GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: * heavy-duty construction, like the old AT boards that used to last for 10 years * surprisingly heavy -- nothing cheap here * high-quality JP caps * supports six SATA * supports three fans in addition to CPU * installation was a breeze (mostly...see the one con) * dvi output is solid @ 1920x1200, no color-casts, no dead pixels, no glitches * dual bios which i hope i'll never have to use... but nice to know it's there

Cons: * CPU fan header lies directly beneath my CPU fan. translation: plug it in before you screw down the board, or getting your fingers in there may be a bear

Overall Review: * amazingly, i swapped out my old board (MSI K9A2GM-F1H) for this one due to a short, crack, bad cap...something causing random reboots. just for grins, i booted up 7 to see if i might not have to spend the next eight hours reinstalling. * to my utter surprise, booted straight in, no BSOD, just installed drivers for a couple minutes , asked to reboot, and here i am. NO reinstall, NO formatting the drive, NO reinstalling programs. NO crashes. i am thoroughly stunned and highly impressed. * i would quickly recommend this board to a friend. * arrived a day early. thank you newegg

Pros: The BIOS. Nice BIOS, lot's of control over stuff. Overclocking options galore for your Black Edition, or even for your, er, standard edition. TechReport got an impressively high HT overclock on this board. Solid caps so it can 'love you long time' Sweet integrated GPU. Crossfire on a $90 mobo - score! Oh, wait, I don't care about Crossfire.... 140 watt support so you can increase your carbon footprint at will. Price! This is a fantastic motherboard for the price. AMD Overdrive! 16GB RAM support. SB710 is just an SB750 without RAID 5.

Cons: Box say '2 Ounces of Copper!!!one!' about a dozen times. Overvolts the CPU - at default setting of 1.35, the real voltage reading was 1.48! That is a fair bit out of spec and is pretty unfortunate. Hopefully it is just mine, and thankfully you have access to the voltages in the BIOS so you can correct for it. AMD's AHCI drivers are an embarassment - come on AMD, this has only been a problem for 3 years now. Don't install the AHCI drivers, Vista's or Windows 7's default AHCI driver will work better, if you can believe that sad fact. Um, what else... well you cannot put a Lynnfield i5-750 in it, which is unfortunate.

Overall Review: Have it paired with an X4-955, which is running at stock - yes, perhaps that is lame, but I just don't need anything faster than that! Check out TechReport's review of this thing - their review convinced me to go with this board. I would have given less eggs for the voltage issue but since the BIOS let me correct it 5 eggs seems justified.

Pros: This board is a really good bargain for the average to above average consumer. The gpu is a step up from the 780g and runs cooler and a bit smoother. It is not a high end graphics machine but you have a slot ready for hybrid graphics or just turn off the onboard unit and install a high end card. It is well laid out except if you use a long graphics card it could cover several SATA ports. It was an easy install and so far has worked flawlessly 24/7 for the first week.

Cons: As mentioned a long graphics card could cause several SATA ports to be covered. The really big problem is that I expected higher quality sound than what is supported. Every advance article I read confirmed an upgraded sound system but what you get is the same old ho hum.

Overall Review: Regarding sound, I suggest griping to Gigabyte and hopefully they will stop overstating their products. It is a good board at a moderate cost but it should have been better. An upgrade from the 780g is not advised but it is a good board if you want on board graphics with upgrade potential.

Pros: Supports newest AM3 processors and fast DDR2 memory. All solid caps for longer life. 2oz copper for better heat dispersion. Good overclocker with tons of settings. Good onboard video for light gaming and general purpose. Dual bios onboard with standalone backup options.

Cons: Some layout issues including front panel audio location, USB headers, and floppy drive connector. Board came out of the box bent slightly as if from having a to tight cpu cooler installed. Attached it down to test bench, installed Phenom II 965 BE c3 revision and factory cooler and fired it up without problems. Sata connector placement is a non issue as this is not a serious crossfire board. Crossfire people will look to other boards with more PCI-E lanes available so no complaints there. Still 5 eggs.

Overall Review: Front panel audio connector and USB headers required careful cable routing. Who uses floppy drives for anything but bios updating anymore? This board flashes bios fine with USB thumb drive. Odd "bump" in board is rare but caused no problems. Very happy with most aspects of this board and just happy with the other aspects. I would be happy to sell this board to my customers.

Pros: I've purchased 4 Gigabyte boards in the last year or two and they have all been great, no problems what so ever. I haven't had to mess with bios, RAM settings, layout problems, nothing!

Cons: None.

Overall Review: I think I'll keep buying Gigabyte until I get a bad one.

Pros: Works great with my Phenom II 550. Unlocked to two dormant cores easily.

Cons: Had to RMA the first one.

Pros: I never buy any other motherboards aside from gigabyte. You would be surprised how well this motherboard performs. This motherboard has all the same features as the more expensive gigabyte motherboards But, this one is exceptionally great on all ends , including great audio, video is more then great, unless you are gaming fanatic you can just add a graphic card, and your all set to go, 1 thing I found out that motherboards that have the AMD chipset perform better with ATI cards, although I myself like Nvidia cards better, I have built more then 400 builds since 1996, I can testify that after many years and trying different brands of motherboards, Gigabyte is a number 1 winner

Cons: NONE

Overall Review: It took different manufacturers with the combination of the AMD chipset to perfect it, But the new line of gigabyte 700 series to come up with a perfect solution to all needs. This motherboard will do the trick for you no matter how demanding you are, You have the ability upgrade this system in any way you wish to, weather it’s a graphic card or sound card, but this motherboard will do the trick even for the most demanding computer enthusiasts ,right now I’m running the system just the way it came out of the box, WORKS PERFECT, don’t look anywhere else, if your using AM3 CPU update the bios to F3, and you all set to go.I in general don’t overclock. But if you like OC you have all you need to do so, what can I say PERFECT MOBO. Don’t look anywhere else. Gigabyte is the most stable well made full featured boards around,

Pros: Supports all modern AMD sockets. New 785 chipset, 55nm 4200 GPU, very overclockable. 2 PCIe slots, crossfire + hybrid crossfire Atx

Cons: none, i'll just wait to see how long it lasts so far, rock solid

Overall Review: after my ASRock arrived DOA, i dished out an extra $15 for this one, and haven't regretted that decision i've overclocked the GPU from the stock 500mhz to 700mhz most games are playable at 800*600 with med details