Whenever CPU manufacturers decide it’s time to change key features of their processors, there’s always a transition time where you are left deciding if you want to move to the new features or keep what you have. With AMD’s latest move to DDR3 memory and the AM3 socket on the Phenom II, they’ve worked with some motherboard manufacturers to make that transition a little easier. They’ve managed to release motherboards that are both compatible with AM2+ and AM3 sockets, and support DDR2, and we are reviewing one of those boards today.
Features and Specifications
In addition to being feature rich, the Asus M3A78-T also represents AMD’s ideal entry level motherboard for the new Dragon platform. We’ll have more on that in another article, but let’s just say this board has a nice selection of features at a very reasonable price. At least the price is reasonable for a mobo that has onboard video. Here’s a sneak peek at what this board has to offer.
- AMD AM2+/AM2 Platform
- Support latest AMD Phenom ™ Quad-Core Processor
- Dual-Channel DDR2 -1066/800/667
- AMD Hybrid CrossFireX™ and DX10 Support
- SidePort Memory Onboard
- Quad-CrossFire Support
- HDMI/DVI/RGB Support
- Instant Internet Access with Express Gate
Full features and specifications can of course be found on the product home page. Now I know the features above only list AM2+ support, but we’ve had the AMD Phenom II X3 720 running in this board since we’ve received it. According to AMD’s processor specifications chart, this CPU is AM3. There hasn’t been a problem with the system yet. All I had to do was update the BIOS, and away we went.
As for pricing, the Asus M3A78-T motherboard can found online for fairly cheap. Newegg.com had the board listed for $139.99 USD as of the publishing of this article. Considering that you get onboard video and the option to add a multi-card Crossfire setup later on, that is a very good price.
What Else Is In The Box?
The accessories package found with the M3A78-T is a much simpler version of what you find included with other Asus motherboards. With this board you get a set of ribbon cables, some SATA cables, and a pair of Molex-to-SATA power adapters. There’s also the expected inclusion of a user guide, as well as a drivers disc. However this package isn’t as pedestrian as it sounds.
Asus shows a bit of forward thinking by using a DVD instead of a CD to package all the motherboard software onto one disc. They also included the Q-Connector motherboard connection blocks, and easy to use Q-Shield ATX backplane that we’ve seen in previous Asus motherboards. Even at that the package is still indicative of what you would expect for entry-mid level motherboard, so let’s take a look at the motherboard itself.
Cool Under Pressure and Steady Like A Rock
Now when you find a CPU cooler that is the right fit, it’ll be right at home in the cooling solution used on the Asus M3A78-T motherboard. Asus is committed to performance computing, even in many of their entry and mid range boards. To that end they’ve installed large passive heatsinks on both the Northbridge chip and MOSFETs. There’s also a passive heatsink on the Southbridge chipset. All this extra metal helps to keep everything running stable by keeping it cool, but it’s not the only contributing factor to system stability.
Power problems tend to be a large contributing factor in many issues of system stability. To counter this Asus, as well as many other manufacturers, are switch their fabs to using 100% high-quality polymer capacitors. As opposed to their liquid electrolyte containing cousins, these capacitors are solid and will not leak. They’re also much more stable than the former mentioned capacitors. Now Asus doesn’t mention specifically whether these capacitors are Japanese manufactured, but at least the use of these types of solid capacitors is a step in the right direction.
Plug It In, Plug It In
As mentioned in the specifications, the Asus M3A78-T supports Hybrid CrossfireX. What that means exactly is that you can install one or more equivalent video cards in the provided PCIe slots, and use them in concert with the onboard video. This board also supports Quad-Crossfire, allowing you to install two dual-GPU cards and utilize all four GPUs on those two cards.
When it comes to hooking up drives, the M3A78-T has what one could consider an average number of SATA ports; five to be exact. There’s also a parallel ATA port. All these ports can operate in RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. All ports are controlled by the AMD Southbridge chipset, so there’s no confusion is trying to figure out which ports is controlled by which controller.
Along the lower edge on the motherboard you’ll find all the incidental connectors and headers. This includes things like the front USB ports (which support a whopping 6 extra USB ports), front FireWire ports, and front panel audio. The floppy port can also be found here, is a rather precarious position. Not shown is the front panel LED and power connections, which should be very easy to setup, should you use the afore mentioned Q-Connector.
Memory And CPU Hand In Hand
The AMD architecture has the CPU and memory closely tied together. After all, the memory controller resides on the CPU die as opposed to many previous CPUs that have their controllers in the Northbridge. However the CPU socket is also rather close physically to the memory slots and isn’t exclusive to Asus boards. This may cause compatibility problems between certain types of RAM and certain CPU coolers.
