SPCR

Thanks for the review!

Is fan control still a problem for the MSI 785GM series? I thought I read in another thread that the board was now supported by SpeedFan.

/sdc

thanks for this, i have the ddr2 ver so i appreciate the power numbers.

i would like to stick some ghetto heatsinks on the vrms, but they're set in a single row which is a pain- what do you guys think about a length of u-shaped alu extrusion?

porkchop wrote:i would like to stick some ghetto heatsinks on the vrms, but they're set in a single row which is a pain- what do you guys think about a length of u-shaped alu extrusion?

Doable. But if you have a top-down cooler with a 120mm or larger fan and a 120mm exhaust case fan, you probably get better efficiency than we did in our test anyway, even if both fans are running slow. A little forced airflow goes a long way.

Thanks for the review. I've been looking at the non-sideport ATX version of this board, GA-MA785GT-UD3H, so another data point in its family is welcome. Think it's safe to assume that an ATX and mATX version of the same board would have very similar BIOS options and power consumption?

Also, on this thread, BillyBuerger mentions that the GA-MA785GMT-UD2H uses relative voltage settings in the BIOS, so CnQ works with the offset voltage when you're undervolting. Vicotnik counters that his GA-MA78GM-S2H does not do that. I'm wondering if the board in this review does?

flyingsherpa wrote: Also, on this thread, BillyBuerger mentions that the GA-MA785GMT-UD2H uses relative voltage settings in the BIOS, so CnQ works with the offset voltage when you're undervolting. Vicotnik counters that his GA-MA78GM-S2H does not do that. I'm wondering if the board in this review does?

Yes, it does. Even if it didn't, you could always try CrystalCPUID.

In response to this page

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1003-page5.html

My Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H does this to my Athlon 64 X2 5000+ too.
It seems this is not a board specific issue.

lawrence lee wrote:

flyingsherpa wrote: Also, on this thread, BillyBuerger mentions that the GA-MA785GMT-UD2H uses relative voltage settings in the BIOS, so CnQ works with the offset voltage when you're undervolting. Vicotnik counters that his GA-MA78GM-S2H does not do that. I'm wondering if the board in this review does?

Yes, it does. Even if it didn't, you could always try CrystalCPUID.

i can tell you that my ga-ma785gm-us2h does support voltage offset, also note that crystalcpuid does not support k10 cpus.
i've heard of k10stat, but i believe its like a cnq editor- does anyone know of something we can use that adjusts the voltage and frequency in real time? would amd overdrive work?

porkchop wrote:

lawrence lee wrote:

flyingsherpa wrote: Also, on this thread, BillyBuerger mentions that the GA-MA785GMT-UD2H uses relative voltage settings in the BIOS, so CnQ works with the offset voltage when you're undervolting. Vicotnik counters that his GA-MA78GM-S2H does not do that. I'm wondering if the board in this review does?

Yes, it does. Even if it didn't, you could always try CrystalCPUID.

i can tell you that my ga-ma785gm-us2h does support voltage offset, also note that crystalcpuid does not support k10 cpus.
i've heard of k10stat, but i believe its like a cnq editor- does anyone know of something we can use that adjusts the voltage and frequency in real time? would amd overdrive work?

K10Stat changes frequency and voltage of K10 at your will. To be more specific, K10Stat resides at memory to control K10's frequency/voltage in real time. But when it comes to real time, AMD overdrive could merely control frequency/voltage manually.

That said, why Gigabyte must stick to such awkward SATA placements when using 4870/GTX260 is beyond me. As long VGA cards may occupy up to 3 SATA ports, they should improve SATA inconvenience right away.

SpeedFan can fully control both the CPU_FAN header and SYS_FAN headers using either 3-pin or 4-pin PWM fans. To enable fan control, select the "IT8718F" chip in the Advanced tab of the Configuration menu and set all the PWM modes to "Software Controlled." Doing so will unlock the Speed01 and Speed02 controls.

THANK YOU for this tip! Now Speedfan works on my US2H. Fantastic stuff!

I also had the same issue with the automatic voltage control with a Athlon II 240e. It actually resulted in a little bit of instability at first. I ended up with the same solution about a month ago.

Not a big deal, but still something that should have been caught.

Were the power measurements with or without DES engaged?

Looks like I'm a day late to the party, but I'll ask anyhow...

First, you mention;

In addition, the vanity nameplate on top looks nice but may actually impede cooling.

Have you tried taking these kinds of plates off? I've noticed that just about every manufaturer caps off the tops of their heatsinks with badging, but noone seems to test the diffrence they make. I'm guessing it's because prying them off voids the waranty. Marketing department trumps system cooling!

Also, Gigabyte labels the box as "AM3 CPU Support!", but you guys are running an AM2+ CPU in it. Since AM3 socket boards can't run with AM2+ CPUs, this must be an AM2+ board advertising the fact that AM3 CPUs are backwards compatable? That's a little confusing, and maybe a little deceptive. I was thinking this was an actual AM3 socket board untill I saw what CPU was in it...

[EDIT]Actually, after looking at manufacturer specs, both the board and the CPU are AM3. It's just CPU-z that's confusing the issue then?

thanx for a wonderful review!
It's interesting that the H.264 playback ate 20W more than other boards when cnq was enabled, but was quite close to other boards when cnq was disabled. That might suggest the cnq or H.264 decoding HW drivers might have something to do with it (presuming the HW itself was the same)

sdc wrote:Is fan control still a problem for the MSI 785GM series?

here moidib said:

moidib wrote:... I am using the MSI board with speedfan 4.39 and it appears to read and control both fan headers (my CPU fan is PWM)

I hope he was right, I just ordered the msi 785gm-e65
EDIT: speedfan 4.40 works with msi 785gm-e65

does audio work over hdmi?

Audio does work over HDMI, but I'm guessing you're referring to 7.1 LPCM over HDMI, which is not supported by the 785G chipset combo.

Here's hoping AMD works that one out soon.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before (or if anyone actually cares), but here are some elements to explain the remaining letters in the name:

The T indicates DDR3. No T indicates DDR2 and a C (for example on P45 boards) indicates slots for both types of memory.

US stands for Ultra Durable 3 Classic vs UD that stands for Ultra Durable 3. I haven't noticed the difference between the 2 apart from the colour scheme. US seems to imply red and yellow slots (and old-style heatsinks) and UD seems to imply blue and white slots (with more stylish heatsinks). I'd say that the U stands for Ultra Durable 3 and is a modifier on the S (which has been around for a while: S2H, S2R, S2L, etc...)

The H stands for HDMI (or HTPC if you prefer. But it comes with the HDMI port, it seems). For example the 2 new 760G boards are S2 and S2H and the only difference is that the S2H also carries a HDMI port.
The L could be Legacy ports. For example the ES2L mobos carry serial and parallel ports on the back panel. But for some reason that doesn't work for the UD3L(R) P45 mobos (maybe it just means low price? or entry-level?)
R probably raid-enabled southbridge (for Intel consumer chipsets pre-P55)

As for the number, my guess is that it's a indicator of feature set. All mATX are a 2 (only exception that I know of is the P55M-UD4 - consistent with the feature set?) and ATX boards go from 3 to 7. 7 being the highest feature set.

I don't know all this for sure, it's just my personal interpretation (or educated guess, if you prefer).