BIOSTAR TA790GX XE AM3/AM2+ AMD 790GX HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: The motherboard has worked flawlessly since I purchased it. I posted about it previously on March 20, 2009 @ 9pm if you want to read my other original opinions.

This is an update for future buyers, there is something that you need to know about this motherboard.

Cons: This is a single plane motherboard with regards to the AM2+ power specification. CPU's like the Phenom II 955 will not run on it.

If you use any Phenom II, the TDP of the chip will be much higher and some of the power saving/management features will be unavailable. The cpu specs are based upon you using a AM2/AM3 dual power plane motherboard.

I would expected that a manufacturer of a AM2+/AM3 ready motherboard will have followed the specifications in full. However this is not the case with this motherboard. It does not fully support the full AM2+ spec an thus you may, like me, find some disappointment later on.

Overall Review: I would have still purchased this motherboard, I just wish they had been forthcoming in the defiencency. When you do research and read the AM2+/AM3 spec, you are expecting a standard to have been followed.

I had originally purchsed it with a 7750BE with the intention of upgrading CPU's in the future. Well, I did, and now I can not use it as intended.

I just want to inform you of this issue so you can make an informed purchase. It is a SOLID motherboard and has had ZERO issues till I tried to upgrade the CPU. I put the 7750BE and everything works as advertised.

Pros: Lots of features
Price is right
Onboard HDMI

Cons: RAID controller is only 4 channel
Had to update bios to install Windows
Documentation nearly non-existent

Overall Review: My plan for this board was as a fileserver with an 80GB OS drive and 5 1TB drives in a RAID 5 array. I put the board in the case, installed 4GB of G. Skill RAM and hooked up the 80GB HDD. I tried to install Windows 7 Ultimate from a USB drive but got a blue screen saying "machine check error". So I took out one stick of RAM, same thing. Swap the RAM to all the other slots, try the other stick, try a stick of RAM from another working machine, try a different HDD, a different USB stick, all BSOD.
I try to flash the bios by copying the image to the USB stick I'm installing Windows from, it doesn't recognize it. Had to format the USB stick as FAT32 to get it to work. After that Windows installed fine from the USB stick.
When building the RAID array I found that it only supports up to 4 drives on the first 4 SATA connectors. In the product description it just says RAID 5 is supported and there are 6 SATA connectors, so I assumed that included all the SATA ports. Unfortunately not the cas