Introduction:

With the AM3 platform finally launched, we would almost forget that the newest AM3 processors also work on AM2+ motherboards, which are in general more cost-effective than their bigger brothers. In other words, for those who are looking for a less expensive and silent AMD setup, we can still take into account the AM2+ 790GX motherboards. In the past, we have already tested a sample of DFI and Foxconn, today we'll be having a look at Asus' M3A78-T motherboard.

Frankly, I should've tested this motherboard a long time ago since it was sent to me along with the Phenom II X4 940 processor, which was back then still under NDA. However, when the X4 940 arrived, I had already tested the two other AM2+ mainboards and was, in other words, already familiar with the bios and overclocking behaviour in general of these two motherboards. Since I had a very tight schedule at that time, I wanted to see if all the fuss regarding coldbug or no coldbug was about and decided to put this motherboard on the 'to-test' pile.

As already mentioned, we are again testing a motherboard with IGP, which stands for integrated graphics processor. Last time I tested a HD3300 GPU (the most high-end IGP of ATI currently available) I was positively surprised by the noise level this desktop computer was producing. Agreed, the HD3300 doesn't give you the best of performance in newer games, but since it's fully integrated and cooled with just a heatsink, the silence you have is priceless. Especially since I'm more often confronted with highly noisy cooling, this was a pleasant product to test.

We will be comparing the Asus M3A78-T to the DFI Lanparty DK 790GX-M2RS and Foxconn A7DA-S, which were both still in our test labs. For overclocking performance, we'll throw in our AM3 Phenom II X3 720BE and compare to the overclocking data from the AM3 motherboard shootout.

ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium. In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and is expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007. ASUS products' top quality stems from product development. It's like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the "Chi" and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO'99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics. To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services. With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year.

Previous reviews containing Asus motherboards:

7 Intel Core i7 X58 Motherboards Tested and Compared

Asus P6T-Deluxe X58 Nehalem Motherboard Presentation

P45 head-to-head: MSI P45 Platinum and Asus Maximus II Formula

4-Way Intel P35 Motherboard Overclocking Roundup

Asus Blitz Formula S775 P35 Motherboard OC Review

Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe Intel nForce4 SLI Overclocking Review

Asus A8V revision 2.0: Exploring Max HTT Adventure

BOX AND ACCESSOIRES




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Looking at the box, I remember the Cebit '08 convention where almost everything was about green computing and efficient use of electricity. The list of accessories that come with this motherboard is not extremely extensive, but without any doubt, you receive everything you need to get a basic desktop computer started.

Below you’ll find a list of everything inside the package.

2 x SATA cable

1 x 3 in 1 ASUS Q-Connector Kit

1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable

1 x Floppy cable

1 x Molex-to-SATA power cable

1 x Molex-to-two-sata power cable

1 x 2-port USB2.0 + IEEE 1394a module

1 x I/O Shield

1 x User's manual

1 x Support DVD

MOTHERBOARD




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The brownish PCB colour already tells you exactly what you need to know about this board: it's meant for daily usage and not for gamers or enthusiasts. This mainstream motherboard is what you’d expect it to be: complete with all necessary features, but not that much extra. I can appreciate the third x16 PCIe lane, but sadly enough it's misplaced to be really useful for a CrossFire-X configuration with three high-end (dual slot) video cards. More importantly is probably the choice for a 4-pin 12V power connector instead of the more common 8-pin connector. Especially since the Phenom-II's are quite good for overclocking purposes, I wonder if this will have any effect on the overclockability.

Underneath a list of all features:

6 x USB 2.0/1.1

1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse

1 x S/PDIF Out (Optical)

1 x HDMI

1 x DVI

1 x D-Sub

1 x External SATA

1 x IEEE 1394a

1 x RJ45 port

1 x 8-Channel Audio I/O

3 x PCIe x16 (x8/x8 or x16/x4 and x8/x4/x8)

1 x PCIe x1

2 x PCI 2.2

5 x SATA connectors

3 x USB connector (6 ports)

2 x Chassis Fan connectors

1 x Floppy disk drive connector

1 x IDE connector

1 x CPU Fan connector

1 x Power Fan connector

1 x Front panel audio connector

1 x IEEE 1394a connector

1 x S/PDIF Out Header

1 x Chassis Intrusion connector

1 x CD audio in

1 x 24-pin ATX Power connector

1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector

Usual bios options




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The bios is actually quite elaborate with more settings and options available than on most motherboards. The Asus EZ Flash utility, built into the bios, actually comes very much in handy when updating the bios. It feels a lot safer than renewing the bios version in Windows.

