ECS GF8200A Black Motherboard Review

For the budget-minded consumer, the ECS GF8200A is a pretty good deal. For $70 USD, the board has the features to build a good gaming PC or a HTPC with its DirectX 10 integrated graphics - with the caveat that there is no digital audio output and DVI port.

The interesting thing about the ECS GF8200A board is that it fully supports the new Phenom X4 9850 CPUs. It’s interesting because some AMD motherboards based upon the 780G chipsets have an issue with the 125W TDP so if you want to use integrated graphics with the newest AMD CPU you need to use a board like the GF8200A as it has a 4-phase design and is compatible with the 9850 with no issues.

The ECS board is an interesting choice for the upgrade not wanting dual graphics cards as it has 5 expansion slots on an integrated board. Overall ECS has done a good job with their GF8200A board, with performance near the top of the AMD platform.

Motherboards.org