 Great motherboard for the price! |
| Review Date: September 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Shreddin' Mike, San Francisco, CA United States |
I bought this, as well as a Phenom II CPU, to replace the mobo of an Athlon 3200+ based HP a720n after having purchased its predecessor, the GA-MA78GM-US2H, and being absolutely thrilled at the ease with which I was able to put together a fast, stable, and fully functional system. It was a dream, after having built quite a few systems over the years, it was by far the most feature-rich and stable...not to mention highest performance. That was my first introduction to Gigabyte; I'd been buying Asus, ECS, and others before.
Well this was a slightly different experience, only because I was starting with a complete consumer product built by HP. I am sick to death of buying whole new computers when so many bits and pieces (the case, CD/DVD-ROM drives, etc.) are reusable generation to generation, and I gotta say HP built this one extremely well! But fortunately standards are standards and HP diligently follows them, so after locating the board layout for the HP motherboard, all the connectors fit where they were supposed to and all the functionality expected is there, including firewire, front USB, audio, and multi-card slots, etc. I had to replace the stock 250w power supply and DRAM, of course, and a slight downside of this board is that it only has a single IDE slot and the HP has 3 IDE devices: 2 CD drives and a hard disk. Well, copy the hard disk partition to a fast new 1TB partition and that solves that problem (the whole issue of reauthorizing the OS - windoze XP - is another tale of horror; hint: install the network driver in safe mode, then reauthorize).
The system again seems extremely stable, but then I'm not overclocking it since it's intended more for doing audio manipulation - and possibly video - than gaming.
The documentation from Gigabyte is quite good - better than most but it's not perfect, and you do need to know what you're doing to swap out motherboards. The capabilities of the BIOS appear to be great in general, and especially for those with the neurotic need to see just how far they can push the electronics by overclocking (which AMD seems to encourage...how odd for a manufacturer to encourage customers to use their product outside its specifications...we ended warranty support for customers that did that when I worked at their chief competitor).
One more thing - make sure you download the updated drivers! I had a problem with random clicks/pops in the audio output; updating with the latest Reaktek drivers from the Gigabyte website solved that problem.
Anybody wanna buy a functional HP a720n motherboard with processor and RAM? ;o) |
AMD Athlon X3 425 Processor - Makes a lively robust Linux system
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| Review Date: November 2, 2009 |
| Reviewer: MT, Vegas |
I have installed a 64-bit version of Mepis 8.0.10 KDE Linux with a AMD Athlon X3 425 Processor mounted in this 785 motherboard. I tried to unlock a AMD 140 Sargas 2.7GHz, but unlucky draw I got and the ACC function would not unlock that CPU... Ordered a Athlon X3 425 Processor and the X3 processor in this motherboard feels quicker than my Phenom 9500 Agena 2.2 Quad running in the A770M-A AM2+ motherboard. I have spent most of 3 days day using it, and my initial impressions it is equal to the quad, and better at the same time...
The 64-bit version of mepis 8.0.10 worked out of the box in this motherboard, 20 minutes and i had completed the install, updates, and added a HP printer. Everthing worked well, could be improved upon going to a Live SB PCI card I believe... It has only one eSata connector for a external hard drive and that is a breath of fresh air. I was limited to using a USB 2.0 connection previously...
I can not believe the USB 3.0 devices have not been available early in 2009, and this motherboard does not have several USB 3.0 connectors that is going to be required for the all the new devices... But tis easy to add a Asus USB 3.0, Sata 6.0 via a PCIe card in a Desktop system. I haven't a clue how the laptop/netbook/notebook holiday purchasers/gift givers/recipients are going to upgrade to the new faster USB 3.0 devices...
Enough off topic, this motherboard does not take the new current speedier memory, but 4/8 gigs of PC-6400 is a good start (PC-8500 to arrive after then new year)... I do not think a Linux operating system users can go wrong with this 785 motherboard... The newer 2.6.31 kernels are quick, and the 2.6.32 kernel promise to be faster after going final with a bit more testing... I am going to run a 2.6.27-1 kernel for stability, comes in the standard 64-bit Mepis 8.0.10 operating system, and leave the updated 31, and 32RC kernels for the experimenters since I do not have a USB 3.0 card or device currently. Soon as i can buy a USB 3.0 web or security camera I will upgrade to the newer kernel...
JR |
Great motherboard for HTPC
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| Review Date: October 17, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Chin Hong Li, Atlantic City, New Jersey United States |
i just install with window 7 64 bit, everything was smooth. Only bump i hit was when i update the network driver through Microsoft, it didn't work. I have to search online for Vista 64 bit driver for the Realtek 8111C.
I tried all the video output. VGA, DVI and HDMI all work great on my TV and monitor.
I am going to get 2 more!!!!
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Great Buy!
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| Review Date: December 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: James Bruton, |
| After finishing my second build using this motherboard, I have to say it is a great buy for most computer needs. On both systems I used WD 7200 Hard Drives. One System I used Consair Ram and OCR on the other and both works well. |
Works great
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| Review Date: February 2, 2010 |
| Reviewer: David L. Warnock, Milledgeville, GA USA |
| I have two both are great. Instructions make sense and the parts included are of decent quality. |
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