Overclocking options




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A lot of variables to play with when overclocking and tuning the motherboard for the best possible performance. Although all the necessary equipment is there to maximize your configuration, it seems that the voltages offered to the user are rather conservative, which you'll notice in the table underneath.

Bios: overclocking variables

Test setup

Madshrimps' AMD Test Setup
CPU	AMD Phenom X4 9950 AMD Phenom II X3 720BE AMD Phenom II X4 940BE
Cooling	Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer
Mainboard	Asus M3A78-T DFI Lanparty DK 790GX-M2RS Foxconn A7DA-S
Memory	2 * 1GB Crucial Ballistix
Other	Sapphire 4870X2 Antec 1000W PSU Western Digital 320Gb SATA HDD Windows XP SP3 OCZ Freeze thermal paste

Methodology

The following benchmarks were used:

Lavalys Everest: Memory latency

SuperPi 1M

Wprime 32M

Wprime 1024M

PCMark05

TechArp X264 HD benchmark

Cinebench 10

3DMark2001SE

3DMark06

Crysis

We ran both setups at 2,6 and 3,2GHz to compare. Detailed information here:

Phenom X4 9950BE - 200x13=2600Hz - 2000MHz (NB) - 400MHz 4-4-4-10 - Ganged

Phenom X4 9950BE - 200x16=3200MHz - 2000MHz (NB) - 533MHz 5-7-7-25 - Ganged

SuperPi and Wprime:

SuperPi has been around for ages now, but still reflects the performance of the technology. Being single threaded, you won't increase performance by inserting a quad core processor, but that's why we've chosen Wprime as an alternative. Wprime has been included in the HWBot benchmark suite for quite some time now and many people agree on the quality of the benchmark. Wprime works with multiple threads and is ideal to test multi-core processors.



The Dfi 790GX-M2RS seems to be a tad faster than both Foxconn and Asus M3A78-T.



Dfi beating the two other mainboards, which perform pretty much the same as each other.

Lavalys Everest 4.50

We used the memory benchmark utility to measure the performance of the memory management.



All boards are pretty much on par with each other in all tests, except for the Asus M3A78-T which outperforms the other two boards in the read bandwidth test at overclocked settings.



A clear win for the Dfi; Asus and Foxconn perform exactly the same.

Futuremark benchmarks

These synthetic 3D benchmarks from Futuremark allow you to evaluate the expected performance of a system with different generation games. As each 3DMark uses different feature and quality settings, it allows you to get an idea of how a video card will perform in games. But be aware that since Futuremark takes DirectX guide lines to build their stress tests with all features available, performance can differ from real world games when those games don’t fully support/implement all DX features. So take these results with a grain of salt, and always compare them to our game benchmarks.

3DMark2001SE

The 3rd product in the 3DMark line has been around for ages now and still is used by many people to measure their system's power. Over the years, the benchmark has become more a system benchmark than a pure graphics benchmark.



At standard settings, the Dfi wins by a very small margin, whereas at overclocked settings, the Asus clearly takes the victory.

3DMark06

The last of the DX9 benches in their series is still a graphics card benchmark; however, there's a place for CPU testing as well, as Futuremark developed a CPU test for this benchmark. The more cores, the merrier, so results with four cores will always be better than with two cores.



The 3D performance of this M3A78-T is just excellent!

PCMark05

PCMark05 is the last benchmark of the PCMark series which works in Windows XP and it still offers the simplicity of multiple small benchmarks in one. We've selected the most interesting subtest and put the all in one chart.

Cinebench R10

Cinebench is a benchmark that fully stresses the CPU and measures the raw power of your processing unit by rendering a high-quality image.



At standard frequencies, not much of a difference. At overclocked settings, the Dfi comes a bit behind the two other boards from Foxconn and Asus, which perform equaly.

TechArp X264 HD benchmark

This benchmark has been introduced to me by Piotke, who used it in his QX9650 review. Using multiple cores it gives us quite a decent view on how fast our setup can encode a short DVD-MPEG2 video clip into an X264 clip. We used the latest HD resolution version of the benchmark to run our tests.



