ECS A780GM-A Motherboard Review - AMD 780G Chipset
Posted On at by adminThe ECS A780GM-A Motherboard
The ECS A780GM-A 'Black Series' motherboard is the first motherboard by the designers at ECS that uses the recently released AMD 780G and SB700 chipsets. Unlike the micro-ATX boards that we have looked at in the past, this is a full size ATX board. The A780GM-A has the usual laundry list that any 780G board should have with support for Hybrid Graphics, UVD 2.0, DirectX 10, PCI Express 2.0, HDMI/HDCP, Phenom support, HT 5200 MT/s with Hyper Transport 3.0 technology links and four memory slots that can handle DDR2 1066MHz memory kits. The board is impressive, but since we have already covered the AMD 780G chipset in another article, we will move on and take a look at this new board by ECS.
The Specifications:
Let's take a look at the ECS A780GM-A motherboard layout.
The Board Layout
The ECS A780GM-A motherboard is a full size ATX motherboard as you can tell from the picture above. This motherboard is part of the new 'black series' by ECS so it features a nice looking black PCB instead of the normal colors. ECS says the board supports up to 32GB of DDR2-1066 memory across four slots, but they also point out that the board has only been tested with 8GB since memory density isn't high enough to do more. When it comes to power, the board features a four phase power system and uses a 24-pin ATX power supply header and an additional 4-pin ATX power connector. The layout overall is very clean with all the connectors located on the sides of the board.
The back of the ECS A780GM shows the large heat sink retention bracket that is used to safely secure the heat sink to the board.
The ECS A780GM-A motherboard has one full size x16 PCIe 2.0 slot for video cards and two x1 PCIe slots for RAID controllers or audio cards. The board also features three PCI slots that are available for those wishing to use legacy cards. Just to the left of the three PCI slots is the IDT 92HD206 audio chip that is a Theater Quality 8-channel audio CODEC that enables systems with 7.1 audio or 5.1 audio playing simultaneously with VoIP or another stereo audio stream. IDT's proprietary SD technology provides high fidelity, with a DAC SNR of 95dB. The onboard Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps is based on the PCIE controller Atheros Attansic L1 that is to the left of the two PCIe x1 slots. By using IDT and Atheros solutions for the audio and LAN capabilities, ECS has managed to cut costs, but will it impact performance?
The southbridge chipset (SB700) is passive cooled just like the northbridge. The board has five internal SATA headers and one external SATA connector. The rear I/O panel has six USB 2.0 headers and the motherboard offers six more internal USB 2.0 ports via the orange USB headers on the motherboard. This means the chipset can support 12 USB 2.0 ports (the most the chipset offers). The front panel (case) connectors are located to the left of the SATA II headers and are not labeled or color coded, so using the manual is a must. The AMIBIOS BIOS chip is soldered to the board, so if a flash goes bad you can't just change the chip out.
With the passive chipset cooler removed, we can get an idea of what the 780G chipset looks like and how big it is. The passive cooler gets the job done, but those that plan on overclocking should look for improved active cooling solutions as things to get very hot since the Radeon Xpress 3200 IGP is inside this chipset.
The ECS A780GM-A motherboard lacks a dual-link DVI output, but does offer standard VGA and HDMI outputs. Other connectors on the rear I/O panel are the pair of PS2 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet, and analog 7.1-channel audio outputs.
The BIOS
The ECS A780GM-A 'black series' motherboard uses a BIOS that many of our readers will be familiar with. Our motherboard came loaded BIOS version 08/01/21, but this was quickly updated to version 2008/03/11 as it had a large list of updates.
ECS A780GM-A Bios 2008/03/11 Updates:
- Supports AM2/AM2+ BlacK Edition CPU Voltage Overclock.
- Update AGESAV3_13.25 module.
- Remove patch Workaround For HPET RTC.
- Update AMD APM Module and 8.00.13_ACPI3-T07-NB-RS780_01.
- Update AGESAV3_13.26 module.(AGESA Version : 3.1.7.0)
- Update Raid Rom : 3.0.1540.30
We used this BIOS version for this article.
The first place many consumers need to go to is the advanced chipset setup menu as this is where you can set the memory clock frequency and timings. Our test system uses a 2GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 memory kit that has the SPD set to 5-5-5-15 even though it's designed to run 4-4-4-12. By entering this menu we were able to correctly set the memory timings of the kit. This is one example of why you will want to enable the Advanced chipset menu in the BIOS.
