ECS A770M-A Socket AM2+ Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

After its all said and done, the ECS A770M-A motherboard is a great value board. The ECS A770M-A motherboard comes with 3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x16 and 2 PCI-E x1 slots, 8ch HD audio codec, GbE and a Jmicron controller supporting the eSATA at the back panel. An impressive list of features when you consider the seventy dollar price point. Even better when you consider this board brings HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI-E 2.0, (effectively doubling graphics bandwidth over earlier Gen 1.0) to the table. However, if you want to run Crossfire, with only one PCI-E x16 slot present, you need to look elsewhere.

Installation was straight forward and easy on the ECS A770M-A motherboard. The different color coding really made the different ports stand out on the board. For a first time system builder, this can really aid in system construction. The layout of the board is one of the best ones I have worked with. Even with a full complement of hardware installed, plenty of component access space was allotted for any maintenance issues that might crop up.

The BIOS options are somewhat sparse, and this limited my overclocking experience with the ECS A770M-A motherboard. An overclocking section wasn’t included in this article as I couldn’t get the board stable even with a mild overclock. Performance also somewhat lagged across the board, but that was compared to a board thats had more than its fair share of time to mature. A couple BIOS revisions and both the overclocking and stock performance will most likely increase.

In conclusion, if youre looking for a nice entry level board, with some future proofing built in, the ECS A770M-A is it. At the low price point ECS is offering this board at, you cant really ask for more than what they provided. A solid value board now, with some decent checkmarks on the specification sheet, that will insure future compatibility with new hardware down the road.

Legit Bottom Line: The ECS A770M-A motherboard is a great value board that provides you with new chipset features at a very low price point.