Core unlocking has been one of the ways enthusiasts have been enjoying the AMD platform. The thought of picking up an inexpensive dual or triple core CPU and unlocking cores to bump them up to triple or quad core processors is just too much to pass up for some.

The ASUS M4A89GTD Pro is one of the first 890GX motherboard to tout its core unl0cking capability which may make it the standard for enthusiasts:

While most of the boards within a certain price bracket follow a common component formula, ASUS and ASRock have managed to segregate themselves by breaking rank and offering hardware level core unlocking for budget dual/tri-core AMD processors. That means that you can buy a sub $100 CPU and unlock it at your leisure to enjoy 4 core number crunching. The feature itself is not new per se, it’s just that AMD decided to drop support for ACC on series 8 chipsets, leaving vendors to do things on their own accord. ASUS’ workaround is almost certain to have upset AMD, but we think they made the right choice – if moving to the 8-series chipsets meant giving up core unlocking, many enthusiasts wouldn’t.

A great performer and capable of unlocking CPUs, not much more to say other than awesome!

There’s always that spoiler that shows up to the party and ruins everybody’s fun. While that fun has meant higher prices on motherboards they won’t be able to ignore this competitor’s lower price tag.

The ASRock H55M Pro LGA1156 Motherboard isn’t the most overclocking capable board out there, at least with its current BIOS, but its low price is certain to capture your attention. bit-tech has the review:

The H55M Pro is neatly laid out too, helping to keep a media PC in a cramped case neat and free of airflow obstructions. The 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS12V power connectors are located on the edges of the board, and the chipset heatsink is small and unobtrusive. Equally, the two fan headers are spaced well apart for easy connections to front or rear fans, but if you want more than two speed-controlled fans, you’ll need to buy a fan controller.

Nicely laid out and decent performance to boot, a decent choice for that budget build.

Enthusiast level motherboards tend to go all out with their component quality and feature sets which, consequently, pushes up the price tag on the very central piece to a PC. Thankfully one company manages to keep costs under control.

The ECS A890GXM-A 890GX Motherboard sports AMD’s latest graphics infused 890GX northbridge and SATA 6G toting SB850 southbridge for a tasty combination. Overclockers Club has the review:

The ECS A890GXM-A arrived with a lot of potential and in many ways it did not disappoint. The new Qooltech III heatpipe cooler worked very well, keeping the Northbridge efficiently cooled, which also helped decrease the CPU temperature due to there being no rising heat coming from the chipset. The new implementation of the 890GX/SB850 was great, with the USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 connectors working perfectly, as well as adding support for AMD’s upcoming six core processors.

A nice offering but here’s hoping they square away any overclocking issues.

System chipsets aren’t updated as much as you probably want them to be so motherboard manufacturers tend to rely on add-on chips to do most of the work on newer connectivity standards. Thank goodness for updated chipsets.

AMD’s upcoming 890GX system chipset sports a speed bumped graphics core and, most importantly, SATA 6G support. AnandTech tests out an early motherboard which features its shiny goodness:

AMD’s 890GX chipset does support two PCIe x8 slots for running cards in CrossFire mode, but you do have one more option for flexibility. If you have a Radeon HD 5450 and happen to be running one of the following games: Battleforge, BioShock, Company of Heroes, HAWX, World in Conflict or 3DMark Vantage then the 890GX’s IGP will work in tandem with the 5450.

The CrossFire like setup could be interesting for those with a home theater PC setup needing a little gaming performance boost.

The ever-shrinking motherboard poses a bit of a problem. Sure the improved performance and small dimensions are a huge benefit but you’ll be hard pressed to find a suitable case to contain all of the power…but that’s a problem for another time.

The Zotac H55-ITX Motherboard can accept any Intel LGA 1156 CPU and sports a shiny PCIe X16 slot for your high-end graphics needs. AnandTech has the review of this pint-sized beast:

There are a couple of possible directions you can take with the H55-ITX. First, you could choose to turn this into a low-watt HTPC by utilizing a Core i3 and relying on Intel’s HD graphics for your video needs. On the other hand, you could install an i5 or i7 and populate the PCIe slot with a dedicated graphics card for a nice mid-range gaming system. Cases such as the Silverstone SG-06 and the upcoming Lian-Li PC-Q08 would complement a system such as this perfectly.

