ECS GF8200A black edition mainboard review - 4 - Photo's

In the spotlight, Socket AM2+ the product has support for the latest Phenom quad core processors up to HT 5200 MT/s with Hyper Transport 3.0 technology links and integrated DDR2 1066 memory controller on the latest AM2+ platform, though 1066 MHz memory speed is supported depends on the CPU being used (Phenom required).

Now recently a discussion started that these mainboards can not optimally use the high-end specced Phenom processors due to a 4-phase power design. You can recognize such mainboards really quickly ..

This is not an exact science what I am about to tell you, but see the P4 (white ATX-V12) power connector ? Often the 4-pin design says it all .. 4-phase, or look at the number of coils on the mainboard. Anyway, with a quad-core processor you really want that spot that good ol' 8-pin version.

Now we did all tests on a Phenom X4 9850 processor and trust me when I say, it runs just fine. We however do feel that overclocking is not an option as long until we see that 4-pin connector change into the 8-pin version.

The four DIMM DDR2 slots, this mainboard will allow up-to 4x 8GB memory, something typically only seen on server platforms.. Also we spot the mainboard power connector, IDE connector.

Did you guys already notice it? Correct, the traditional floppy connector is gone, well good riddance. Going down a little we see 5 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s ports. They can actually be setup in RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 configuration but it's a fake-raid (partly software) solution, not very recommended.

Just below the SATA ports you can see a nice subtlety ... two micro switches to reset and power on/off the PC. I love that stuff. To the upper left of the SATA ports we spot the passively cooled, the MCP78S chipset. I do recommend a decent ventilated chassis though as the cooler does get quite hot.

One 1x PCIe slot, 3x PCI slots and two 1x PCI slots. Nothing to be ashamed about here either. Looks good.