MSI 785GM-E65

Zitat: This MSI motherboard performs exceptionally well at stock speeds, but was stressful to overclock. While it would boot and even attempt to run the tests, it wasn´t be stable until we pulled right off the gas: we re-locked the fourth core, and it still didn´t want to know, and eventually we ended up with stability just over 3GHz. That´s a poor result, and it shows up in the overclocked performance tests. At £80, it´s also a bit more expensive than the other 785G boards out there and given the choice available and that successful overclocking boards are available in its price bracket, the MSI doesn´t look that desirable. The ECS A785GM-M Black Series motherboard is the otherside of this coin - it doesn´t look particularly special, and doesn´t have quite the appealing feature-set and BIOS, but it could hit 3.7GHz and break just a mild sweat. Unfortunately for both these boards, the Asus and Gigabyte solutions have the whole package, as well as a few quid on them too. There is still a lot to like about the 785GM-E65. It looks great, it has plenty of extras features to use, it sips the juice from the wall and the BIOS is very easy to use. There are plenty of people looking for a highly efficient, well rounded board for using at stock speeds as a second/family PC or home theatre box. It simply comes down to this: if you´re uninterested in overclocking but you want a full fat and well working 785G motherboard, then the MSI 785GM-E65 should make your short list. If you do want to overclock and unlock cores to add value then avoid this board. There are still better options out there for that.

Zitat: For: + Good performer + Decent overclocking + Good feature set Against: - Single x16 PCI-e port

Zitat: Best Bang for Buck Award Pros: + Decent overclocking + Silent heatpipes + Support up to 16GB of memory + 6 SATA ports (5 SATA and 1 eSATA) + Good layout + Very nice array of ports + Price + Onboard Debug Codes Cons: - BIOS options can be somewhat complicated for a first builder - Display driver is still not yet mature enough - Only includes 1 SATA data cab AMD´s 785G is an interesting chipset that AMD brings to the market at this time where the industry is anxiously awaits the 8 series chipset that is rumors to be out sometimes next year. It is certainly not a revolutionary chip but rather an evolution from its 780G. This is actually not a bad idea upgraded HD4200 graphics with new UVD, support for socket AM3 processor, and HDMI 1.3. However, we are disappointed to find that it still lack support for multi-channel LPCM output over HDMI and TrueHD and DTS-HD audio bit-streaming. What is worse is that AMD has yet to fix its poor SATA transfer rate and broken ACHI drivers.The 785G is certainly not going to be a performance killer and its integrated graphics is certainly not going to satisfy a casual gamers. However, it is definitely going to be a very capable chip for a budget build or for an HTPC system with its array of ports and multimedia enhancement. Its biggest competitor, GeForce 8200a/8300a/9300a from NVIDIA, may have a few more features than the 785G but as our tests shown the performance difference between the two chipsets are almost identical for its target audience. However, the 785G does consumes less power and is natively supporting DDR3 memory which none of the current NVIDIA chipset for AM3 processor supports. Not to mention that it also costs less for the 785G.In terms of video playback, we do see that the 785G is more capable at decoding the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC but it lags behind the GeForce 8200 in the MPEG-2. We do suspect that the driver is not mature enough yet so be sure to keep your driver up to date.The MSI 785G-E65 that we have reviewed today features a nice array of ports, a decent overclock, and nice overall layout. At retail price of $89.99, this micro ATX board has enough expansion slots (1 PCIE x1, 1 PCIE x16, and two PCI) and six SATA ports should satisfy its target audience. One minor issue we have with the board is probably its display driver where we experienced a slightly higher than usual CPU utilization with our MPEG-2 playback, which can easily be fixed with new driver update.We are using an addition to our scoring system to provide additional feedback beyond a flat score.

Zitat: Zalety: + Rozplanowanie PCB + Dobra wydajność (ogólna jak i zintegrowanego układu) + Rozbudowane i efektywne chłodzenie + Bogaty BIOS, dobre możliwości OC + Wyposażenie (HDMI 1.3, FireWire, eSATA, 5xSATA) + Cena Wady: - Wątpliwe zalety Hybrid CrossFireX (ze względu na ograniczoną liczbą kompatybilnych kart)

Zitat: Recommended