ASRock M3A780GXH/128M Motherboard Review

AMD’s 7 series chipsets and Phenom II processors have worked to bring the company 180 degrees around with a spec of light at the end of the tunnel. ASRock, known for their niche filling boards, has released a series of boards based on AMD’s AM2+ socket, but the M3A780GXH/128M we have here today is one of their first AM3 motherboards. Coupling AMD’s 780G chipset with integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics and the SB710 southbridge, this $89.99 motherboard strives to cover lots of ground with its IGP configuration and three PCIe slots supporting CrossFireX.

As mentioned above, ASRock has a number of AM2+ motherboards and after looking over the M3A780GXH/128M specifications and layout it appears ASRock has culled all the positive attributes from their previous motherboards and combined them into a single platform. For a budget board expansion opportunities abound, and while it is obvious a few things were cut in sake of price point, the board is still a solid offering. Below is a screen grab of their website showcasing the integrated features of the board; for more information feel free to visit their product page.

• Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom II X4 / X3 (except 920 / 940) and Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 processors
• ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
• Supports CPU up to 140W
• AMD 780G + SB710 Chipsets
• Supports AMD OverDrive with ACC feature (Advanced Clock Calibration)
• FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s)
• Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology
• Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1600(OC)/1333/1066/800 (4 x DIMM slots) non-ECC, un-buffered memory, Max. capacity up to 16GB
• Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3200 graphics, DX10 class iGPU, Pixel Shader 4.0, Max. shared memory 512MB
• Built-in 128MB DDR3 1333(OC)/1200MHz SidePort Memory
• Supports ATI CrossFire, Hybrid CrossFireX and 3-Way CrossFireX
• 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (green @ x16 mode, blue @ x8 mode, orange @ x4 mode)
• 6 x SATAII 3.0 GB/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and “Hot Plug” functions
• 1 x eSATAII 3.0 GB/s connector
• Supports 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board)
• PCIE Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
• Three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
• Supports HDCP function
• Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback
• Supports ASRock Instant Boot
• Supports Smart BIOS, ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver
• 7.1 CH Windows Vista Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888Audio Codec)
• Windows Vista Premium 2008 Logo Ready
• I/O Panel: 1 x VGA/D-Sub Port, 1 x VGA/DVI-D Port, 1 x HDMI Port, 1 x IEEE 1394 Port, 1 x eSATAII Port,1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED, 6 x USB 2.0 Ports