Legit Reviews

AMD 780G Chipset - Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H Motherboard

Last week when AMD released the 780G chipset they claimed that it redefines gaming for the mainstream PC. Legit Reviews spent some extra time with this board before we cranked out the review just to get a little better feel for the board and to make sure it was fully stable. Read on to see how for the first time a complete GPU has been integrated into the chipset of a motherboard!



Article Title: AMD 780G Chipset - Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H Motherboard
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/676/1/
Pricing at Time of Print: $99.99 plus shipping

Great review. It was mostly what I expected to see through it all. I'm curious why you chose the amd 64 x2 instead of the quad core. I assume it's because you wanted to show what sort of thing you could build for cheap. I am curious how/if there is a difference with a phenom quad in it when running the various tests with teh rest of the hardware the same. Especialy the cpu usage during playback/gaming fps.
Digg ME!

dgood wrote:I'm curious why you chose the amd 64 x2 instead of the quad core. I assume it's because you wanted to show what sort of thing you could build for cheap. I am curious how/if there is a difference with a phenom quad in it when running the various tests with teh rest of the hardware the same. Especialy the cpu usage during playback/gaming fps.

I'd assume because the primary target market of the board would seem to be the HTPC crowd and not hard-core gamers. The HTPC crowd tend to care more about power consumption, heat generation and hardware video decoding, not fps in Crysis, etc.

I was thinking more for that even smaller crowd that thinks about doing both htpc/gaming on their 40+" lcd/plasma tv's.

For one it's the new processor ;) For seconds price point! Just goes to show that with an X2 you can still game and do HD playback with just the integrated graphics.

This looks like it would fit my ticket well for my next upgrade that's been long over due.

MOBO about $99
CPU about $99
PSU $50
Corsair Memory $75

For about $325, I would be good to go for the upgrade.

Nate, that's one fine review!

stev wrote:This looks like it would fit my ticket well for my next upgrade that's been long over due.

MOBO about $99
CPU about $99
PSU $50
Corsair Memory $75

For about $325, I would be good to go for the upgrade.

Nate, that's one fine review!

No kidding, I'm pretty impressed by this and it makes me want to look into building a HTPC as well... Now if I only had the time.... :cry

Since the Hybrid Crossfire does not work on the higher end ATI cards ( which I was considering buying in hopes it would) I still don't really know if this board paired with my current 7600GT card would be better than this board paired with the 3450. The 3450 in hybrid crossfire would give me PCI E 2.0 plus DX 10 capability but I really don't know how much better those two items are versus what I have, how soon will not having DX10 be a problem and how much better is PCI-E 2.0 than plain vanila PCE-E x 16??. I would like to just use my current Video card and spend the extra on better RAM and CPU but IF better RAM and CPU just makes my Vid card the bottleneck then I must think carefully about where to spend the $.

I read that the Hybrid crossfire and a few other features will only work with a Vista OS. Is that true? If it is then would I be better off going with a 690G board that is$20-$30 less since I will not be using Vista for at least a year or so?

Merlin wrote:I read that the Hybrid crossfire and a few other features will only work with a Vista OS. Is that true? If it is then would I be better off going with a 690G board that is$20-$30 less since I will not be using Vista for at least a year or so?

Yes, it is a Vista only feature!

Tax return time is just at the door. I'm hoping for a few $ to start my upgrade.

This is still a great board... Since I wrote this review I've worked with the ECS A780GM-A motherboard and found it tough to work with compared to this one. Jason is currently working on the ASUS Micro-ATX 780G motherboard and it's so-so, but he's seeing poor performance with a Phenom 9600 BE. The review on the ASUS 780G board should be out later this week.

I have this board now after RMAing the 740G. I am running my 5000 black at 3.0 and my 8800GT at 675 ( up from 600) scoring 10200 on 3DMark and around 70 frames per second on the crysis demo all at stock voltages . I am happy with it even if I am not happy with Giga's answers regarding the PCI slot on the 740 board. I will , one day, get more out of it by getting a Phenom CPU and Vista. With the AM2+ you also get higher memory speeds ,1066 as opposed to 800 with an AM2. All in all I like it espicially since I wasn't going to use the graphics anyway so the hybrid crossfire doesnt need to work with my setup.

Merlin wrote:I have this board now after RMAing the 740G. I am running my 5000 black at 3.0 and my 8800GT at 675

I've read over at another site that the X2 5000 Black can push to 3.3Ghz with the standard air setup and up to 3.5Ghz+ when liquid-cooled.

Thanks for the insight on your setup. I'm going for it too!

Nate, It's good to hear that the Gigabyte is the leader of the pack thus far. It's a winner on all fronts.

I don't have an aftermarket air cooler yet so I have not pushed it yet. My current OC is with the factory heat solution that came with my socket 939 CPU. I may try for more once I get a better heatsink/fan. Noise is also a consideration for me so I am trying to stay under 20dB

Well, the list for the build is shown below. Nobody has the X3 in stock yet. So, I'm sitting back a little while waiting.

Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H = ~$99.00
* Phenom x3 8450 B3 stepping = ~$160.00
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit = $65.00
Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0 = ~$99.00
Total is nearly $425 for the upgrade in hardware.

Nate & Merlin, a question about the chipset. It seems to get really hot per several posted comments on NewEgg. So bad that while playing DVD's weird screen articles appear. Two people have put better coolers on the chipset and the problem went away.

Other than that, there isn't much else to say anything bad about this MOBO.

GB website shows several memory modules at different speeds. Hopefully, I'm going for memory that can clock higher without limiting the OC of the other components. However, how do I match up the CPU and the memory for this build. I would like to keep the X3 with the memory to match it's requirements.

you going to be using this for HTPC use or daily personal use?

Apoptosis wrote:you going to be using this for HTPC use or daily personal use?

Nate, actually more for a daily driver with folding and some HTPC activity.

If the chipset runs hot, it's not hard getting something to keep it cool.

I personally didnt see any heat issues that I know were heat. I have RMAed the board and CPU due to no post but I do not know what the problem was. Look at my "what the ?!?!?" thread for problem description. I am inclined to think that my problem started with my OS not having SP2 and thus some drivers would not work properly and sent the PC into a tail spin before I could get SP2 installed. I have no clue how it went from that to no post since I did not touch anything overnight the day it went out. The PSU is fine and running my older system now. I still feel like.." what the ???!!" but I can't say untill I get the replacement back.

I don't think heat is an issue with these chipsets unless you overclock the IGP. In a case it should have enough airflow to keep the passive cooler nice and chilly.