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ECS AMD690GM-M2 AMD 690G Motherboard Review
ECS AMD690GM-M2 AMD 690G Motherboard Review - PCSTATS
Like you, there is nothing we like better than a super affordable platform that gives you almost everything under the sun!! With the acquisition of ATi, the 690G chipset came to life as one of the finest chipsets for a home theatre platform thus far.
 79% Rating:   
Filed under: Motherboards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: ECS May 28 2007   Max Page  
Home > Reviews > Motherboards > ECS AMD690GM-M2

Overclocking the AMD 690G

Overclocking Results:
stock max. oc
motherboard speed: 200 mhz

232 mhz

if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers:
Overclocking the CPU and Memory
Overclocking the Videocard

MicroATX motherboards are not intended to be overclocked heavily, and as such most manufacturers include little to no overclocking support with them. There are a few overclocking options in the ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard BIOS, so let's explore how high we can push things. Using an AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ processor and set of Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C3 memory, the board had the gear to go far.... if it can.

Starting at 200 MHz the ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard easily overclocked to its maximum speed of 232 MHz. That was achieved without adjusting the voltage options. It would have been nice if ECS allowed the motherboard to go further. Considering the intended workstation purpose overclocking really isn't a practical demand in this situation.

The ECS BIOS:

Not exactly the most user friendly memory timing options... the options are also missing are the usual CAS Latency, RAS to CAS and Row Precharge options. If you're tweaking the BIOS, make sure you know where the Clear CMOS jumper is.

You can adjust the onboard frame buffer between 32-512MB, remember though while the high number may sound nice it does steal the memory from your system. You can also adjust things like the Graphics clock speed but that's best left at stock as you wouldn't get much of a benefit anyway. You can choose the video output standards depending on where in the world you live.

Prelude to Benchmarks

With the AMD 690G chipset being Microsoft Windows Vista ready, PCSTATS will be testing the ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard in Windows Vista 32 bit. Consequently there are slightly less benchmarks than we would normally have for a WindowsXP based test system because benchmark compatibility with Vista is still finding its feet. To reiterate, the benchmark results on the following pages were all conducted within Microsoft Vista Ultimate.

The details of how the ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard test system was configured for benchmarking; the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions is indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this AMD 690G based motherboard is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next page.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations
test system reference system #1 reference system #2
processor: amd Athlon64 X2 5000+ (AM2) AMD Athlon64 FX-60 (Socket 939)
Clock Speed: 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz
Motherboard:

ECS AMD690GM-M2 (AMD 690G)

Biostar TF7050-M2 (GF 7050PV)
MSI K9AGM2-FIH (AMD 690G)
Albatron KM51PV-AM2 (GF6150)

Asus A8N-VM (GF 6150)
Videocard: MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E-HD-OC
Memory:

2x 1024MB Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C4

2x 1024MB Patriot PDC2G4000ELK
Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740
CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x
PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI
Heatsink: AMD Athlon64 FX-62 Reference
Software Setup:

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
nVIDIA Forceware 15.00
ATi Catalyst 7.4
nVIDIA Forceware 158.18

Benchmarks:

SYSMark 2007 Preview
SiSoft Sandra XIb
PCMark05
3DMark06
Doom 3

FEAR

< Previous Page © 2023 PCSTATS.com Next Page >

 

Contents of Article: ECS AMD690GM-M2
 Pg 1.  ECS AMD690GM-M2 AMD 690G Motherboard Review
 Pg 2.  AMD 690G / ATI RS690 Chipset
 Pg 3.  ECS AMD690GM-M2 Motherboard Highlights
 Pg 4.  AMD AVIVO for High Definition Content
 Pg 5.  — Overclocking the AMD 690G
 Pg 6.  Motherboard Benchmarks: SYSmark 2007 Preview, SiSoft Sandra XIb
 Pg 7.  Motherboard Benchmarks: PCMark05, 3DMark06
 Pg 8.  Motherboard Benchmarks: Doom 3, FEAR
 Pg 9.  A Low Cost Solution with Teeth?

 
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