Is should be noted that ECS does have some issues with the memory timing settings in the BIOS. The board has a large number of 'reserved' spots that shouldn't be here. The above picture shows what happens when you try to adjust the TRCD value. When trying to adjust the TRAS all the options that pop up are 'Reserved' and you have to scroll through them to get to the real settings. We set the BIOS settings to 4-4-4-12 and when we restarted the system we found something we didn't expect.
It seems that ECS has programmed the tRAS values wrong in the BIOS. With the tRAS set to 12 in the BIOS it was found to be really running 10. By setting the tRAS value to 14 in the BIOS we were able to correctly set the tRAS to 12. ECS has the tRAS value off by 2 clocks, which might cause some memory kits not to run correctly or even post for that matter.
Back to the Avanced Chipset Setup menu! It is also here where you can adjust the UMA Frame Buffer Size for the integrated graphics. Be default the board is set to 512MB, but this can be changed depending on how you will use the board. First the 'Share Memory Auto Detection' setting must be disabled. After this is disabled the 'Share Memory Size' menu can be accessed. We lowered this setting down to 256MB for our testing. The Advanced Chipset Menu is also hosts the settings for SurroundView, HDMI audio and more.
Moving over to the Frequency/Voltage control menu in the BIOS we find something that shocked us. On this board the ECS engineers have put the voltages by levels and the levels are in millivolts (mV). A millivolt is 10 to the -3 so consumers have to know this and then move the decimal point 3 places to the left to get Volts. If this isn't hard enough level one is +4 millivolts, level two is +8 millivolts and so on. The board comes at level 0 and is able to go up to level 63 for the processor, but sadly it doesn't tell you what the starting voltage is. Are you kidding me? This is something I've never seen to be honest and it's nasty. Why not use just Volts like everyone else! This setting allows the processor voltage to be increased 0.252V from whatever the unknown default setting is.
The memory voltage is also in millivolts and is factory over-volted at +120mV or .12V over whatever the default setting is. The memory voltage can be increased by 0.63V over the default value, which again is unknown.
To get our 2GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 memory kit to run stable at 4-4-4-12 timings (set to 4-4-4-14 in this BIOS as the tRAS is set wrong) we had to increase the DIMM voltage from level 12 to level 37. If you want to overclock the processor bus frequency or the integrated graphics you will find the place for that here and you just need to enter the value you want.
Under the PC Health Status menu we can find the out the details on the temperatures, fan speeds as well as the CPU and Memory voltages! Looks like the default CPU Vcore on our e4850 processor is 1.296V and with the memory set to level 37 the VDIMM is 2.0V. If you subtract .37V from the VDIMM it looks like the default voltage on the memory is 1.63V. The BIOS on the ECS A780GM-A motherboard gets the job done, but it's nasty and not fun to work with. ECS should be able to fix the BIOS with little effort and to be honest it's shocking to see something like this on a retail board that has been on the market for over a month now and already has BIOS updates out.
The Retail Box and Bundle
The retail box that the ECS A780GM-A motherboard comes packaged in looks great and is fair from what one would expect at this price point. The glossy box is black with a dragon and a wicked looking tribal pattern that is better than what many women are sporting on their lower backs these days. On the lower right corner ECS has listed the main features available on the A780GM-A that are likely the reason you purchased it. The one feature they are missing that many might be interested in is the fact that the board has a x16 PCIe 2.0 graphics slot! Flipping over to the back reveals a picture of what the board looks like, as well as a more in depth list of specifications and features in nine different languages.
The Bundle:
Included with the ECS A780GM-A "Black Series" motherboard are two SATA cables, one IDE cable, an I/O shield plate, support CD, quick start guide, users guide and an ECS "Black Series" case badge. The support CD software is simple to use and the software will install all the drivers with a click of a button. The bundle might leave some needing a floppy cable or an extra SATA cable, so keep this in mind when building systems running hard drives in a RAID configuration.
