Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H Layout
Gigabyte's MA790GP-DS4H is a full-sized ATX board, offering the connectivity and features of a mid-range to high-end product.
Clearly, it's not competing solely with the value-orientated
mATX
IGP boards we're used to seeing, but also mainstream enthusiast boards
- which is reflected in the online price of ~£110.
Board layout is decent, with power connectors generally located in the ideal locations.
There are two 4-pin fan-connectors labelled CPU and System 1,
and a
single 3-pin labelled System 2. The system fan-headers, in the
bottom-left of the above picture, are inconveniently located for
attaching a rear chassis fan, meaning the use of a fan extension cable
will likely be required.
The CPU area is pretty clear, and shouldn't pose too many compatibility
problems when installing most aftermarket coolers, although our AKASA
AK-876 cooler did sit flush with Corsair DOMINATOR memory
modules.
Power regulation is more robust than we saw on most 780G
motherboards, and, as such, full compatibility with 125W and 140W
Phenoms quad-core CPUs is now guaranteed.
The 790GX northbridge features an integrated Radeon HD 3300 graphics
core running at 700MHz, compared to the 500MHz clock speed of the
780G's HD 3200 core.
Gigabytes implementation also features 128MB DDR3-1333 as a
dedicated SidePort memory for the IGP. SidePort memory was
a feature available with the 780G chipset but left unused on
the
majority of boards. AMD promises that uptake of the feature will be
much greater with the 790GX.
The bump in clock speeds and addition of dedicated memory should boost
performance over the 780G, which itself was the fastest IGP we had
tested.
With the board supporting all AM2+ processors, there's native provision
for DDR2 memory up to PC2-8500 (1,066MHz) dependant on your
processor's capability. During preliminary testing the board seemed to
work fine with DDR2-1066 modules running at 1066MHz with 2.1V, which is
something a number of other AMD boards failed to do - even when support
was listed.
Underneath an unassuming heatsink lies the second part of the
new
platform upgrade: the SB750 southbridge. Aside from adding a feature
you usually associate with the southbridge, namely RAID5 support, the
SB750 also promises a very un-southbridge-like feature: increased
overclocking headroom, via Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC), using
AMD's Overdrive utility.
The fine details of quite how a southbridge is able to increase the
overclocking potential of a processor are still somewhat unclear, but
in essence AMD is focussing on tuning the platform as a whole, and the
SB750 features a direct link to the processor which is able to assist
in tuning the CPU to the specific system environment. This, AMD says,
opens up the way for higher overclocks. We'll put it to the test later.
The board features six SATA2 ports, although none of them are
front-facing, which may cause issues when full-length expansion cards
are used.
Speaking of expansion cards, the MA790GS-DS4H features dual PCIe 2.0
x16 physical slots, with the first providing the full 16 lanes in
single-card mode, and the two offering x8 in two-card scenarios. There
are also three PCIe x1 and two PCI slots, making the board extremely
scalable, and therefore suitable for either IGP-based HTPC use, or
high-end gaming when paired with discrete cards.
Rear connectivity is provided by VGA, DVI and HDMI display outputs
(although the digital connectors cannot be used simultaneously), PS/2
keyboard and mouse, four USB2.0 (which is a little on the low side for
some), one FireWire, one Gigabit Ethernet and analogue
multi-channel audio jacks supplied via the Realtek ALC889A codec.
There's also the provision of an optical S/PDIF-out for hooking up an
AV receiver for home theatre PC use, and both Dolby Digital Live
real-time encoding and Dolby Home Theatre are supported.
Summary
A feature-laden board with Gigabyte's trademark dual BIOSes, pricing is a little steep at £110.