Hardware News Roundup - February 2008

ECS and NVIDIA Join AMD Phenomena

The MCP78M-A from ECS proves that NVIDIA hasn’t given up the AMD market, regardless of competitive forces.

NVIDIA’s Phenom-compatible GeForce MCP78 series Northbridge supports add-in PCI-Express x16 graphics along with onboard VGA and HDMI, and anyone who’d like to get the most of both technologies will appreciate the new Hybrid SLI feature which ties onboard and discrete NVIDIA graphics processors together. Other features of the MCP78M-A motherboard include two PCI-Express x1 slots, three PCI slots, 8.1 channel high-definition audio, and support for up to 32 GB memory from four DDR2-800 modules in dual-channel mode.

ECS and NVIDIA stress the importance of the onboard graphics DirectX 10 compatibility, which could make the MCP78M-A a great choice for Vista Premium equipped home media players and upscale office PC’s.