Ecs gf8200a black edition motherboard review

We already mentioned it a couple of times, yet graphics wise the mainboard comes with an integrated DX10 unit, based on the low-budget GeForce While for decent gaming it's just really slow, the good thing is that this mainboard series takes advantage of Hybrid SLI. This allows the product to boost up the overall 3D performance by cooperating with the onboard integrated graphics. Unfortunately the highest speed supported graphics card is the GT.

Having the integrated GPU and a crunch games, is still very average. In the end for serious gaming you will have to purchase a real graphics card. Need 3D performance for gaming? Activate the graphics card. The rest of the time: host the system's graphics on the lower-power integrated GPU. Switching between the two can take place on the fly, unlike past attempts to do this, all of which required a restart.

A cool feature which we'll take a better look at pretty soon. IDT audio as something new for me. It offers a really good GUI, sounds just fine So yeah, it's performing really well, is reasonably energy aware as once Hybrid software has been finalized we can even shutdown a Hybrid compatible graphics card.

The things I can think of it lacked, where a missing DVI port and 8 phase power design, that would have been nice. But for 70 USD, not bad. It introduces features like Hybrid Power and GeForce Boost, but mainly for the option of shutting down the secondary graphics card to preserve power consumption. One concern does come to mind, The technology is limited to one single-link DVI output and hardcore gamers with 30 inch LCDs or multi-screen configurations would run into an issue there.

Definitely something to keep in mind. But let's leave that for what it is. It's very recommended if you do not plan to do anything crazy tweaking wise. Baseline performance is just really good, performance is and feels speedy and everything ran absolutely stable. I can see myself updating my HTPC with this mainboard for that matter as it is a relatively cheap to purchase product, offers a stack load of features, can take 5 SATA drives and is compatible with Phenom X4 processors.

Next to that the Black Edition mainboards just look great, have the little micro switches and above par features.