ASRock M3A780GXH/128M Motherboard

The ASRock M3A780GXH/128M Mainboard

AMD's 7 series chipsets and Phenom II processors have worked to bring the company 180 degrees around with a spec of light at the end of the tunnel. ASRock, known for their niche filling boards, has released a series of boards based on AMD's AM2+ socket, but the M3A780GXH/128M we have here today is one of their first AM3 motherboards. Coupling AMD's 780G chipset with integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics and the SB710 southbridge, this $89.99 motherboard strives to cover lots of ground with its IGP configuration and three PCIe slots supporting CrossFireX.

As mentioned above, ASRock has a number of AM2+ motherboards and after looking over the M3A780GXH/128M specifications and layout it appears ASRock has culled all the positive attributes from their previous motherboards and combined them into a single platform. For a budget board expansion opportunities abound, and while it is obvious a few things were cut in sake of price point, the board is still a solid offering. Below is a screen grab of their website showcasing the integrated features of the board; for more information feel free to visit their product page.
Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom II X4 / X3 (except 920 / 940) and Athlon II X4 / X3 / X2 processors

ASRock DuraCap (2.5 x longer life time), 100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors
Supports CPU up to 140W

AMD 780G + SB710 Chipsets

Supports AMD OverDrive with ACC feature (Advanced Clock Calibration)

FSB 2600 MHz (5.2 GT/s)

Supports Hyper-Transport 3.0 (HT 3.0) Technology

Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1600(OC)/1333/1066/800 (4 x DIMM slots) non-ECC, un-buffered memory, Max. capacity up to 16GB
Integrated AMD Radeon HD 3200 graphics, DX10 class iGPU, Pixel Shader 4.0, Max. shared memory 512MB
Built-in 128MB DDR3 1333(OC)/1200MHz SidePort Memory
Supports ATI CrossFire, Hybrid CrossFireX and 3-Way CrossFireX
3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (green @ x16 mode, blue @ x8 mode, orange @ x4 mode)
6 x SATAII 3.0 GB/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and JBOD), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
1 x eSATAII 3.0 GB/s connector
Supports 2 x IEEE1394 ports (one port on back panel, one header on board)
PCIE Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
Three VGA Output options: D-Sub, DVI-D and HDMI
Supports HDCP function
Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback
Supports ASRock Instant Boot
Supports Smart BIOS, ASRock OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver
7.1 CH Windows Vista Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888Audio Codec)
Windows Vista Premium 2008 Logo Ready
I/O Panel: 1 x VGA/D-Sub Port, 1 x VGA/DVI-D Port, 1 x HDMI Port, 1 x IEEE 1394 Port, 1 x eSATAII Port,1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED, 6 x USB 2.0 Ports