Cinebench R10 and Pov-Ray 3.7
MAXON; CINEBENCH R10:
CINEBENCH is the free benchmarking tool for Windows and Mac OS based on the powerful 3D software CINEMA 4D. Consequently, the results of tests conducted using CINEBENCH 10 carry significant weight when analyzing a computer's performance in everyday use. Especially a system's CPU and the OpenGL capabilities of its graphics card are put through their paces (even multiprocessor systems with up to 16 dedicated CPUs or processor cores). The test procedure consists of two main components: The first test sequence is dedicated to the computer's main processor. A 3D scene file is used to render a photo reaslistic image. The scene makes use of various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders. In the first run, the benchmark only uses one CPU (or CPU core), to ascertain a reference value. On machines that have multiple CPUs or CPU cores, and also on those who simulate multiple CPUs (via HyperThreading or similar technolgies), MAXON CINEBENCH will run a second test using all available CPU power. Again, higher Frames/Second and lower rendering time in seconds equal better performance.
Results: Running Cinebench R10 in 32-bit mode showed that the 780G platforms were faster than the 690G platform, but just by 2-3 seconds. Once again less than a 1% difference was noted between the ECS and Gigabyte boards.
Pov-Ray 3.7 Beta 25:
The Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer was developed from DKBTrace 2.12 (written by David K. Buck and Aaron A. Collins) by a bunch of people (called the POV-Team) in their spare time. It is an high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The POV-Ray package includes detailed instructions on using the ray-tracer and creating scenes. Many stunning scenes are included with POV-Ray so you can start creating images immediately when you get the package. These scenes can be modified so you do not have to start from scratch. In addition to the pre-defined scenes, a large library of pre-defined shapes and materials is provided. You can include these shapes and materials in your own scenes by just including the library file name at the top of your scene file, and by using the shape or material name in your scene. Since this is free software feel free to download this version and try it out on your own.
The most significant change from the end-user point of view between versions 3.6 and 3.7 is the addition of SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) support, which, in a nutshell, allows the renderer to run on as many CPU's as you have installed on your computer. This will be particularly useful for those users who intend on purchasing a dual-core CPU or who already have a two (or more) processor machine. On a two-CPU system the rendering speed in some scenes almost doubles. For our benchmarking we used version 3.7 beta 25, which is the most recent version available. The benchmark used all available cores to complete the render. Once rendering on the object we selected was completed, we took the score from dialog box, which indicates the average PPS for the benchmark. A higher PPS indicates faster system performance.
Benchmark Results: Looking at POV-Ray 3.7 Beta 25, we once again see a one second difference between the two 780G motherboards.
Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. & World in Conflict
Crysis v1.1
Crysis is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game that was developed by Crytek, and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on November 15, 2007 in the United States. The game is based off the CryENGINE2 game engine, which is an extended version of CryENGINE, the game engine behind the hit game Far Cry a number of years ago.
We used FRAPS to benchmark this multi-threaded DirectX 10 game title with patch v1.1 at 1024x768 with low quality settings.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. v1.0005
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl uses the 'X-ray Engine' to power the graphics. It is a DirectX 8/9 Shader Model 3.0 graphics engine. Up to a million polygons can be on-screen at any one time, which makes it one of the more impressive engines on the market today. The engine features HDR rendering, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, widescreen support, weather effects and day/night cycles. As with other engines that utilize deferred shading (such as Unreal Engine 3 and CryENGINE2), the X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled. However, a "fake" form of anti-aliasing can be enabled with the static lighting option; this format utilizes a technique to blur the image to give the false impression of anti-aliasing. The game takes place in a thirty square kilometer area, and both the outside and inside of this area is rendered to the same amount of detail.
Wolrd in Conflict v1.007
World in Conflict (also known as WiC or WIC) is a real-time tactical video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment for Windows and the Xbox 360. The game was released in North America on 18 September 2007 and was included in our testing as it is a recent DirectX 10 game title. It also has a threaded engine for multi-core processor support, which is ideal for this testing. The plot in World in Conflict is to defend their country, their hometown, and their families in the face of Soviet-led World War III, delivering an epic struggle of courage and retribution. You are a field commander leading the era's most powerful military machines in the heroic effort to turn back the invasion…one city and suburb at a time. Let's get on to the benchmarking! WIC was tested using the most recent patch available, which is patch number 007.
Benchmark Results: With low quality settings and a resolution of 1024x768 the AMD 780G chipset proved to be over 50% faster than the AMD 690G chipset in World in Conflict and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.! When it comes to Crysis the 780G was over 25% faster, which is still a huge improvement, but not as big of a jump. When it comes to gaming between the two chipsets the 780G is the obvious choice. To test out Hybrid CrossFire we used the Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 graphics card and found another nice jump in performance. The difference between the ECS A789GM-A and Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboards was a wash with the exception of World in Conflict.
