ECS AMD690GM-M2

ECS LogoWith the recent (or not so recent) acquisition of ATI by AMD, the company has been struggling to form a single entity under the AMD name. AMD has been looking to consolidate its operations to integrate the two companies, but it has been struggling to put new products on the market under the traditional AMD name.
With the launch of the AMD 690 series chipsets this March, a whole new series of low end consumer motherboards have popped up from all major motherboard manufacturers. ECS was one of the first to the market with the AMD690GM-M2, and extremely cheap, stable, and amazingly expandable motherboard with a rich feature set.

General

 

The 690G chipset, with a built in Radeon graphics core and an AMD SB600 southbridge is the main AMD low end offering, with an extremely rich feature set aimed at businesses and consumers who use their computers for routine daily tasks. These users, who make up a majority of the PC market, look at the price as the main deciding factor when purchasing a computer.

Home users who plan to use Vista's Aero interface will be pleased that it is fully supported by the graphics core, and the motherboard, in general, is specifically geared towards Windows Vista.

 

The AMD 690 series feature set is listed on the AMD site and the southbridge specifications are also available here. One interesting thing to note is the fact that the southbridge still has the legacy ATI brand name.



The Motherboard

 

 

 

The motherboard itself includes a plethora of features, and maximally utilizes the features of the chipset. The first thing that separates it from other motherboards in its class is that it has both a VGA and DVI connector on the back. The DVI port also has HDCP support, making it a great candidate for a Home Theater PC.

 

The form factor of this motherboard is Micro-ATX (244mm * 244mm) which, when put in a proper case, can be placed out of sight and out of mind behind the monitor or below the desk.

 

All the internal connectors are well placed, and there were no issues installing it into a standard ATX case. The internal power connector is 24-pin (20-pin compatible) and the main CPU fan connector is 4-pin. The CPU fan is controlled by the BIOS and AMD's Cool n Quiet technology, making it very quiet and almost unnoticeable with the CPU we tested. Unfortunately, all the other fan headers were run at full speed and did not provide any settings to change the fan speeds or automatically control them. Overall, the connectors provided by the motherboard were of the newer generation type.

The backplate I/O connectors were also "legacy free" for the most part, with the PS/2 and VGA port being the oldest connectors. There is an onboard serial port connector, and an expansion bracket is provided in case you need to utilize it.

 

Looking at the onboard electrical components, we see that all capacitors on the motherboard are electrolytic capacitors. While high end motherboards often use the newer and more reliable ceramic ones, we did not expect to see any of those at this price range (nor do we see a negative side to using these). Chances are, this motherboards' usefulness will run out far faster than the lifetime of these capacitors.

 

 

 


External Connectors

The back IO panel has the following:

  • DVI Out
  • VGA Out
  • 4 USB 2.0 Ports (and headers for 6 more)
  • 10/100/1000 Mbps ethernet port
  • 6 auto sensing audio jacks
  • PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse ports
  • Serial port bracket is optional

Internal Connectors

  • 2 PCI slots
  • 1 PCI Express x16 slot
  • 1 PCI Express x1 slot
  • 4 SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
  • 1 IDE and 1 Floppy connector
  • 2 DDRII slots
  • There are also Video Out, SPDIF, and Serial port headers among others

Plenty of SATA and IDE ports

 

Features

As mentioned before, this motherboard includes a number of unique features. It has built in high definition audio, a good built in graphics solution, and gigabit networking among other features.

 

The audio is powered by a Realtek ALC883 8-Channel HD audio codec, which performs quite well (and is quite standard on mid end motherboards as well). The ALC883 codec is a 7.1 channel solution which can simultaneously convert up to 10 7.1 channels to an analog output. However, you probably won't be running a mixing studio with the built in sound solution. A notable feature with all newer sound codecs is jack auto sensing. Although this may not seem to be of any value, you may be surprised at the number of people who are unable to remember a single colour or read an instruction manual. The motherboard also provides a header for SPDIF out, but no expansion bracket is provided.

 

The network chip is also made by Realtek, and is a Realtek RTL8110SC. It provides 10/100/1000 Mbps speeds and is connected to the PCI Express bus.

