3 - Photo's
The photo shoot
Right then, the image gallery. Bundled with the mainboard are the usual suspects, IDE cable, two SATA cables, drivers manual. This is a budget priced mainboard, so don't expect a lot of extra's. Overall this is fine though. Now tell me, doesn't that look nicely designed ?
The GF8200A is an ECS Black Series platform based on the NVIDIA MCP78S chipset. Considering the fact that it is a budget mainboard you have to agree with me. That's a snazzy looking design. Let's take a closer look and rear panel connecivity.
You noticed it correctly, that's a HDMI connector right there. And it supports existing high-definition video formats(720p, 1080i, and even 1080p). The embedded GPU is based on GeForce 8200 graphics and thus has the VP1 video decoder. There is a D-SUB, HDMI port. There are 6 USB ports, 1 HDMI and GbE Port. Next to it is the 7.1 audio ports. I am definitely missing a digital audio output here. Not cool for the HTPC oriented users though.