The blue PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots supports videocards at x16 with full x16 lanes of PCI Express bandwidth. The shorter white slots support PCI Express x1 speeds, while the long white lots are legacy PCI slots for older peripherals.

The PCI Express x16 slots are double-spaced, so as to make room for videocards with exceptionally wide after market heatsinks, like those made by Thermalright.

The lower left corner of the motherboard houses a pair of USB 2.0 headers, as well as a firewire header and the I/O panel. Gigabyte has also squeezed a fan power header onto the very edge of the motherboard.

The Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P supports up to 4GB of DDR3-1066/1333MHz memory in four DIMMs, 16GB for 64-bit operating systems. When overclocked, the Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P can support memory as fast as DDR3-1666

While the socket AM3 processor is backwards compatible with socket AM2+ motherboards, socket AM3 motherboards only support socket AM3 processors. Gigabyte's all-solid state capacitor design extends to the MOFSETs as well. These power phases can be powered dynamically to better manage system power draw through the Dynamic Energy Saver software.

The four white SATA II connectors are powered by a pair of JMicron storage controllers, and can operate in RAID 0, 1 and JBOD modes, while the six blue SATA II connectors are operated by the AMD SB750 southbridge, and can be used in RAID 0/1/5/10 and JBOD modes.

The power and reset buttons on the PCB are designed so that the system can be restarted or powered down easily while the motherboard is sitting on a test bench or table.

Gigabyte includes a SATA to ESATA bracket, which makes it easy to plug in external hard drives into GA-MA790FXT-UD5P. The power connector on the bracket works with an included Y-spliter power cable. Gigabyte uses eSATA "L" and "I" connectors in order to interface between internal SATA connectors and external drives.

This molex to eSATA Y-splitter cable can power two external hard drives simultaneously.

AMDs 790FX is a leaner, more efficient version of the popular 790GX chipset, so let's see how the two stack up to each other next...