 

The graphics core is essentially a stripped down ATI Radeon X1250, which uses any amount of memory you specify (up to 512 MB). It has 4 rendering pipelines and fully supports DirectX 9.0, therefore fully meeting Microsoft Vistas' Aero Glass requirements. The graphics core is decent for daily use, and runs older games without problems (Xpand Rally, most strategy games). However, it is great for office use and whatever the majority of people use their computers for. In the HTPC area, this graphics core is quite good. It provides MPEG2/WMV/H.264 offloading under AMD's AVIVO brand, which essentially guarantees the ability of the system to play back HD content. As a side note, the motherboard provides a TV out header, which can be used for playback on analog televisions.

If you decide to play games with the integrated graphics core, make sure that the case is well ventilated, as the core gets quite hot, and the heatsink becomes very hot to the touch. Should you want to play higher end games, the PCI-Express (PCIe) x16 slot allows you to put in any compatible video card.

 

The rest of the features are provided by the southbridge. These features include 4 SATA 3.0 Gbps (provided), 10 USB 2.0 ports (4 in the back + 4 via internal headers), RAID and various other features.

 

 

 

The other PCIe x1 slot and the PCI slots can be used for other devices, such as a TV Tuner/HD Tuner in a HTPC. A Hauppauge HVR-1800 was tested in the PCIe and had no issues. Interestingly enough, the same TV tuner card was not usable in a abit AB9-Pro motherboard due to a capacitor blocking on PCIe slot and the video card fan blocking the other. You will not run into these issues with this board however, as the PCIe x1 slot is above the PCIe x16 slot...a very important feature should you have any decent cooling solution for your video card.

 

The maximum installable memory is whatever can fit into the 2 DDRII slots. The two slots are kind of disappointing, as it essentially limits a budget system to 2GB of RAM (1GB modules being the cheapest, at around $20 a pop). It is clear that the board was designed for 4 slots, but they solder traces remain, and nothing else.

 

 

Notice the solder traces for extra DIMM modules

The CPU socket and memory area is well laid out. The PCIe x16 cards will not block memory installation, and the CPU area will not block most 3rd party CPU coolers from being installed.

For our tests, we used an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4000+ (Brisbane core). There were no issues with installation, and there was not even a need to go into the BIOS to configure anything on first boot.

 


A full list of the specifications is available from the ECS website.


Performance

 

Disk Performance

The following tests were performed with an 80 GB Western Digital WD800JD-08MSA1 drive:

Transfer rate

Compared to the same drive on an Intel 865/ICH5 (SATA 1.5Gbps)

Comparing the two systems, we see a better burst rate for thing motherboard, but it is a bit slower in all other transfer tests.


CPU and Memory Performance

Since we did not overclock this system, performance was within the same range as another other comparable system using the same CPU. The RAM used was DDRII-667 and would only run at 300 MHz. The RAM was rated 333 MHz, but no matter which speed was set in the BIOS, it would revert to 300 MHz. The RAM ran normally at 333 MHz on another test system. Perhaps this will be fixed with a BIOS update.

 

DRAM only running at 300 compared to 333

CPU Information

Name: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4000+
Speed: 2100 MHz
Cores: 2
L1 Cache: 2 x 128 KB
L2 Cache: 2 x 512 KB
Bus Speed: 200 MHz
HT Link Speed: 1000 MHz


Memory Information

2x1GB Kingston ValueRAM DDRII-667

 

 

Memory Tests


Although the CPU performance in the following tests should not be significantly impacted by the motherboard, they are done to make sure there is not a significant problem with the CPU setup and initialization.


CPU Tests


Video Tests (800x600)

Not a bad score for an integrated graphics solution. It certainly blows any Intel offering out of the water.


Value

 

This motherboard ranges from $45 to $60 CAD at places like NCIX.com and around $65 USD on NewEgg.com.

For this price you get a modern chipset, video, sound, and networking solution which should take anything you throw at it as a home office desktop or HTPC.

Overclocking is not a feature this board was designed for, and even though it allows some basic settings to be changed, we didn't bother trying. For the price, it should not be expected to either.

Overall, a very strong contender in the low end segment, which should fulfill the needs of the majority of PC users using Windows Vista or XP.


Conclusion

 

To sum up, the ECS AMD690GM-M2 is a very good "bang for the buck" motherboard, and we highly recommend it for a low end AMD solution.


Pros:


Cons:


Score

Value: 9/10

Performance: 7.5/10

Overall: 8.5/10

Award

Considering the price and performance, this motherboard is the best bang for the buck in this class. We award this motherboard the Top Value award, which is awarded to products that have the best bang for the buck in their class.

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