ECS A990FXM-A V1.1

[m0nt3]

79.99 at newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135345

Have somewhat been contemplating this motherboard with an FX8320. Anyone have any experience/thoughts on this board?

 

[suraswami]

Amazon its cheaper, the board shows with a $12 coupon on the 79.99 price. So with tax and free Prime shipping it comes to $73.43. But I ordered its cousin 970M-A from egg which is $15 AR. Waiting for it to show up and will post my experience with it.

 

[m0nt3]

I checked their website, and there hasn't been a BIOS update since 2012 which is one of the reason I am a bit uneasy. I read some bad overclocking review on the early revision, the Black series one. The last ECS boards I dealt with were the K7S5A which was a nice board and the 580X crossfire board which run without problems for many years as well.

 

[suraswami]

Amazon is good at returns.

 

[m0nt3]

I think I'll take the plunge. You get an extra $30 for signing up for the amazon card, so the total will be $42 I can stomach that, even if it is bad, I can use it to replace my wife's MSI 880GMA-E45 board.

Edit: Ordered $42 with free 2 day shipping. I will post up a small review this coming weekend. See how it overclocks my 1055t with 1866 crucial ballistix RAM.

 

[suraswami]

Good Luck! If not OC, it should atleast be stable at stock.

Amazon shows you get $50 credit if you sign up for their credit card. Dang, then apply the $12 coupon, this would have been a better board. Oh well I will see how that 970 works.

 

[m0nt3]

I'll put it through the paces. especially considering the 1055t require base clock overclocking. hehe. excited.

 

[suraswami]

Got the ECS 970M-A board today, newegg super saver shipping is fast too. I will try to install tonight and post some pics.

 

[m0nt3]

Are you using the ECS board to replace your Gigabyte or to use it for a different build? Is 4.2 All you can get out of your 8320?

 

[suraswami]

This is just bored test and keep it as spare

If this works good I might build a machine and give it to my brother.

4.2 on my 8320 is plenty and more than that, board and cpu acts weird.

 

[m0nt3]

So for those interested, any particular benchmark recommendations? Going to run some tonight on my current board at overclocked and stock values then again tommorow with the new board again at stock and hopefully same overclock on new board.

 

[suraswami]

Got my new board, build complete, so far good. Very fast and very stable board. Gigabyte FXA-UD3 was throwing errors with OCZ 1600 memory even at stock clocks, this board runs it perfectly.

Testing with PII X3 720 BE until I get a FX.

Will create a build log soon.

 

[suraswami]

like somebody mentioned on egg, the board doesn't allow for cpu multiplier change for a Black Edition PII 720.

 

[m0nt3]

Is this a spare system? How about base overclocking? My board is out for delivery.

 

[suraswami]

base clocking works. Multiplier clocking works only with AOD, but will not retain settings when waking up from S3 state.

On the motherboard overview page on ECS website it says something about Soundblaster cinema, but this board has a Realtek chip! Yes this is spare system, but because of Soundblaster I was thinking of replacing my HTPC with this board.

The VRM runs cold atleast with the 720BE, its at 53-54C under load (IBT stress testing), NB sink was around 56C but with a 40mm fan on it, it stays cool around 40C.

The both PCI-E slots (long ones) seems to be wired as 16X, need to put in 2 cards to see if it will work at 16X+16X or internally it reduces to 8X+8X.

There is no NB clocking option, no undervolting option (which I knew before). But the thing pissed me off is multiplier changing is not working. Don't know how one person got it working?

hmm keep it or return it?

 

[m0nt3]

Phenom's like the higher NB speed, so how far can you get on base OC? Maybe inquire about a BIOS update (which is the downfall of ECS, they don't really do BIOS updates from what I can tell)?

 

[suraswami]

With the old ECS 780G black edition board the CPU can go up to 220 HTT without changing anything else, so NB clock was at 2200, was like that for years and the CPU was only running at 1.3v.

With the new board it couldn't log on to windows, BSOD, even at 210 HTT. I had to up the volts to 1.4 on CPU and .2v on the north bridge to get it to boot into windows. No option to change NB multiplier too. This thing is garbage!! Any cheap board will handle mild OC and I am not even using a FX. Imagine if I use a FX this board might roll and cry

I am going to return it (oh wait I might have to pay for return shipping lol)

 

[m0nt3]

Have you tried a BIOS update?

http://www.ecs.com.cn/ECSWebSite/Pr...oryID=1&DetailName=Feature&MenuID=115&LanID=0

 

[suraswami]

yes, its at latest bios and I even went back one version (old version was even worse, didn't have that option at all!)

m0nt3 - when are you getting your board? Can you post your experience. I have created RMA, this thing is going back!

 

[m0nt3]

My board is in. I am at work currently so i will be updating tonight on how it goes.

 

[suraswami]

Good luck, hopefully the FX board doesn't have the retarted bios!!

Never seen a board run this cool tho, too bad it didn't work out for me.

 

[m0nt3]

I'm hoping it works out fine if not, it should be fine at stock. ECS has some nice layouts and and good designs I think, but they do need to work on their BIOS/EFI a bit. This board will be my first one with UEFI interface.

 

[m0nt3]

Quick report in, I have it setup and running (making this post from new motherboard). Crazy enough, my RAID 0 setup was maintained through motherboard switch which my OS install is on and is functioning it reinstalled sound drivers and that was about it. It has full control over HT multi, CPU-NB multi, and CPU multi. current running at 250 base clock for 3.5 on CPU and NB/HTT at 2.5. One thing I have noticed, voltages are not getting reported corectly, but that maybe because its running the same OS install as my gigabyte board, not sure, will probably do a fresh install later.

http://valid.canardpc.com/k97hbh

 

[suraswami]

Nice. What about voltages?

Just to verify if the multi is working, can u disable CnQ and lower the multi to see if CPUZ shows that?

I should have gone with this when Amazon had it in stock!!

You are OCing using the bios right?

 

[suraswami]

and oh if you want a 7950 (just incase), check my FS, have a brand new one.