ECS A785GM-M Motherboard Review
Fallout 3
Contents
Fallout 3 is based on the same engine used by The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and it is a DirectX 9.0c (Shader 3.0) game. We configured the game with “low” image quality settings at 1024×768. To measure performance, we used the FRAPS utility running an outdoor scene at God mode, running through enemy fire, triggering post processing effects, and ending with a big explosion in front of Dupont Circle. The results below are in frames per second (FPS).
Here Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G (AMD 780G) was 38.37% faster, Biostar TA785GE 128M (AMD 785G with 128 MB) was 47.53% faster and ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX with 128 MB) was 71.52% faster than ECS A785GM-M.
A 64-bit Radeon HD 3450 was 58.82% faster than the on-board video from the reviewed motherboard. When this video card was configured to run under CrossFire mode with the on-board video, performance increased 156.75% compared to the on-board video alone and 61.66% compared to the Radeon HD 3450 alone.
However on a newer game like Fallout 3 the frame rates achieved by all motherboards were way below 30 FPS, meaning that playing a new game using on-board video is close to impossible.