The popular AMD AM3+ platform currently has a relatively major drawback – it does not support PCI Express 3.0 even when using the top AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 chipset. AMD will solve the current situation with new chipsets expected this year but until then AM3+ users will have to live with PCI Express 2.0 – fortunately for AMD the difference in performance between the two standards is not that great at all.
Still ASUS apparently does not want to wait for the upcoming AMD chipsets with PCI Express 3.0 support. This is the reason why the acclaimed Taiwanese company has decided to go ahead of AMD and offer the first AM3+ motherboard with PCI Express 3.0 support – the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX/Gen.3 R2.0.
As seen the new motherboard comes with the well-known AMD 990FX chipset but utilizes PCI Express 3.0 thanks to a built-in PLX PEX switch with 48 lanes. The ASUS Sabertooth 990FX/Gen.3 R2.0 comes with four PCI Express slots but only the first, third and fourth ones support PCI-E 3.0 x16 with the third and fourth ones splitting the 16 lanes into 8+8 when they are both used. The second PCI-E x16 slot runs at PCI-Express 2.0 speed.
Going into more details the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX/Gen.3 R2.0 comes with four DDR3 memory slots, eight SATA 3.0 ports, 7.1-channel audio, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 3.0 ports and 12 USB 2.0 ports.
The pricing and the release date, however, are still unknown.
Source: Techpowerup