Thoughts
Bar the occasional blip, the 915-A using a 3.8GHz Prescott and DDR2 memory at 533MHz wasn't too far behind the P5AD2-E Premium using the same configuration, in terms of basic performanec. With the 915-A's PCI Express 16X slot connected to the southbridge, it paid to see how 3D performance suffers, if at all, due to that being the case.
There's a tangible difference to running your graphics card on a 2X slot, connected on the far side of a link that's got barely 2Gibit/sec of theoretical bandwidth. The difference isn't down to the width of the PEG link, rather it's down to being connected to the southbridge.
That the AGP Express slot wouldn't host a large range of available AGP 4X and 8X graphics boards only serves to highlight the 915-A's weakest point: It doesn't do graphics perfectly in any area. GMA900 will take on FX 5200 and Radeon 9200 in terms of performance, in some titles, but when the filters and DACs to the VGA port are as poor as they are on the ECS, running any connected CRT display at resolutions above 1024x768 will have you reaching for the off button and an activity that won't give you a headache.
However, for the cost-conscious user that wants to slowly make their way to the new P4 platform, with LGA775 P4 processors and DDR2 memory, the 915-A has its good points. My only concern is that the good points are the same good points that the 915P-A already possesses. With that board having a full 16X PEG link on the northbridge and a more compliant AGP Express implementation, that board is the better choice for the vast majority of tasks you'll want such a board to undertake.
Given that they're exactly the same price from DirectFrom, here, I can't recommend the ECS 915-A in any real way.
Not a horribly bad board, but unless you desperately want the GMA900 in order to do dual display with another discrete card, there's no reason to consider it, given other alternatives. Too many niggles and too much competition to rightfully recommend.
It doesn't carry on ECS's recent good form, but neither does it destroy their hard work. Just an average board in a sea of similarly priced alternatives.
HEXUS Awards
The HEXUS Labs award is given to hardware that successfully makes it through our testing procedures, and which does well enough to garner a general assessment as to its ability, but be aware that the award doesn't imply any recommendation to buy. Think of it as a competancy award, where the hardware will do what it should and all the features it advertises work, but where it doesn't excel or thoroughly disappoint in any areas.
