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- Date:
- Monday , November 02, 2009
- Author:
- Morry Teitelman
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Share:
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO Motherboard Review
The ASUS’ latest offering for the AMD crowd does not have all the bells and whistles of the flagship offerings. The M4A785GTD-V EVO does however offer a mix of good performance and HTPC friendly integrated add-ons.
Introduction
ASUS is among the elite in the computer component manufacturing arena. This reputation comes from years of delivering high quality and high performance products, appealing to both the enthusiast and non-enthusiast alike. ASUS continues to push the technological envelope with each new board release, using hardware and software innovations to attain new performance ceilings while maintaining the pinnacle of stability. While it doesn’t appear to exemplify these ideals at first glance, ASUS’s latest AMD offering packs a lot of innovation under the hood.
The ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard supports the AM3 line of AMD processors through the use of the AMD 785G Northbridge chipset. This chipset supports the following technologies innately: AMD socket AM3 type processors, DDR3 memory operating in Dual Channel mode up to 1333MHz officially, integrated graphics support via the ATI Radeon HD 4200 GPU, and single card PCI-E x16 based graphics support. ASUS integrated the following devices in to the M4A785TD-V EVO’s design: 5 SATA II ports (RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capable), 1 e-SATA port, and 1 ATA-133 IDE port on the AMD SB710 controller; 12 USB 2.0 capable ports (6 in rear panel, and 3 onboard headers supporting 2 ports each); 2 IEEE 1394 capable ports (1 in rear panel, and 1 onboard header supporting 1 port each); 1 Realtek GigE Ethernet port in the rear panel; Realtek 8-channel HD audio codec with integrated S/PDIF optical output port; ATI Radeon HD 4200 GPU with VGA, DVI, and HDMI output ports; and a PS/2 keyboard port in the rear panel.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Mainboard Specification List:
Packaging
ASUS used a simple green background based diamond pattern design on the M4A785TD-V EVO’s box, with the various supported technologies clearly displayed across the box front. The following accessories were included in with the board: a ribbon IDE cable; SATA drive cables; the rear panel shield; Q-Connector plug-in header connection modules; and the normal complement of manuals and drivers discs. The Q-Connector modules allow for an easy interface for connecting in to the motherboard headers. You simply plug in your front panel jumpers in to the white connector and the USB 2.0 jumpers in to the blue connector block, and then plug both blocks in to the motherboard headers. It makes for a much easier install for those typically hard to reach header areas.
Board Layout
The M4A785TD-V EVO’s layout is straightforward, with no real tight areas on the board. While the design and layout was kept simple, it is apparent that the board was meant to able to take a beating with all the heavy duty power circuitry lining the CPU socket and memory areas. The serial number does not appear to be clearly marked on the board, but the board’s revision is silk screened to the surface in between the primary PCI-Express x16 and PCI slots. The board revision used in test was a 1.01G model. In a surprising move, ASUS chose to polymer solid-electrolyte capacitors across the entire board.
The board’s CPU socket area is clear of obstructions in the immediate vicinity of the socket, allowing for the use of even the larger CPU cooling solutions. The CPU cooler is held in place via the standard AMD AM3 based cage hold-down mechanism. The board’s 785G chipset is located directly to the left of the CPU socket, covered by a large metal heat sink, with an additional sink covering the CPU power circuitry just above the socket as well. The CHA_FAN header is to the upper left of the socket, with the 4-pin ATX12V power connector CPU overvolt jumper to its upper right. The CPU overvolt jumper enables additional voltage settings above the 1.7V ceiling in the BIOS when enabled.
The 4 onboard DDR3 memory slots are located below the CPU socket area. Dual Channel memory mode is activated with DIMMs placed in like colored slots. Directly below the DIMM slots are the 24-pin ATX power connector and the CPU_FAN header.
The AMD SB710 Southbridge chipset is located below PCI slot 1, and is cooled by a low profile standalone metal heat sink. The 5 onboard SATA 2 ports are to the chipset’s lower right, while its ATA-133 IDE slot is to the chipset’s left. The CMOS battery, front panel header, CMOS reset jumper, and SB_PWR LED are located in the board’s lower left corner. The SB_PWR LED illuminates with an active power source connected to the board. The onboard USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 headers are located above the front panel header, along the board’s left edge.
The M4A785TD-V EVO board comes with 2 PCI-Express x16 slots, 1 PCI Express x1 slot, and 3 PCI slots. The parallel port header, S/PDIF output header, and front panel audio header are located along the outer edge of PCI slot 3, with the onboard serial port header located just above PCI slot 2.
ASUS chose to integrate the following ports in to the M4A785TD-V EVO’s rear panel: 1 PS/2 keyboard port; 6 USB 2.0 ports; 1 Realtek GigE Ethernet port; 1 e-SATA port; VGA, DVI, and HDMI video output ports; and 6 analogue and S/PDIF optical audio output ports.
TurboV
Included on the installation DVD is ASUS’ overclocking applet TurboV, with version 1.00.41 included with the board. From the main screen, you have the ability to manually control board voltage settings and the CPU FSB speed setting. The CPU Ratio tab allows for individual adjustment of each core multiplier setting, with the current multiplier setting and core speed listed below each core graphic representation.
AMD OverDrive
ASUS also includes the AMD OverDrive utility, designed specifically for use with the AMD AM3 chipset. Note that the app version show is 3.0.1. The application itself is split in to four specific areas - System Information, Status Monitor, Performance Control, and Preference. The System Information tab shows detailed information concerning speeds and settings of all onboard components, including memory and CPU settings, with the diagram tab showing a graphical representation of the current system components.
The Status Monitor tab is broken in to several screens displaying CPU related temperatures, voltages and bus speeds both numerically and graphically, as well board bus speeds.
The Preference tab contains application related settings, including a control for enabling Basic or Advanced mode within the Performance Control tab. There are capabilities for loading and saving customized profiles as well.
With the Performance Control mode set to Novice from within the Preference tab, the Novice Mode screen shows. Novice Mode allows for selection of pre-configured overclocking levels, with the maximum overclock achieved with the slider moved to the High Performance setting. Note that in this mode, the system sets all voltages and bus speeds for you.
When the Performance Control mode option within the Preference tab set to Advanced, the Clock/Voltage and Memory screens become user accessible. All system bus speeds, voltages, and multipliers (including the CPU and HyperTransport ratios) can be set via the Clock/Voltage screen. The Memory screen allows for direct user configuration of all memory related timing and speed settings. The Fan Control screen shows current fan activity, and allows for selection of automatic or manual control of the attached fans.
The AMD Smart Profile tab allows for setup of customized performance profile settings which can be configured to enable based on application startup detection, and customized on a per core setting basis..
The Benchmark screen contains controls for an AMD provided benchmarking utility, useful in gauging system performance. The Stability Test screen contains a set of tests for gauging system stability, with the ability to select individual tests as well as the overall test duration. The Auto Clock screen contains a system speed optimization tool, which will automatically set optimal overclocking parameters for your system.