ECS A785GM-AD3 motherboard review - PAGE 1

I sometimes feel that the AMD platforms do not get as much attention from the manufacturers than does Intel, but lately this seems to be the case.  A bit before Christmas, Gigabyte had announed the first AMD motherboards featuring USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0, which hit the market not long after these technologies were implemented on the Intel platform. Then, at the Consumer Electronics Show, ECS was displaying some motherboards featuring 15µ gold connectors. Most models were all about the Nehalem architecture in all its forms, but I was pleased to see that the AMD fans were not left in the dust; ECS launched a few motherboards for them, from the low to high-end. In this article, we will get to try out the new A785GM-AD3, an ATX motherboard based on the 785G chipset - and featuring the 15µ gold connectors.

How will it affect stability and overclocking? One sure thing is that such a plating on the connectors will increase their lifespan, since corrosion is less likely to occur. Unfortunately, one cannot test that over the length of a review.

Specifications

Specifications table is courtesy of ECS.

Let's open this black box and see what ECS has put together.