Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6

On the whole the DQ6 is a good board but one that few people will actually want. Most of us will probably prefer the DS5 instead as it looks to be a better compromise of features and price, but I still think both have a few niggles that could put people off.

Concluding this review, we feel that this motherboard aims at a specific target group, since there are not so many "hot" new improvements that could justify the increased price, compared to Nvidia's 590SLI. Things might change when the AMD Phenom hits the market, then we will see the true performance of the RD790 with the 1066MHz memory bandwidth and if we are lucky enough to get four identical ATI based graphics cards, a Quad Crossfire setup.

Gigabyte has a great product in the GA-MA790FX-DQ6 motherboard, but the sad fact of the matter is that this motherboard is bottlenecked in so many ways by the Phenom processor. As we have said before, the Phenom is a good product, but when you look through it wearing hardware enthusiast glasses, Intel’s Core 2 Quad product line is a ton better on so many levels.

The GA-MA790FX-DQ6 sets the standard for high-end AMD motherboards, which could become a key market segment as new processors and graphics cards are released.