Legit Reviews

ECS A790GXM-AD3 Motherboard Review

The A790GXM-AD3 is the ultimate AM3 Socket motherboard from ECS for AMD Phenom II processors. The integrated graphics are powered by the ATI Radeon HD 3300 DirectX 10 based graphics core, which is part of the platform AMD 790GX chipset! Read on to see how this motherboard does with an AMD Phenom II X3 720 processor!



Article Title: ECS A790GXM-AD3 Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/938/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: Unknown

I'm glad you guys liked the board but I would never buy it because the name on the box, ECS. Every ECS board I've ever owned has been a giant piece of junk. I don't think I've ever had one just work correctly out of the box either.

Major_A wrote:I'm glad you guys liked the board but I would never buy it because the name on the box, ECS. Every ECS board I've ever owned has been a giant piece of junk. I don't think I've ever had one just work correctly out of the box either.

Everyone I have used work solid @ STOCK settings. If you are into tweaking, you might as well forget ECS.

GI-JOE wrote:

Major_A wrote:I'm glad you guys liked the board but I would never buy it because the name on the box, ECS. Every ECS board I've ever owned has been a giant piece of junk. I don't think I've ever had one just work correctly out of the box either.

Everyone I have used work solid @ STOCK settings. If you are into tweaking, you might as well forget ECS.

wasnt the Core i7 OC record with an ECS board?

According to ECS it was. According to various forums and overclockers, no.

yeah, ive had my fair share of ECS trouble as well, PC CHIPS=ECS= terrible BIOS options(didn't have a single voltage choice, slim on everything else as well) and things just don't work properly, and its layout was god awful(ONE 3-pin fan connector at the bottom left corner, which i used for the chipset(had to add some extra wire from another fan))

but about THIS board: good read, at first i didn't even catch that it was an Phenom X3 not X4, it couldve used more charts(with other boards) but i fully understand why it does not, so good job with what you had! the DDR3 is the main thing that bothers me with this board, its only Dual channel, and only goes up to 1333!??? come on AMD, also, you said(in the layout video) the sticker says it supports up 160w, but the specs in the review say 140?

skierkid450 wrote:yeah, ive had my fair share of ECS trouble as well, PC CHIPS=ECS= terrible BIOS options(didn't have a single voltage choice, slim on everything else as well) and things just don't work properly, and its layout was god awful(ONE 3-pin fan connector at the bottom left corner, which i used for the chipset(had to add some extra wire from another fan))

but about THIS board: good read, at first i didn't even catch that it was an Phenom X3 not X4, it couldve used more charts(with other boards) but i fully understand why it does not, so good job with what you had! the DDR3 is the main thing that bothers me with this board, its only Dual channel, and only goes up to 1333!??? come on AMD, also, you said(in the layout video) the sticker says it supports up 160w, but the specs in the review say 140?

As far as more boards, if you clock on the chart, it brings up a larger chart with a total of five boards. That should be a little more helpful. As far as the 140w or 160w, either the sticker on the board is wrong or the manual, web site and box are wrong. I will go with the box and website to be safe. I will have to ask Nate to send em an email to check.

Impressive OC, I've been having a lot of trouble hitting high HT overclocks with these Phenom IIs, just been focusing on overall clockspeeds.

skierkid450 wrote:

GI-JOE wrote:Everyone I have used work solid @ STOCK settings. If you are into tweaking, you might as well forget ECS.

wasnt the Core i7 OC record with an ECS board?

I reviewed that board and had trouble breaking 188QPI, regardless of voltage and cooling. No clue how they hit 230+ It however was a rock solid board at stock speeds, couldn't ask for more although the price should have been lower.