A dual-GPU graphics card paired with this board would make for a powerful gaming system indeed.

With all of the attention being given to the entry level Intel Core i7 and i5 processors it’s easy to overlook the insanely powerful set of features found on the LGA 1366 platform, thankfully some companies jolt us awake from time to time.

The Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard tacks on USB 3.0 and SATA 6G support to the general awesomeness that is the Intel X58 chipset suite of features. Benchmark Reviews has the details:

Performance is further enhanced by utilizing SLI/Triple-SLI and CrossFireX/TriFire video card sets for high-performance graphics. Overclockers can use either quick or expert settings to reach their optimal clock speeds, and BIOS options are superior to others we’ve tested lately. Only socket LGA1366 X58-Express motherboards support Intel’s Extreme Edition (EE) Core-i7 processors, and according to Intel’s roadmap the future code-named “Gulftown” six-core Westmere chip will be included with support on the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 motherboard. At the time of this writing firmware version F5 already includes Gulftown processor support, along with numerous system memory enhancements.

Impressive performance and ready for the 6-core CPUs of the future…yep that’s difficult to ignore.

The easiest way to “future proof” your next PC build is to make sure it has the newest connection options on the market today, of course it also helps if your next motherboard brings with it some tweaking finesse.

The ASUS P7H57D-V EVO LGA 1156 Motherboard brings USB 3.0 and SATA 6G support into the fold with the company’s usual compliment of tweaking options. Legit Reviews has the details:

Today we have an H57 chipset based motherboard from ASUS on hand, called the P7H57D-V EVO. This ATX motherboard is at the top of the heap when it comes to the H55/H57 line, coming in with both CPU and GPU overclocking! Featuring an 8+3 phase power design and T.Probe to monitor and balance the load across the phases, this motherboard is ripe for big overclocks on either Clarkdale or Lynnfield!

Impressive performance to be sure, of course would you expect any less?

Most motherboards include a decent amount of overclocking capabilities but in order to truly push your hardware you have to invest in designs that can take the extra added voltage punishment overclockers push on to their processors.

The EVGA P55 FTW Motherboard will happily take your LGA1156 processor and push it to exciting new heights. PC Perspective has a look:

In the end, we were able to bump the base clock to 206MHz and the DRAM frequencies to 1648MHz, which helped us get to a stable 4.12GHz on our i7-860 processor. This equated to a 67.96 percent increase in performance over this CPU’s stock settings.

Of course your mileage may vary but they sure did get some good results.

Intel’s LGA1366 socket plays host to the company’s top of the line Core i7 processors and their triple channel memory capabilities so it’s no wonder that motherboard supporting the chips are usually quite pricey.

The Jetway Kuroshio BI-600 motherboard hopes to change all of that with their budget option which manages to put up some nice performance numbers. TechwareLabs has the review:

First and foremost is of course four PCI-e x16 slots with one PCI-e x4. What this means is that this motherboard can support up to 5 video graphics cards. You can use setups such as two x16 video cards or four x8 video cards. Now the PCI-e x4 doesn’t have enough bandwidth to do much heavy graphics but it’s still an option. Now clearly the motherboard won’t be able to hold four flagship video cards because there just wouldn’t be enough space to actually fit them. It’s very rare to have that many PCI-e options on a budget board.

A slick choice although the lack of extensive tweaking options might scare away the hardcore tweaker.

When computer manufacturers start to branch out from their bread and butter you see a bit of product rebranding and half-hearted product designs before they unceremoniously leave the market altogether. Foxconn seems to have some staying power.

While the company is better known for many of their OEM works (or not at all) their retail products, such as the Inferno Katana P55 motherboard, show some nice feature sets. NinjaLane has the review:

As with most all Quantum Force products the overclocking experience was extremely enjoyable and rather intuitive.  While our overlock was limited to a maximum 4Ghz we do feel there is more this system can offer given some time and turning.  One thing to notice is that at 4Ghz and a matching 2000Mhz memory clock the overall bandwidth is just 6GB/s shy of the Core i7 on the X58.  Not too bad for a low end Core i5.

Impressive tweaking potential from the looks of things.