It's has 40 stream processors and is the best IGP on the market today. I upgraded my son's PC with an ASUS 780G and an Athlon X2 4200+
The only drawback with the motherboards is that the manufacturer's (not the chipset) limit the CPU's to 65 or 95 watt. Newer Phenom 125 watt B3's will fry the board.
Graphics wise it's like a complete last generation low end GPU. It works well in hybrid Crossfire with a 2400, 3450 or 3470 discrete GPU. Here are some previews and reviews:
My son's 7 1/2 years old, and he's very mature as far as CRPG's go (he loves fantasy movies). He's been playing Fate (E 10+), Icewind Dale (T) and HOMM 3, 4 and 5 (T). The 780G's IGP can handle HOMM 5, which is the most graphically intensive game on his system. I installed Morrowind to test it and it runs Morrowind fine (he doesn't play Morrowind because it involves first person view fighting people, and not just goblins or monsters).
Later, I'll install Oblivion long enough to see if it can actually handle Oblivion (though we don't let him play M rated games). We don't have a 3470 yet, so it's not doing hybrid Crossfire. Overall, I'd say that the 780G board is a great budget PC solution for an Athlon X2 65 watt CPU system that's not used for the most recent games.
The boards will take a 95 watt Phenom, but that's probably a B2, so why bother? Perhaps they will have bios updates in December that will allow for a 65 watt 45nm Deneb. We can only hope.
It's good enough for multimedia and old games. Best among onboard video. Will not handle any new games at playable framerates. Performance is incomparable to any half decent independent graphics card.
The only drawback with the motherboards is that the manufacturer's (not the chipset) limit the CPU's to 65 or 95 watt. Newer Phenom 125 watt B3's will fry the board.
Just remember that fact when purchasing a 780G they were not intended to run highend chips. I think they only have 3 phase power to the CPU and anything higher than 95w will make your mobo go POOF!
As far as onboard graphics, they have an ATI HD3200 which is by far the best onboard you are currently going to get. It is enough to run HD video and general fluffy vista graphics. Maybe some older gaming but nothing new. Might play farcry pretty well but anything more will choke.
If I was going to build a cheap decent PC or HTPC, THIS is what I would get. You save a bunch on graphics and you can get an AMD chip really cheap to throw in there. This gives a $500 budget system a new name.
------------------------------Big Brother Rules with an Iron Fist
Reply to jay2tall
Since I'm waiting for Deneb for both my next upgrade and for an HTPC, I think I'll wait for the 880G (?) expected as the refresh for the 780G. The board does fine with low power X2's like the 4200+.
Was I disappointed that I couldn't put a 9850BE on it? Only a little. It can accept an 8750 (but check motherboard CPU support list first), and that's quite overclockable. If Deneb were not coming out in 8 months, that's what I'd get in May.
Message edited by yipsl on 04-26-2008 at 08:19:39 AM
------------------------------Phenom 8750, ASUS M3A78T
4 gigs Kingston DDR2 800 two 1T SAMSUNG HD103UI
Sapphire 4870x2, Sony BDU-X10S BD-ROM
Antec Neo 650 PSU Antec Nine Hundred, Acer H213H 1080p LCD
Reply to yipsl
I've got one and hope to be building in a week or two. I got the Gigabyte board and plan to set up an active cooling system so I can OC it to 950-1000 (from stock 500). I wish it the onboard memory. I heard that helps a lot. When I do get mine up and running (and OC'ed) I hope to get and post some real world performance numbers.
------------------------------Phenom II X4 940 BE 3.0GHz - 1.25V > GA-MA790GP-DS4H > XFX ATI 4850 1GB > 4GB OCZ Platinum 1066MHz 5-5-5-15-2T > PCP&C 610W
Athlon II X2 250 3.0GHz > GA-MA770T-UD3P > Sapphire ATI 4650 512MB DDR3 > 4GB OCZ Platinum 1600MHz@1066MHz > XP/Win7 Enter 64
Reply to EXT64
Just To let people Know. I have been running a 6400+ on the ECS A780GM-A board and OC @3.43 for over a month. and it is running great. I had also talked to ECS about this and was told that the latest bios has the 6400_ and 9850BE support in it but is not yet released to public yet. Plus they will Warrenty thier board if it fails on you when using one of these cpu's. Also my total system watts running @ idle is 130W and at load is 215W. Here is a pic of my system running @ 3.43 and 3dmark 06 score.
Here is a link to http://www.guru3d.com that has done a review of the 9850BE on the ECS A780GM-A http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd- [...] n-review/4
I have an AMD athlon x2 5200+
I couldn't of asked more for the price.
I've been using my 780G platform for a few months now, it is the most stable i have used
The reason why the intel had a higher score is because intel has the best multi-core technology right now, but in return they're more expensive, which is worth it if you can afford it.
I still like amd for my personal use
as of the graphics http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?p [...] inux&num=1
Message edited by dg14813 on 07-07-2008 at 06:44:32 PM
The Phenom power issue isn't true of all 780G boards.
I have an Asus M3A-H, which has 4+1 phase power, which seems to be the most robust power management of all the 780G boards. Lots of people run the 125+ watt Phenoms on it just fine. It does need a lot of BIOS work done out of the box though, and won't support the better Phenoms until a flash is done.
As for the integrated graphics, yes... it's the best out there at the moment. Additionally, the onboard GPU can be overclocked to extreme amounts. Furthermore, you can crossfire it with a 3450 (as long as you have Vista), which are available for dirt cheap (think cheapest on the Egg is around $20), suck low wattage, and can be passively cooled. That solution won't be a gaming monster, but it will be able to play at more modest settings... silently, cheaply, and efficiently.
Not bad. That's an impressive OC on your X2. Surprising it doesn't get you a little higher '06 score
hey! i'm plannin on creating my computer and i've pretty much ended up with this configuration:
AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition 3.2 Ghz
M4A78 Asus Pro Motherboard
two sets of C13-6084 :: Corsair XMS2 4GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz
TSD-1000EADS :: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS Hard Drive - 1TB, 32MB, SATA-300, OEM
i have some questions. firstly, are any of the components i have just listed not going to work with one another? for example i was worried the Phenom II wouldn't work with the ddr 2 type of ram (i really wanted to have a phenom II). now, would you suggest i should buy an independent graphic card, or should i just settle for the mobo's integrated one? it says it is a ATI Radeon HD 3200. is it a bad one? and will it slow down my computer overall ? thank you in advance!