Asus M3A78-T - ATX Motherboard Review

[ivex100]

I have an M4A78L-M mobo, it has a AMD athlon II x2 processor whats the best processor out there for my board?

[boblester122]

i have this in my desktop, perfect i say :D

[srairmand]

This motherboard has been discontinued.

[pencil10134]

i wanted to get a ASUS M4A78T-E Motherboard but i want liquid cooling from coolit systems and they need a 4 pin power plug for the motherboard but i cant seem to find that pin in any photos for it can you help?

[stevrv]

I have a asus m3a78-t can I use the new Phenom II 1090T Black Edition Six Core Processor if not what is the latest processor that I can use. thanks

[scarletrhubarb]

@stevrv "For users who have already purchased the M3 or M2 Series motherboards, a simple BIOS update is all that is needed to support future AM3 CPUs." from ASUS' webpage.

i bet a SSD would improve your pc performance more than a new processor - though i don't know what kind of cpu you already have.

[928sandman]

Ok I Plan On Using NZXT HADES or Phantom For My Build I Only Play World Of Warcraft What Mother Board Would U recommend If U Dont Mind TY!

[928sandman]

@928sandman what about this mother borad ASRock Core 2 Duo/DDR&DDR2/PCI-E&AGP/A&L/ATX Motherboard 4COREDUAL-SATA2 R2.0

[shadow86sk]

have this mobo, very cool

[CaseyTheDrummerBoy]

Hey man, if I send you a message of the build I'm looking into working on, do you think you could help me out and let me know what will work and what wont? I'm pretty new with custom building, so any help I could get would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Arjun007ize]

Wow man nice vedio and your site,keep it up.HeY buddy Nice vedio, Subscribed, Hey could you please suggest me for a good MOBO FROM INTEL WITH E7500CPU FOR GOOD GAMING

PERFORMENCE my budget for mobo is $150 and for cpu is$113 and for graphic card is $54 and total is $317.THANKS.

[JoDaddyy]

Now, your saying that your going to be applying a Phenom processor. I'm assuming you prefer AMD? Isn't Intel the better choice these days?

[sameashell]

Very helpful buddy.......

[drummerkid1993]

That's a great mobo.

[XSessive]

one question i have an extra pci graphics card with 2 extra vga so i can have multiple monitors can i use those 2 ports at the same time as the onboard one?

on that note can i use ithe onboard ones for muliple monitors as well?

[chepefreestyle]

This motherboard support AMD2 & AMD3 cpu?

[no1Reality]

@chepefreestyle

ja!

[chepefreestyle]

@no1Reality ja que? pedazo de malparido? Que es la picha que esta jodiendo?

[14u2nvJohnny]

what compatible motherboard can i buy from like newegg for a reasonable price that will be great for gaming on my computer i dont want to buy one and find out its not compatiable thats why i ask here are my specs,Dell Dimension 2350 Pentium 4, Windows xp sp3, 1.8ghz, 2 gigs of ram (upgrade from 256 mb), 400 watt power supply (upgrade from 200 watts), Nvidia GForce 8400 GS graphics card, (upgraded from the intergraded card) , 250 gig HD (upgraded from 30 gig HD) btw my PSU has sata plugs too ;)

[iiTzQuiik]

What is AM2+ Can U install a AM2 CPU, and he said Phenom thats AM3? CAN YOU INSTALL BOTH?

[GreubsAkaRTG]

Great Mobo, Great Review!

[purplewolfpimp]

if you can plz tell me how hybrid onboard graphics and enternal graphics card works , and do i need vista for it to work, or is my windows 7 64 bit good enough.

[jettero1]

I got the Asus M4A785TD-V Evo .... and Uh this MoBo flys with my Phenom 550 and unlocked all cores and did a stress test with Prime95 and no errors for 8 hours :PPPPP hehe

[halfpol]

nice!

[zkelley96]

does that support ddr3 and if it does ddr3 1600mhz

[WickedGr]

@zkelley96 DDR2 Only

[BIZZIB3ATZ]

DUDE IS THIS BETTER THEN THE

Asus  M4A78LT-M LE

[TheTongMan]

Where to buy this board? I checked newegg but they don't have it. Can I run an nvidia geforce 9800 gtx on this board? Sli?

[bimmermann18]

ebay is another place to check. This board is set up for crossfire b/c of the 790fx chipset. There is the M4N82 if your looking for SLI

[MGApcPro]

Sorry man, but maybe you should check the date it was released. it's one year old, and there is motherboards cheaper and better now.

