Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI Motherboard Review

[Apoptosis]

Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI Motherboard Review

The AMD 780G chipset is all the rage right now for micro-ATX socket AM2+ motherboards. Today, we take a look at the ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI motherboard. It features DX10 compliant integrated ATI RV610-based graphics, which supports dual VGA outputs including DVI/HDMI interfaces with HDCP. It also incorporates AMD's UVD with hardware acceleration of H.264, VC1 and Mpeg2 used in HD DVD and BluRay disks. Is this board the right choice for your next HTPC or PC?



Article Title: Asus M3A78-EMH HDMI Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/693/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $78 plus shipping

[geokilla]

It's been reported that most 780G motherboards do not support the Phenom 9850BE and the X2 6400+ because most 780G motherboards have a 4 phase power delivery system.

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=427 and

[martini161]

are those two black sata ports special?

[Apoptosis]

It's been reported that most 780G motherboards do not support the Phenom 9850BE and the X2 6400+ because most 780G motherboards have a 4 phase power delivery system.

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=427 and

Very true, but those are 125W TDP processors. The Phenom 9600 has a worst-case TDP of 95W, which is still high, but something all 780G boards should be able to handle. I asked AMD weeks ago if 780G's could all support Phenom and they couldn't answer as it is up to the board makers on what they support and the cooling they impliment. I know for a fact that 65W Phenom procesors are coming out and the move to 45nm is coming for AMD. Once that happens many of the problems will go away, but as with everything AMD lately it, what they need just doesn't come soon enough.

[stev]

are those two black sata ports special?

Good question. Anyone know why?

So far after reading the reviews here and other places with the 780G, LR has the best OC with the Gigabyte setup.

It will be nice to see the AMD X3 in a 45nm unlocked for OCing.

In the Asus review, Windows XP Professional was mentioned for the platform setup, but nothing came of it.

Also in the review, "... We then put in our AMD 5000+ CPU and booted the system up. Low and behold, all was good and we got normal scores again."
It would have been great to see if the OC for the 5000+ on this board would have provided good results.

[martini161]

are the hybrid crossfire drivers out yet? id like to see how it scales

[Zertz]

are those two black sata ports special?

Probably part of the PATA controller, kind of like what they do with P35/X38 boards, they add a JMicron PATA+SATA controller since the chipset doesn't support it.