The AMD
780G chipset has been a great companion for home theatre aficionados who want a
richer feature set than what can be found on Intel's integrated graphics
chipsets. For under a hundred dollars, you're getting a board that will let you
do 1080p output over HDMI with seven-channel audio, is still small enough to fit
into most home theatre PC cases, is compatible with the lowest-wattage
processors on the market, and can be run completely silently provided you have
the right CPU cooler.
This
makes the ECS A780GM-A motherboard a very competitive option when the time comes
to build a high-definition media setup. Standalone Blu-ray players still average
around $280 CDN, largely because of the expensive computer-like processing
required to decode high-bandwidth media. PC-based Blu-ray drives, however, can do their computer-like
processing using an actual computer, which means
their prices can drop as low as $140 CDN. The lower price will cover the cost of
the motherboard and even some of the cost of a processor. In the end you'll have
a Blu-ray player that can run HD content, let you surf the web on a big screen,
and even play some classic arcade games via programs like MAME.
The versatility of an AMD
780G-based home theatre PC could even save you money in the long run, since it
could potentially replace an AV receiver and multi-disc CD player once your
audio CD collection is ripped to a hard drive.
Even for
users who will be connecting the ECS A780GM-A motherboard to their monitors for
everyday use instead of a HDTV for movies, the 780G chipset delivers. It's
Radeon 3200 Graphics have enough integrated power to run Vista's Aero interface
and even let you do some light 3D gaming, and you can always beef up the
graphics performance by plugging a card into the x16 PCI Express slot and
enabling Hybrid Crossfire. This solution isn't quite as nice as having two x16
PCI Express slots for Crossfire X, but 3D gaming was never really the purpose of
this board.
ECS has
really embraced the philosophy of the AMD 780G chipset with the A780GM-A
motherboard. Despite the low price, it's got nearly everything needed to turn it
into a gaming system, home theatre PC or desktop workstation. It's three PCI
expansion slots and two PCI Express x1 slots mean it can still provide a home
for your old 802.11g networking card and analog capture card, while the PCI
Express slot lets you use newer X-fi cards and Firewire 800 cards. Four ram
slots make for easy upgrades with inexpensive DDR2 memory, and ECS has even manage to pack in eSATA
into the A780GM-A.
ECS'
A780GM-A is aimed at the budget-conscious buyer, so it's not really surprising
that it's not going to come with a lot of goodies included in the box - that
being said, it's a little disconcerting to find only a manual, quickstart guide,
driver CD and three hard drive cables provided. As it is if you want to use the
ECS A780GM-A with a DVI monitor, you'll have to run out and buy a DVI to HDMI
cable.
Having a standard-sized ATX motherboard with an
integrated chipset used to be something of a paradox for system builders, since
integrated graphics chipsets usually lagged behind their enthusiast counterparts
in terms of feature sets. This is no longer the case with the ECS A780GM-A
motherboard. For a mere $80 CDN ($70 USD, $35 GBP) you get integrated graphics
that are more powerful than any of Intel's IGP boards, and a feature set that's
comparable to what you'd find in Intel boards that are nearly double the price.
The passive cooling for the integrated graphics and chipset, as well as the HDMI
output and gigabit lan also let this board double as a media streaming home
theatre box. It's got enough expansion capability to make it a good choice for a
user who wants a low-price board but still wants to do some serious upgrades in
the future. It's all of these features that make the ECS A780GM-A a great value
for its price range.
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