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| ECS A780GM-A Black Series Motherboard Review |
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| Part Number | A780GM-A Black Series |
| Manufacturer | ECS |
| Price Check | |
| Downloads | |
| Chipset | AMD 780G |
| North Bridge | AMD 780G |
| Socket | Socket AM2+ |
| Processor Types | AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core / Athlon 64 / Sempron |
| Number of CPUs | 1 |
| Front Side Bus | 1066/800/667/533/400 |
| Memory Type | DDR2 |
| Memory Channels | Dual |
| Maximum Memory | 8GB |
| External Graphics | PCI Express x16 |
| IGP | ATI Radeon HD3200 |
| South Bridge | AMD SB700 |
| Audio | 8-channel |
| IDE | 133/100/66 |
| SCSI | None |
| SATA | 3.0 GB/s |
| RAID | 0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
| LAN | 10/100/1000 x2 |
| Firewire | None |
| USB | USB 2.0 |
| Expansion Slots | |
| BIOS | AMI |
| Form Factor | ATX |
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AMD recently launched their Phenom B3 revision of their Quad and Triple core CPUs AMD’s website has a compatibility list with their motherboards and this ECS board is not listed on it. Nor does the latest BIOS on their website show support for these processors as of yet. This morning AMD released a note saying that the 9850 and 9750 Quad Core CPUs are not compatible with 780G motherboards due to these CPUs requiring a 125W TDP.
 Northbridge  Southbridge
The board has the AMD 780G Northbridge chip and a SB700 Southbridge to control the various interfaces it carries. There is a single x4 A-Link Express II interface that connects to the SB700 chip. The board also supports a single PCI Express x16 slot which means that two card Crossfire is not supported. Hybrid Crossfire is supported by the board, which allows a HD3450 or lower video card to work together with the integrated graphics to improve performance.
The integrated graphics on the A780GM-A Black board is called the ATI HD3200. ATI HD3200 is a die-shrunk HD2400XT that’s integrated into the Southbridge 700 chip. The HD3200 supports all DirectX 10 features that its bigger brother the HD2900XT supported but has less Stream Processors (40 versus 320) and a slower clock speed. The HD3200 has a clock speed of 500MHz and can use up to 512MB of system memory for the frame buffer.
One of the big features of the HD3200 is the ability to run H.264 content on integrated vide4o chipset. Blu-Ray discs and HD-DVD discs can play which normally require a high-end CPU or discrete video card to play smoothly. With a 4850+ EE CPU I was able to play High Definition content with the integrated graphics which is quite a feat.
AMD Phenom |
Being inherited from the excellent architecture of multitasking, AMD Phenom processors lead to a new milestone in the computing performance with its powerful multi-core as well as the support for HT 3.0 technology. |
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ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology |
To provide better gaming performance than a single graphics card, the innovative design of ATIª Hybrid Graphics Technology is capable to bring additional performance increase up to 1.75X by enabling the power of both integrated graphics core and the add-on graphics card simultaneously. |
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Dual Channel DDR2 800 |
Doubles the bandwidth of your system memory up to 12.8GB/s and pumps up the system performance. |
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8 Channel High Definition Audio |
8 Channel High Definition Audio |
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HDMI |
The interface supports existing high-definition video formats(720p, 1080i, and even 1080p), plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. Combination with HDCP, provides a secure audio/video interface that meets the security requirements of content providers and systems operators. |
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Over-Clocking |
Maximizes your system performance by selecting over clocking options |
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Windows Vista Ready |
The latest generation Microsoft O.S., delivers better personal productivity and digital entertainment on your PC through its improved reliability, security, and performance. |
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Dualcore |
Dual-core is basically two separate processors on a single chip. Those two processors can outperform single-core processors on most multithreaded applications while running at lower clock speeds and consuming less power. |
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PCI EXPRESS 2.0 |
The exceptionally increased interconnect bit rate from 2.5GT/s up to 5.0GT/s would effectively eliminates the bottle neck of the system performance and brings the most terrific computing experience from the present to the future. |
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HT3.0 |
The highly scalable Hyper Transport 3.0 is capable to provide incredible bandwidth of the system bus up to 20.8GB/s which would dramatically elevate the efficiency of computing performance. |
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HDCP |
A specification developed by Intel Corporation to protect digital entertainment content across the DVI/HDMI interface. HDCP encrypts transmission of digital content between HDCP-compliant devices that it allows users to enjoy HD content through HDCP-compliant playback software. |
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