3 - ECS EliteGroup

ECS

Recently added to our reviewers "suite" of manufacturers is ECS. You all know ECS or either heard about them. They are huge in the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) market. OEM refers to companies that make products for others to repackage and sell. Resellers buy OEM products in bulk, minus the costly retail packaging that comes with individually sold units. The product itself is essentially the same as its more expensive, retail-packaged sibling. OEM products are used in many industries, but are perhaps most prevalent in electronics. Slowly, but steadily ECS is surfacing in the retail market as well.

Obviously we recently tested this card in our 6-way GeForce 9600 GT shootout, and it came out as a winner. Great clocks, fast, affordable and yet passively cooled. What an outstanding fine product it is.

Obviously they'll also produce the reference based versions.

And boy .. does plexi-glass suck when you try to make decent photo's ! Recently tested here at Guru3D.com, the S1 cooled 8800 GT. Such a fine card.

Moving on to what ECS is big in, manufacturing mainboards. The board you see right now is the new AMD based 780G Hybrid board. ECS made a new "black edition" concept. Targeted slightly more to the enthusiast market with nice black PCB, design and a lot of features. This apparently is a nice overclockable board as well and has the hybrid graphics core built in, and even comes with HDMI output.

Price ...  roughly 90 EUR. You can't beat that. We already have to board, and in the upcoming weeks expect a review. I just need to snag a Phenom processor back from AMD.