The Final Connection
The rear connectors found on the M3A78-T offer a nice mix of connection options. The one that actually brought forth a minor chuckle from me is the lone PS/2 port, which Asus went to the trouble to colour code in both the standard colours for keyboard and mouse connectors. This of course means that if you are strapped with an old PS/2 version of either peripheral you can still use it. You just can’t do both at the same time.
For video output you are given the choice of what I like to coin “the big 3” in computing. You can either hookup to an analogue or digital monitor, or connect to an HDTV that supports DVI or HDMI. Both the digital connections are fully HDCP compliant, supporting copy protection and playback of both HD-DVD and Blu-ray media. Rounding off the selection of rear panel connections are six USB ports, one FireWire port, Gigabit Ethernet, 6 channel sound with optical and coaxial SPDIF output, and an eSATA port.
Up And Running Before You Can Say “5-second Boot Time”
Before deciding to go whole hog and install Windows Vista x64 on the test system I built using this motherboard, I decided to try out Asus Express Gate. This feature is basically an on-chip version of Linux that is found on the motherboard. You can launch it prior to boot up, and since it’s stored on a ROM soldered on the motherboard it loads remarkably fast.
From this operation environment you check pictures, go online, perform a few chat functions, and even play some minor games. Unfortunately I found you have to install and activate Express Gate when installing the drivers DVD, after installing your OS. Undaunted, I went through the motions of installing Windows Vista x64, installed the drivers DVD in full, and rebooted. I was then greeted with the above screen prior to POST.
I clicked on “Web” and started my stopwatch. It wasn’t quite 5 seconds to boot, as Asus claims. On the first boot-up, I had to configure my language and region settings. On consecutive boots in Express Gate these settings were remembered by the system, and the total time to boot-up varied between 5 and 7 seconds. Once everything was loaded, I had full access to the web. This included support for basics like Flash. It actually didn’t matter what function I selected, as I could pick from any of the programs on the launch bar, and they were fully available.
The Test Rig
Once I was done messing around with some of the motherboard features, it was time to get down to business and perform some benchmarks. To test the M3A78-T, we built a brand new test rig around it. This test rig represents AMD’s new Dragon platform, and the parts roll call looks something like this.
- AMD Phenom II 720 2.8GHz Triple Core CPU
- OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 Gold Edition Dual Channel DDR2 Kit
- GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Video Card
- Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000rpm SATA2 Hard Drive
- HighSpeed PC Top Deck Tech Station
- Lian Li MAXIMA Force Extreme PS-A650GB 650W Power Supply
- Thermaltake SpinQ Heatpipe CPU Cooler
We tried to cover all the bases when testing the M3A78-T. There’s the standard appearance made by Futuremark’s benchmarking programs, as well as SiSoftware’s Sandra suite. We also performed a couple real world game tests, and even tested the clarity of the audio to make sure you are getting the full experience. But enough with the jibber-jabber, it’s time to see some results.
PCMark Vantage
For our first benchmark we turned to Futuremark and their PCMark Vantage benchmark suite. Though this suite is a synthetic test, it tries really hard to perform real world tests using applications and function similar to what you would do on any desktop system. There is a minor 3D component, which can be affected by the capability of your video card. With that in mind, we performed our benchmarks using both the onboard video found on the M3A78-T and our test video card. We picked three specific tests out of the myriad of different scenarios you can choose from.
Composite is a simple run through of most basic system functions, and is similar to the PCMark suites of the past. TV and Movies tests video playback, encoding, and rendering. Finally Productivity is…well…productivity. It tests things most office drones do all day, like surf the internet and play with Microsoft Word.
The results were favourable, with the difference in video card not having much of an impact on overall performance. As for the scores themselves, these are well within expectations for the configuration of our test rig. We would most likely see a results increase by upgrading the processor, as that seems to be the swing vote in terms of components.
SiSoft Sandra
Our set of tests were conducted using SiSoftware’s Sandra testing and diagnostics suite. This suite can be used for diagnosing and repairing ailing computer components, but it also comes with a built-in set of benchmarks. These are purely synthetic, and test the raw performance of component in the most straight-forward of fashions. Selecting a motherboard-specific test was difficult, as many of the tests rely on processing speed or the performance of other sub-systems. We settled on a simple memory bandwidth test.
In that realm of performance, the 790GX chipset found on the M3A78-T plays second fiddle to AMD’s own Xpress 1600. However performance is on par with the nVidia 680i SLI, and far and above the older Intel 955X. These are the four fastest chipsets found in the Sandra database, so I would say the 790GX chipset and the M3A79-T motherboard housing it faired pretty well.
Who Said Loud Music Damages Hearing? – RightMark Audio Analyzer
Before moving over to our 3D gaming tests, we decided to take a peek at the performance of the onboard audio found on the Asus M3A78-T. Specifically we are checking how much noise is present in the output, as this will affect overall sound quality. Though many claim that onboard audio has matured to a point that makes sound cards redundant, I still say the best experience can be found in a discrete sound card.
