Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G Motherboard Review

Conclusions

AMD 780G currently is the best chipset with on-board video for the AMD platform. If you are willing to buy an entry-level PC based on an AMD CPU with integrated graphics, AMD 780G is your best option and Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G is a great option and that is why we are recommending this motherboard.

But don’t expect miracles. With on-board video you can’t play the latest games; you will be only able to play older titles with image quality at their lowest settings.

But since this motherboard provides a PCI Express x16 2.0 slot, you can build an entry-level PC today and then add a real video card to your system in the future.

Or you can buy this motherboard to build an entry-level PC with an entry-level VGA: if you add a video card compatible with Hybrid CrossFire (like Radeon HD 3450) you will get a performance increase between 15% and 20% compared to the same video card installed on a system with a chipset that doesn’t feature Hybrid CrossFire. In order words, you will have a system 15%-20% faster than a system with a motherboard without on-board video and the same add-on video card installed. This is amazing, as you are getting this extra performance for free.

Another highlight of this motherboard is the presence of four memory sockets. Usually low-end motherboards provide only two memory sockets. Four sockets allow you to add more memory in the future keeping your current memory modules. Another great feature found on this motherboard is the presence of six SATA-300 port. This is more than enough even for the exigent user. Usually entry-level motherboards come with far less SATA ports.

We were a little bit frustrated with this motherboard overclocking capability. We could increase the CPU base clock only up to 212 MHz while on ECS GF8200A
Black Series we could increase it to 230 MHz. But since we didn’t play with the several overclocking options this motherboard provides you may achieve a better overclocking than we did.

We think this board should come with at least one coaxial SPDIF output, what would make it a great pick for a media center PC.

We really liked the fact that you can configure the POST display to show the CPU temperature.