ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard review
Conclusion
This ECS A890GXM-A motherboard represents a very good value that has become synonymous with the ECS brand. Continuing on in the tradition of impressive performance and with feature rich products, this motherboard is perfect for the casual gamer. Primarily this motherboard will appeal to anyone looking for an HTPC setup or for a work PC that can also do some gaming. If you add in a discrete GPU and perhaps overclock your CPU a bit, you can seriously game with any high-end video card and even use two AMD video cards in CrossFire. There is still very little performance penalty for using even two HD 5870s in a PCIe 8x+8x CrossFire configuration as compared to using the full 16x PCIe bandwidth.
The ECS A890GXM-A AM3 Black Series motherboard is a solid product with good overclocking features and a better performer and a very decent upgrade for us over our Gigabyte 790X motherboard. We are pleased to use this new ECS motherboard as our new reference board for benching our AMD CPUs. Our “pros” are major and our “cons” are quite minor nitpicks for an overall excellently performing motherboard from ECS Black Series. In fact, not having IDE might be a plus for some enthusiasts; for others, that large storage drive is now useless. At any rate, the ECS A890GXM-A is highly recommended and now used by us!
Pros –
- Black PCB is aesthetically pleasing and very functional
- Buttons for start, reset and clear CMOS.
- Good overclocking features in the BIOS and it is stable
- Great connectivity for multi-media
Cons –
- CrossFire is limited to 8x+8x PCIe
- No IDE, legacy of any kind; no firewire; no PS2 mouse.
ECS A890GXM-A motherboard deserves the ABT Editor’s Choice award.
The ECS A890GXM-A motherboard is definitely now my choice for comparing AMD AM3 CPUs and as a standard testbed. The Gigabyte 790x motherboard will now be retired as it has served well but it is time to move to a DDR3 platform.
- Mark Poppin
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I have been building and repairing systems for a while. Yet, I seem to run into some questions when I am building them for myself. I am building one with ECS A890GXM MB.
You don’t really cover how the BIOS settings are different from other MBs. I am stuck on the Memory Configuration. There is no where to change the Memory Voltage or Multiplier. I am using the OCZ3OB1600LV4GK, DDR3 1600 RAM. This MB shows the default Memory clk as 533 Mhz. And, it set the CAS to 7-7-7-12. I can correct the CAS. But, is the 533 Mhz correct?
Is there a hidden screen for setting the RAM Voltage?
Thanks
You have really bad timing. I just (now) tore my Phenom II system completely down as I am doing a brand new build for a brand new case review that is due June 1. Yes, there are RAM voltage settings and I will be glad to check this out for you further, if you like.
In the meantime, check out the images that are posted in this article’s image gallery – Look at the DIMM voltage adjustments:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?attachment_id=17652
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?attachment_id=17653
If you have any other questions, please feel free to join our forum and our helpful staff and members are always glad to help.
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