Although it's not by much, the Asus M3A78-T seems to be a tad slower than the two other mainboards.

Crysis

Crysis is one of the newer games on the market, one of those games you want to play at highest settings but just can't. Due to the insane amount of details, rendering the game becomes very hard, even for the very recent high-end video cards. We used the Crysis benchmark tool (can be found on Guru3D) and tested both systems in two different test environments: 800x600 noAA and 1680x1050 4xAA. The first setting is to maximize the performance differences, the second to see how much difference there is at real-life gaming resolutions. We used the CPU benchmark demo of Crysis.



At standard frequencies, the DFI outperforms the two others (reason unknown), whereas at overclocked frequencies, the Asus M3A78-T takes the lead.

Overclocking: introduction

Since our last AMD motherboard review, we have a set of data points which can be used in further articles to compare the overclockability of a certain motherboard. Since it's always good to compare the overclockability with other motherboards, we decided to throw in our X3 720BE and check how this motherboard performs in terms of processor, memory controller, memory and htt frequency overclocking.

For the evaluation of the overclockability, we used two different test settings:



Overclocking: Results



The first table is the one of the raw cpu frequency. As we can see, the M3A78-T performs a lot less than the three other motherboards we've tested. Maybe the 4-pin 14V power connector is limiting the overclockability?



I comparison to the two AM3 motherboards, this Asus AM2+ sample does quite well on standard voltages. However, increase the voltage does not help increasing the IMC frequency, which kinda lets us down a lot. We tried the same with our X4 940BE and stumbled on the same ~2.6GHz frequency limitation.



Again, on stock frequencies, it's not the worst board available, but it seems that increasing the voltage does not help when overclocking.



Unlike the disappointing results we've seen so far, this motherboard actually offers very decent memory overclocking results: the M3A78-T manages to beat it's direct AM2+ competitor from DFI by quite a margin on standard voltages (Vdimm = 2.1v) and also with increased voltages, the Asus is clearly better.

Overclocking: HD3300 overclocking

When we reviewed the two other 790GX-based mainboards, we tried overclocking the IGP and found out that the two boards weren't capable of running really high clock frequencies. When looking at the Hwbot overclocking competition we notice that a lot of people are able to overclock the IGP core frequency to 1GHz or at least close to it. Sadly enough, none of our two other tests motherboards were capable of running over 900MHz (I believe even 850MHz was difficult), so record-breaking benchmarking was not an option at that time.

Luckily, this Asus M3A78-T has an excellent overclocking IGP placed on the motherboard with which we were able to go beyond 900MHz easily. With a bit of tweaking, we even managed to get 1000MHz stable for all benchmarks!

The trick in getting a highly overclocking IGP is one that doesn't require a lot of insight in overclocking. Since the graphics core is integrated in the northbridge, it's simply a matter of increase the NB core voltage for extra headroom when overclocking. Although I did not spend time carefully measuring the exact influence of the NB core voltage on the core frequency, I can give you a few comparison pointers:

Stock voltage: 925MHz

1.4v: 955MHz

1.46v: 1000MHz

Next to the voltage, there's also the HT Link frequency which plays a part in the performance of your IGP. In past Phenom I and II overclocking performance articles (here and here), we can see that the HT Link frequency actually does have quite the effect in 3D performance, which is pretty obvious since the HT Link is the data transfer bus between Northbridge and processor (and thus PCIe and processor). Since the IGP is integrated in the NB itself, the performance is co-dependant of the transfer speed between processor and Northbridge, hence why it's interesting the increase the HT link frequency above standard settings. We ran perfectly stable at 2.4GHz and have seen people run even at 2.6GHz!

