ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI AMD 780G Motherboard
Our Test Sustems and 3DMark06
The ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI press kit that AMD shipped was identical to what we received for our 780G preview, right down to the Corsair memory modules populating two of the board’s slots. Once again, we used the Athlon X2 4850e 45W CPU and a passively cooled Radeon HD 3450 card in order to test Hybrid Graphics.
Interestingly, the platform didn’t want to output a picture with our monitor plugged into the onboard VGA connector while a discrete card was installed. Removing the add-in board or moving the monitor to the add-in board’s VGA output fixed the problem. Keep that in mind if you pair the ASUS board to a discrete graphics card.
Once again, we tested using AMD’s RC 8.47 Vista x32 driver instead of the WHQL-approved 8.452 package, if only to normalize our results. We also used the same updated direcpll.dll file in order to get Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage benchmark suite running properly.
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AMD System AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz processor ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI motherboard 2GB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 DDR2 memory Integrated Radeon HD 3200 graphics 1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA hard drive Windows Vista x32
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Intel System Intel Pentium E2200 2.2 GHz processor ASUS P5E-VM HDMI motherboard 2GB Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4 DDR2 memory Integrated Intel GMA X3500 graphics 1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA hard drive Windows Vista x32 |
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Argue the validity of synthetic benchmarks until you’re blue in the face—no matter which side of the fence you’re on, 3DMark06 enables granular analysis of individual features and capabilities using the latest graphics architectures. The overall score takes all of the individual tests into account for a holistic view of what a solution can do under extreme duress.
Given the same core logic with an integrated graphics processor running at the same 500 MHz clock speed (and no way to tweak it northward), we’d expect to see the ASUS and Gigabyte boards pacing each other. And that’s exactly what we get. Our results with the GA-MA78GM-S2H and Radeon HD 3450 show what you get when you add a $50 discrete board to the mix, while ASUS’ P5E-VM HDMI shows what Intel’s G35 chipset can do. Clearly, when it comes to 3D performance, AMD has the upper hand.
The 3DMark06 processor test is closely matched as well. ASUS’ 780G offering does edge out Gigabyte’s by two percentage points here, though both integrated configurations trail the Hybrid Graphics setup.
