ECS AMD690GM-M2 V1.0A Motherboard Review :: Usage

After installing Windows XP on a fresh drive, I proceeded to install the drivers for the AMD690GM-M2 V1.0a motherboard. The driver CD has an auto-Install feature meaning that you simply hit Setup and the drivers will automatically be installed for the motherboard.

Vista

The X1250 is currently the best integrated video chipset on the market, with performance that outstrips the 6150 and GMA 3000 chipsets from NVIDIA and Intel respectfully. One thing it doesn't have is the horsepower to run the latest games at anything but the lowest resolution and settings as the integrated graphics performance just isn't there for higher settings.

Video card blocking SATA ports (8800GTX from ASUS)

In Windows Vista the system has a Performance index of 5.2. This rating is an overall value you can see when looking at the system in Vista. The drivers CD and ECS's website have Vista drivers, which mean that you can install this board right out of the box. One thing, though, the RAID controller from ATI does not have an integrated driver for Vista, requiring the user to use the F6 Driver Floppy installation method to install the drivers.

Supreme Commander is the latest game in the Total Annihilation series. The onboard graphics was able to play at the low settings. The second game I tried was Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Las Vegas which requires Shader Model 3.0 to fully show off the new graphics. The X1250 was able to play the game at minimum settings. Unfortunately, integrated graphics haven't progressed to the point of playability with the latest CPU. Hopefully that will change with the next generation of integrated graphics, but it probably won't.