, this board is indeed aesthetic but it is no way near the same counterpart from Intel. ( I mean of look/meat of it ).


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## btarunr (Feb 19, 2013)

The X79 Sabertooth lacks thermal armor, too.


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## progste (Feb 19, 2013)

Norton said:


> ASUS is real good at hiding the bridge chip. (tucked in quietly between the 2 upper PCIEx 16 slots)
> 
> Can't locate any info on which chip they used....



lol didn't even notice that!


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## Am* (Feb 20, 2013)

blibba said:


> Would you rather it only had two RAM slots? This way you can buy 2*4GB or 2*8GB today, and if you want more in a few years, you don't have to replace all your sticks.
> 
> Besides, if you were using an FX8 to run a great many virtual machines (a task that it is very well suited for), you might well need 32GB of RAM.



Yes, I'd rather prefer for it to have 2 slots so it would save clearance for the gigantic coolers this thing needs to run at its best.



progste said:


> because your informations are wrong and the 8350 can actually use 32 GB under certain circumstances
> 
> of course it is debatable if you actualy need that much ram ATM but why should they take away the possibility to do so?



Umm I'm pretty sure that it's your information that is wrong. The memory controller on the 8350 performs at around 13GB-14GB read & 11GB-12GB write speeds. With 32GBs you're going to have 2 DIMMs idling while the other 2 do all the work, and once you start using more capacity than what the memory controller can handle (over 16GBs RAM), things will get extremely slow, as one application will have to be suspended/paused while the other one uses the bandwidth. The one rule anyone should go by when buying RAM is what is the maximum amount of bandwidth that the controller can handle -- because anything above that will be wasted. 1155 SB chips can use up to 22GB at stock, 25GB when overclocked (so 1155 can more or less make the most of 32GBs of RAM), while the SB-E chips can handle around 28GB-30GB. Just because some 2011 motherboards allow for 64GB of RAM doesn't mean it's not an enormous waste of money and motherboard space.


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## Rei86 (Mar 13, 2013)

So does anyone know what it runs?

Is it PCi-E Gen 3 x 16 with one and than PCi-E Gen 3 x8x8 for dual?


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## Kevin Williams (May 31, 2016)

CPU problem? new board? shuts down in 10 sec's? ASUS tech support doesn't even help you, they just keep pushing you for an RMA. BUT THE REAL PROBLEM FOR ALL IS the 3 pin connector for the cpu . That's the culprit, You need to NEVER connect to the cpu power 3 pin female connector to the mobo 3 pin cpu fan male connector . You have to use the 3 pin female connector from the CPU on the 4 pin male connector just to the right of it on the MOBO called the cpu fan optional, it is a 4 pin male, but you use the 3 pin female cpu connector there and the embedded slot that places it in the right direction IS USED leaving 1 pin unused> so spread the word...the 3 pin male connector on the sabertooth FX990 is useless.


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## Schmuckley (Jun 1, 2016)

Who necroed this?


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## Caring1 (Jun 1, 2016)

Schmuckley said:


> Who necroed this?


Another necro, same user, the other was locked.


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