Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear May 2008 • Vol.8 Issue 5 Page(s) 36 in print issue Add To My Personal Library Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Hybrid Graphics, Courtesy Of AMD’s 780G GA-MA78GM-S2H $99.99 Gigabyte www.gigabyte-usa.com CPU Rating: 4 Specs: Chipset: AMD 780G + ATI SB700; Max memory: 16GB DDR2-1,066 (4 DIMM slots); IGP: ATI Radeon HD 3200; Slots: 1 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI; Ports: VGA, DVI, HDMI, 4 USB 2.0, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet AMD has set its sights on the HTPC market with the AMD 780G (and 780V) chipset. AMD’s goal is to produce power efficiency, silent operation, and more-than-adequate support for casual gaming right out of the box. The 780G is designed for Socket AM2+ processors and comes with Radeon HD 3200-integrated graphics. (Radeon 3100 accompanies the 780V chipset.) HD support up to 1080p; native DVI/HMDI, VGA, and Display-Port adapters; and Avivo HD technology with UVD are all built onto the IGP. (Note: DisplayPort is absent on the GA-MA78GM-S2H.) The northbridge also supports PCI-E 2.0 x16 and up to six PCI-E x1 slots. (The Gigabyte mobo only had one PCI-E x1 slot.) For gaming, DX10 is built into the chipset. The southbridge packs in support for up to 12 USB 2.0 and two USB 1.1 ports, six SATA ports (the board has five), and integrated HD audio, with support for simultaneous RAID and IDE setups. The IGP on the chipset is designed to be powerful enough to handle HD and mainstream gaming by itself, without the need of a discrete card. With its new Hybrid Graphics technology, AMD has expanded CrossFire to not only support multiple cards but also an IGP/discrete card tandem. As such, when you add a discrete card to the system, the IGP will add to the card’s firepower instead of yielding to it. AMD sent us a 780G-powered Gigabyte mATX GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard with an AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz dual-core processor. AMD also included a Radeon HD 3450 graphics card and 2GB of DDR2. The rest of our test rig consisted of a 70GB Seagate hard drive and a 750-Watt PC Power & Cooling Silencer. I ran our set of benchmarks on a 32-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. The fans barely made a sound throughout a two-hour HD movie, and the case was only moderately warm afterward. The 780G won’t knock your socks off in terms of power, but for what it is—a silent PC that will offer HD video and adequate gaming performance in your living room—it’s well worth the investment. by Seth Colaner Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H w/ Radeon HD 3450 in Hybrid CrossFire 3DMark06 Pro 1.1 Overall 1190 2100 SM2.0 386 698 HDR/SM3.0 456 837 CPU 1802 1816 PCMark Vantage Pro 1.0 Overall 2867 2887 Memories 1598 1572 TV And Movies 2234 2155 Gaming 2101 2027 Music 3146 3171 Communications 2721 2705 Productivity 2646 2940 HDD 2594 2587 Dr. DivX 2.0.1* 8:43 8:43 WinRAR 3.71* 4:13 3:46 Cinebench 10* Multithreaded (min:sec) 3:44 3:44 Multithreaded (score) 3945 3935 POV-Ray 3.7 Beta** 765.16 782.77 SiSoft Sandra Lite XII SP1 Processor Arithmetic Dhrystone ALU (MIPS) 17,248 17,235 Whetstone iSSE3 (MFLOPS) 15,484 15,469 Processor Multi-Media Integer x8 iSSSE3 (itps) 47,391 47,420 Floating Point x8 iSSE2 (itps) 52,279 52,173 Memory Bandwidth Integer Buffered iSSE2 (MBps) 6,835 6,898 Floating-Point Buffered iSSE2 (MBps) 6,859 6,916 Crysis 1.1 2.47 2.43 World In Conflict (medium, no AA or AF)*** 7 13 World In Conflict (high, no AA or AF)*** 3 6 * minutes:seconds ** pixels per second *** Games tested at 1,280x1,024  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? Type a word or phrase that identifies the topic and click "Search" to find relevant articles from within our editorial database. Enter A Subject (key words or a phrase): ALL Words (‘digital’ AND ‘photography’) ANY Words (‘digital’ OR ‘photography’) Exact Match ('digital photography'- all words MUST appear together) Home      Copyright & Legal Information      Privacy Policy      Site Map      Contact Us Copyright © 2009 Sandhills Publishing Company U.S.A. All rights reserved.