The testing performed using RightMark (aka: RMAA) didn’t vary from this assumption. The signal-to-noise ratio on the audio found onboard was a brutal -82dB. Most good sound cards start around -95dB, with the top end easily reaching -105dB or even -110dB. Thankfully Realtek seems to have fixed their problems with positional audio, so although there was a noticeable amount of noise on the audio output it was at least output properly.
Getting Our 3D On with 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage
Ok, it’s time to get our game on…kinda. We decided to kick off our 3D gaming testing in the same fashion as our system benchmarks, with some synthetic benchmarks. I started with 3DMark 06, hoping to shine of beacon of light on the onboard video. I had a theory that since the onboard video was an actual 3D chipset, it would give some actual 3D performance. Boy was I wrong. The onboard chipset found on the M3A78-T couldn’t even hold it’s own in a 3-year-old synthetic benchmark.
With the results of the 3-year-old 3DMark 06 in mind, in shouldn’t come as any surprise that the onboard video completely failed at 3DMark Vantage. This DX10 based suite treats even the most heavy duty 3D hardware in the most brutal of fashion. The onboard video had no change. There is still a positive spin to this story though.
I’ve never been a big proponent of onboard video. It’s always been at least a few generations behind even the most basic of discrete video cards in terms of performance. However I’m only considering the 3D performance of the component. The onboard video on this motherboard is an ATI Radeon HD 3300 chipset, and is fully DX10 compatible. This will get you into Windows Vista with all the eye candy, and by and large will look stunning while doing so. With an HDMI port right on board, full HDCP support, and hardware support of both HD-DVD and Bluray, this motherboard is great for those looking to build a cheap simple Home Theatre PC.
Getting Our Game On with Crysis and World in Conflict
So we’ve established that the onboard video isn’t the greatest, but we still need to see how this motherboard pans out in some real world game titles. We pushed forward with a couple of DX10 benchmarks, using the discrete video card chosen for our test bed throughout these final tests. First up was a run through on Crysis, using the HardwareOC benchmark program. We did 3 passes on the GPU specific tests, and tested the two major resolutions found on modern widescreen monitors.
The results were favourable for this board, with an 18% drop in performance when trying to display 28% more pixels on screen. Comparing this to the results gathered when Stephen reviewed the video card used in our tests shows that this motherboard and processor combination are actually just on the heels of our original AMD Spider test rig. Adding a more powerful processor would most likely put this rig in line with Stephen’s aforementioned Spider platform.
World in Conflict showed similar results, with a little more weight being thrown towards CPU speed instead of on motherboard and chipset performance. Being that it’s a real-time strategy game, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The results were once again above average, but not stunning.
Overclocking
Even with the market position of M3A78-T, Asus still went through the extra effort to add their AI overclocking features to the BIOS. Though some options are missing that would be found on higher end boards, the basics are there should you wish to dabble in the dark arts of overclocking. We only did a minor overclock, bumping the CPU 200MHz as a proof of concept, but it was still very easy to do. Of course, with any overclocking venture, your mileage may vary significantly based on your parts selection.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The Asus M3A78-T seems to excel at aiming for the middle, in both good and not so good ways. This motherboard provides a middle ground for this still not ready to spend their hard earned money on a full CPU, motherboard, and RAM upgrade. It supports both new and old CPU technologies, while supporting the previous generation of memory. It also provides some budget relief for those looking to lay a solid foundation for a great Home Theatre PC. The feature set is great for a board at this price point.
As for performance, it’s just above average using the triple core processor found in our test rig. Switching to any of AMD’s Quad Core processors would put this board in ankle-biting range of its contemporaries. Basically you are getting the performance of a 790FX based board, with integrated graphics with little to no performance hit. The only thing we didn’t cover was IO (SATA, USB etc). We’ll be covering this as we check out the performance of this when we compare the current Dragon platform with the Spring refresh in our next article.
In the end, the Asus M3A78-T is a great budget motherboard. It fits two roles, both of them quite mainstream. First it makes a good base for a Home Theatre PC. The features geared toward that function make this board a strong contender. Thanks to the chipset used you can upgrade this motherboard to performance status should you feel the need. The 790GX gives you the option to add two more video cards, turning the power conscious HTPC to a power sucking gaming beast.
Overall this motherboard is a great value and combined with one of AMD’s Triple Core processors, it really gives any INTEL Core2 Duo platform a run for the money, especially when it comes to price vs. performance.
Pros
- Good Performance
- Wonderful Price
- Options galore for video
- Full HD playback support
Cons
- Onboard graphics not much use for anything but desktop
Overall Rating: 8.0/10.0
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