Hard Drive and Audio Performance
HD Tach RW; Version 3.0.4.0
HD Tach will test the sequential read, random access and interface burst speeds of your attached storage device (hard drive, flash drive, removable drive, etc). All drive technologies such as SCSI, IDE/ATA, 1394, USB, SATA and RAID are supported. Test results from HD Tach can be used to confirm manufacturer specs, analyze your system for proper performance, and compare your performance with others. HD Tach is very easy to use, quick, and presents data in easy to read graphs, including the ability to compare two storage devices on screen at the same time for easy analysis.
Benchmark Results: Using a Western Digital WD1500ADFD Raptor hard drive as a secondary drive we tested hard disk performance on the 780G platforms and the results are shown above. Both the ECS and Gigabyte boards had the same random access score and the burst speed and average read speeds were too close to call a winner.
Rightmark Audio Analyzer; Version 6.0.6
The Rightmark Audio Analyzer suite is designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio devices, be it a sound card, an MP3 player, a consumer CD/DVD player or an acoustic set. The results are obtained by playing and recording test signals passed through the tested audio path by means of frequency analysis algorithms. To complete this test we ran an external loopback (line-out - line-in) for the audio on the motherboard.
The Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H was able to complete the testing with no problems at all, but the ECS board was unable to run this test, which brings us to our concerns on the audio. The audio on the ECS A780GM-A pops when Windows Vista is on the splash screen when Windows is loading all the right drivers and crackles when games are being loaded. Something didn't seem right and Rightmark Audio Analyzer confirmed this.
Power Consumption
Since power consumption is a big deal these days, we ran some simple power consumption tests on our test beds. The systems ran with the power supplies, case fan, video card and hard drive model. To measure idle usage, we ran the system at idle for one hour on the desktop with no screen saver and took the measurement. For load measurements POV-Ray 3.7 was run on all cores to make sure each and every processor was at 100% load. All of the systems used identical hardware minus the motherboard and processor.
Results: The ECS A780GM-A used more power than the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H at an idle state and about the same at load. Our first that was to make sure C'N'Q was enabled, but it was in the BIOS. With Cool'n'Quiet enabled and disabled in the BIOS no difference was noted in power consumption at idle. This might be another BIOS bug!
IGP Overclocking
Overclocking the integrated graphics on the ECS A780GM-A motherboard has to be done in the BIOS as both AMD OverDrive and CATALYST Control Center don't have any GPU adjustments for this platform. The stock settings on the GPU core clock are 500MHz, but the sky is the limit in the BIOS. Our Gigabyte 780G motherboard was able to reach 800MHz, so we had high hopes for this ECS board as the heat sink looks larger. We tired 750MHz right off the bat and failed, so we backed it down a number of times and added a 120mm fan to cool this chipset as seen below.
With the fan keeping the chipset cooler we were able to get 627MHz stable with no other adjustments in the BIOS. This is not a bad overclock, but far from the 800MHz we were able to reach on the Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H motherboard.
A quick look at GPU-Z 0.1.9 showed that the default clock went from 500MHz to 627MHz. This is a 25.4% increase in the GPU core clock frequency on the Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics!
By making one adjustment in the BIOS we were able to improve graphics performance by 15%, which is not bad considering we increased the GPU core clock frequency by 25.4%. With a voltage increase a higher overclock is possible, but active cooling is required for sure.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Going into this review we had high hopes for the ECS A780GM-A motherboard since and other AMD 780G boards we have looked at performed really well. After spending a few hours with it we knew we were in store for a rough ride. There is so much to talk about it's tough to pick a place to start, but let's give it a try!
The BIOS on the ECS A780GM-A Black Series motherboard is one of the roughest we have seen on a production board. With memory timing settings like the tRAS not correctly setting the value where it should be is not a good thing. The engineers and programmers over at ECS have this value off by 2 clocks. The 'Reserved' spaces in the memory settings don't need to be there, and don't get us started on the whole mV thing. Why anyone would design a BIOS with over-volting in millivolts is beyond our reasoning. It wouldn't be too bad if they informed you what the starting voltage was before you increase it! It also seems that Cool'n'Quiet is not functioning properly, which is a big deal for those looking for low power consumption numbers. ECS should be able to fix these BIOS issues very quickly if they wanted to, so we will keep our fingers crossed that they do after reading this conclusion.Credit By www.legitreviews.com
