A well-priced board for those who must have AMD.
AMD's chipset department has been fervently working on new designs since the inception of the company, and its latest released chipset is one that manages to bridge the gap between mainstream and enthusiast. Called the 785G, it's a chip manufactured on a 55nm process that packs in not only the standard Northbridge features but also manages to work in a fully functional HD4200 graphics core. Clocked at 500MHz this isn't the fastest core the world has ever seen, but it's more than enough to handle HD video playback as well as some basic gaming - and it can even be overclocked through the BIOS!
For most needs this core isn't going to be enough power, so the two included PCIe x16 slots give capacity for two cards in Crossfire, complemented by the other slots that give some flexibility with wireless and other expansion cards. Mounted on the traditional blue GIGABYTE PCB, the layout in the lower half of the board has interestingly been designed to move the USB headers in-between the expansion slots. There are also two Firewire headers onboard, which is exactly two headers more than anyone will really need. Floppy and IDE ports are here, as well as six vertical SATA ports that give access to all the storage options for the mobo. The usual Dual BIOS chips are at the bottom of the board; it's nice to have a backup in case one dies.
For a relatively cheap board the I/O panel packs in a lot of options, covering six USB, one PS/2, VGA/DVI/HDMI, Optical, 6-pin Firewire, Ethernet and 7.1 channel audio. Audio is automatically routed through the HDMI port if the onboard HD4200 core is being used, which is pretty handy for HTPC builders out there. Also useful to media buffs are the heatsinks used on both of the chipsets, each managing the heat load and keeping pretty cool even under overclocked load.
The budget bugbear rears its ugly head when it comes to the PWM, using a heatsink-less digital solution that did the job but became noticeably warm, slowly baking when the Phenom II X4 955's clockspeed was increased. There's plenty of room around the AM2+ socket to install aftermarket heatsinks with big fans, and the socket itself is compatible with both AM2+ and AM3 CPUs. Like most AMD motherboards the socket is quite close to the DDR2 memory slots, and with a ThermalRight Ultra 120 Extreme installed only the red memory slots were accessible. Both the 8- and 24-pin power connectors are in the usual places, and there are four fan headers dotted around the board that are handy for cooling the system.
The BIOS for the mobo is well laid out, organised into menus that group the most useful features together for easy access. BIOS flashing is easy with a USB stick, and we managed to push the board to a pretty substandard 238MHz bus speed. This resulted in a CPU speed of 3094MHz.
For just over $100 this motherboard has a decent amount to offer, and while it's overclocking prowess isn't the best it does have a tempting feature-set. There are a few competing options using the same chipset out there that are as much as thirty bucks cheaper, but considering you're getting a reliable board with a nice warranty and most of the cables you'll need included in the box, this is not a bad choice. However, unless you're planning to build a new rig around the Athlon II X4 620 CPU we'd definitely recommend you check out an Intel Core i5 or higher - which blows this platform away.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012