There is also an IDE connector along the right hand side. We would have preferred SATA 6Gbps connectors that were angled at 90 degrees but these are features often reserved for higher end motherboards. We also find 6 SATA 3Gbps connectors in the bottom right hand corner which face directly out of the board. Please bear in mind that large CPU coolers will hang over the RAM slots so low profile RAM is a good idea. The four DDR3 Ram slots flank the CPU socket on the other side and support 1333Mhz Ram (1866MHz OC). The voltage regulation circuitry surrounding the CPU socket is bare of any heatsinks so it's clear that Asus aren't expecting extreme overclockers to use this board. There is also a legacy PCI slot which would be perfect for installing a TV tuner if you plan to build an HTPC with this board.
The Radeon HD 4250 is part of the 880G chipset that Asus have used.Īsus have also included 2x PCI Express 1x slots for further expansion even though one of these will be blocked if you install a dual slot graphics card.
As there is only one full size PCI Express lane, CrossfireX isn't support although Hybrid CrossfireX is supported with the on-board GPU. There is one PCI Express x16 slot so you can install the graphics card of your choice, unless you plan to use the on-board Radeon HD 4250 GPU. As a result of the more compact form factor, Asus have compromised on the number of PCI and PCI Express lanes that are included. Like the other two boards we've looked at, the M4A88TM uses a blue and black colour scheme which looks great. We were a little disappointed not to find a ‘Q-connector' in the box like the other two motherboards as this made installation a lot more hassle free.
These include two SATA cables, a selection of installation manuals, an IDE cable and a software CD. Inside the box we find all the accessories we would usually expect. Turning the box over reveals more detail about the features and specifications of the board inside. The front is decorated with various different logos which elude to some of the boards' features. Like the other two AMD motherboards from Asus we've looked at recently, the M4A88T-M is supplied in a lime green box that only differs in size from the other two. 6x SATA 3GB/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 10 and JBOD (O.C.) / 1333 / 1066 MHz, ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory There is a USB 3.0 version of the board available but we have the non-USB3.0 version here to review.Īthlon II / Sempron 11 series Processors (up to 140W) The most significant feature that the M4A88T-M lacks compared to the other boards is USB 3.0 support. Today we are going to look at the M4A88T-M motherboard which offers a similar feature set to the other two boards we've tested but in a micro-ATX form factor. We have recently looked at two impressive AMD motherboards from Asus which performed well in our tests and offered great feature sets and build quality.