HWBot overclocking competition

For the first series of tests, we tried to get our system running as fast as possible in an attempt to break the world records in the HD 3300 hardware category. Since we figured out that the voltage of the Northbridge gave us a significant boost in terms of GPU overclockability, we set the voltage to the maximum in the bios, which is 1.6V. After this reasonably high increase, we managed to get the IGP run stable at a core frequency of 1100Mhz, which is the second best overclock seen on Hwbot. As cpu, we tried the 720BE first, but changed to the 940BE quite fast because of:

The extra core, which comes in handy in 3DMark06 and 3DMark Vantage

The better overclockability: this chip has been able to run 4GHz on air cooling

So, this is what we accomplished:



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3DMark01: 28184 -WR-

3DMark03: 8502 -WR-

3DMark05: 6774 -WR-

3DMark06: 3022 -WR-

3DMark Vantage: 674 -WR-

Aquamark3: 73097 -WR-

Real-life gaming performance increasement

When I posted the initial overclocking results in the worklog thread of this review, my editor-in-chief asked me how this overclock would translate in real-life gaming performance. Since the question is in fact a very interesting one as this graphics processor is clearly not capable of running the newest games in high resolutions AND with high quality, I decided to do a quick compare between the overclocked IGP and the stock IGP. The used game for this test is Crysis.

We use a 3x3 test situation:

Stock: 3GHz CPU, 500MHz GPU

GPU OC: 3GHz CPU, 1100MHz GPU

CPU/GPU OC: 3.8GHz, 1100MHz GPU

800x600, no AA/AF, details at high

1024x768, no AA/AF, details at medium

1280x1024, no AA/AF, details at low



The difference between completely stock and overclocking CPU and/or GPU is not extremely big, however it can mean the difference between playable and not playable. Note that we're running Crysis at a resolution of 1280x1024 on an onboard videocard here ... that's pretty impressive, no?

Price rating

So, before the evaluation we only need to take one factor into account and that's the price factor. We went online and compiled a small chart of the prices of the three tested motherboards ánd the average price of a motherboard equipped with the 790GX chipset, AM2+ based that is. For European prices (Euro) we used Geizhals.eu, for US-based readers we used Froogle.com to find the lowest prices. Note that the prices are only indications and can vary from location to location.



As you can see, the M3A78-T isn't really a cheap motherboard with prices a little higher than the average 790GX motherboard.

Evaluation

Before we start, there's one thing I need to stress: this motherboard isn't the newest version of Asus' AM2+ motherboard series, by which I mean that comparing it to brand-new products isn't always the correct way. However, since we want you, the reader, to know whether or not this board is worth buying at this moment, we have to follow this path.

To begin with, at standard frequencies, this motherboard is very much capable of keeping up with the two other similar mainboards we tested. When overclocking, the performance is still good, but you'll find yourself limited by this motherboard rather than the components on that motherboard, which is never a good sign. When I saw the 4-pin 12v power connector, I was afraid it would affect the overclockability of the processor and in our testings that is exactly what we noticed. Also, the HTT and IMC were held back by the motherboard as well, which makes it a non-recommendable board for those who want to get the most out of their system, even on air cooling. It has to be said, though, that the motherboard did in fact overclock the memory very high, probably due to the 2-phase power design for the memory.

The onboard HD 3300 IGP on the Asus is a very good overclocker. Yes, I know, it's impossible to use the values we achieved as guaranteed overclocking results, but in the rankings at Hwbot, I noticed a lot of people using the same M3A78-T motherboard for overclocking.
The price of this motherboard may be a little bit too high, especially when taking the added features and extra's into account.

+ Performance is good
+ HD 3300 overclockability
- Overclockability
- 4-pin 12V power connector
- Conservative voltage option in the bios

Asus M3A78-T


Conclusive thoughts

It wouldn't be correct to say this motherboard is a bad product, because ... well, it's not. On standard settings, this motherboard is able to outperform even more recent motherboards in certain tests and is, in other words, perfectly capable of giving you the performance you'd expect from your completely stock system. The only problem to really recommend this motherboard for our average user might be the price, which is still above average, whereas the added features are not really above average. This is, however, still a reviewing website run by hardware enthusiasts, so motherboards ought to perform pretty good when overclocking to get noticed! This aspect of the M3A78-T let us down a bit: except for the excellent HD 3300 overclockability and the above average memory overclocking, this motherboard doesn't allow us to max out our processor on either raw frequency, IMC frequency or even HTT frequency. Ergo, I'm not going to recommend this board for those who'd like to use it for an overclock-friendly platform: there are other motherboards on the market that will help you get further.

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We like to thank Milan from Asus for allowing us to stress test this AM2+ motherboard. OCZ Technology for providing the OCZ Freeze cooling paste for this and many other reviews.

'Till the next time!