Rectron stocks new boards

Johannesburg, 05 May 2008

Rectron has added the Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H (3H) to its list of AMD 780G-based motherboards.

The board supports both the AM2 Athlon processors, as well as AM2+ base used by the Phenom processors. "It features the first DirectX 10 integrated graphics processor (IGP) solution for the AM2+ platform, providing the ultimate in graphics performance," says Rectron components business manager Tony Chiang-Lin.

The board integrates the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core, which supports DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0 and OpenGL 2.0. According to Chiang-Lin, it supports ATI universal video decoder (UVD) technology and ATI Avivo technology, both used in advanced high-definition (HD) rendering.

"HD multimedia support is carried throughout the Radeon HD 3200 outputs, which include D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI to support numerous monitors," says Chiang-Lin. The new Gigabyte board hits specifications for Blu-Ray.

"The 3H provides an additional PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics interface and a PCI-E2.0 x4 expansion slot to support the ATI Hybrid Graphics technology, allowing users to combine the power of their integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics core by adding an additional discrete graphics card, for enhanced 3D gaming performance, productivity and power efficiency," Chiang-Lin states.

The Realtek ALC889A audio chip is HD capable and uses the built-in 7.1 + 2 channel with a 106 decibel signal-to-noise ratio.

Both integrated and discrete graphics simultaneously work together on the board. A 70% increase in 3D graphics performance has been reported. ATI SurroundView is also supported, providing the ability to use four or more monitors with the addition of a discrete graphics card.

The board also allows for the use of ATI's PowerPlay smart power management system that enables saving profiles to help reduce power consumption when the graphics processor is idle or in minimal use.