SB750 south bridge chip supports six SATA-300 ports allowing RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD, and one ATA-133 port. ASUS M4A79XTD EVO comes with an extra chip from Marvell that brings one extra SATA-300 port (the one that is black on the motherboard) and one eSATA-300 port on the rear panel.

All the SATA ports are located on the corner of the motherboard, far away from the video cards. Some manufacturers put the SATA ports on the same line as the PCI Express x16 slots and then the video card makes it difficult or even impossible for you to install cables on the SATA ports. The ATA-133 port and two of the SATA ports are placed facing the motherboard edge, so the cables on these connectors are installed parallel to the motherboard, preventing the problem described.

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Figure 6: SATA ports.

No floppy disk drive controller is present.

This motherboard has all the 12 USB 2.0 ports supported by the chipset, eight soldered on the rear panel and four available through two motherboard headers. Additionally ASUS M4A79XTD EVO comes with a FireWire (IEEE 1394) controller, providing two FireWire ports, one soldered on the rear panel (standard size) and one available through a header. Since the motherboard doesn’t come with an I/O bracket to for you to use the USB/FireWire headers, it is interesting to buy a case with one FireWire and four USB ports to go with this motherboard.

Audio is generated by the chipset using a VIA VT1708S codec, which is good but not professional-grade component, providing 7.1 audio with 24-bit resolution, 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the outputs, 95 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs and 192 kHz sampling rate for both the outputs and inputs. If you want to work professionally converting and editing audio from an analog source (e.g., converting VHS tapes, LPs, etc to digital format) we highly recommend you to pick a motherboard with a codec with at least 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for its analog inputs (ADC).

This motherboard comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output, and coaxial SPDIF output is supported through an SPDIF out header present on the motherboard. If you want to use this output you will need to buy an I/O bracket containing it, as this motherboard doesn’t come with one.

On the analog side M4A79XTD EVO comes with fully independent 7.1 analog outputs, so you will be able to use all connectors at the same time.

A Gigabit Ethernet port is provided, controlled by a Realtek RTL8112L chip.

In Figure 7, you can see the motherboard rear panel with PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, eight USB 2.0 ports, optical SPDIF output, FireWire port, eSATA port, Gigabit Ethernet port and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

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Figure 7: Motherboard rear panel.

ASUS M4A79XTD EVO also has a serial port, available through a header on the motherboard. The board, however, doesn’t come with the connector required to use it.