[cokacutter]

@MGApcPro this seems pretty good but if theres one cheaper that supports the same possessors i wanna see it.

[halfpol]

9800gtx is very slow card,buy a 9500gt 1gb 100% better

[WickedGr]

@halfpol 9800gtx is much better than 9500gt

[1mper1alGuardsMen]

WickedGr

of course lol

[WickedGr]

@1mper1alGuardsMen

"halfpol said: 9800gtx is very slow card,buy a 9500gt 1gb 100% better"

I was referring to this.

[1mper1alGuardsMen]

@WickedGr

halfpol is i !!

i have 2 accaunts :D

[1mper1alGuardsMen]

@WickedGr

LOl im kidding

[playergame06]

okay.........

[Cthrilla]

thanks for the review good job really helps!

[PatVRulz]

the asus m3a78-t is the regular m3a78, but with an extra pcix16 slot and 790x chipset, also built in firewire 400 and HDMI. So, unless you need those extras you can get the regular m3a78 for much cheaper.

[DeltaPhi79]

At 1:46 what exactly is that? I've been wondering for a while.

[PCWizKid]

@DeltaPhi79, thats a heatsink on top of the southbridge chipset.

[DeltaPhi79]

OK thank you XDDDDDDD

[LLOYD19851012]

@PCWizKid my asus m3n72-d has the same memory sockets. can you tell me if the 2 yellow sockets are for dual memory. or is it yellow and black

[JoDaddyy]

@PCWizKid So, pretty much, a CPU is one's processor, right?

[carlos1984233]

lol. yeah the best is atx asus for game!

[vWBIRDWv]

I need a corssfire motherboard thats socket 939 can any one help me out?

[24okay]

I think this is the same one I have. I copied and pasted this from my order.

ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD

Not sure what the difference is. But it says it can handle 8GB of Ram, is there any harm in doing do? I ordered 4GB so I will be running 5GB total (I have another 1 GB stick) and wanted to know if this will be ok. I am also running windows vista Ultimate and supposedly it is a 64bit OP? But I dunno about this stuff. Can I get your thoughts PCWizKid?

[Dhainz313]

It should run no problem once it's all DDR2, be weary though, if that that old stick is running at slower speeds than the newer stuff, all the newer sticks speed will be dropped down to match the older ones speed. Shouldn't be much bother though unless you overclock

[24okay]

yeah those sticks say NVida on it, they are an OCZ brand and only 1GB each (there are 2), and then I have my Kingston ram, which are a total of 4GB in supply (x2/stick). Is that what you are talking about?

My video card I have noticed too says 512mB x4. WTF?!

[Dhainz313]

Is that Nvidia ram from your old motherboard? And if so your old motherboard was Nvidia right? I don't know why there's Nvidia specific ram under other brand names, I would figure it just runs on Nvidia mobos or at it least it's made to run well on Nvidia systems. Could always try it with the new stuff though, won't do you any harm. That 512mb is your video card memory for gaming and video applications. 32 bit systems can only use max 3(odd) gigs of ram while 64 bit can use any amount of it

[24okay]

well like two sticks (2GB 1X) are Nvida and I bought Kingston (4GB total 2X) total 4 slots. My video card says 1GB, although it is like 2000+ MB, which is confusing to me.

I just know all the ratings on my computer are 5.9 except for my gaming and graphics which have a score of 3.5

I am very n00bish to all this stuff.

[ricardop56]

why don't they ever say the price of the item!?

[PCWizKid]

@ricardop56, the price changes, and if I say it, it wont be accurate anymore. click on the link on the side on my video to get the latest pricing.

[ricardop56]

okay :]

[wickedout2010]

I have the new AMD Phenom 920. So far so good. Nice set up you have.

[scal2180]

2 questions,can you review the ASUS M4A79t Deluxe motherboard?,also,im hearing that you can do sli on it,although it only says that u can do crossfire,can you?please pm me with link to video,and answer,thnx,any info is appreciated

[MinhyMintyMouse]

does the motherboard it self support dual screen?

[PCWizKid]

@MinhyMintyMouse, no it does not.

[kjeoy]

Someone please answer..Is it true that one cannot run dual screen while having for instance two 4890's running in crossfire??? And that you'll have to restart and disable crossfire to run dual screen?

[alfyajw]

its FEEE- NOM, not the ph- version of venom

[catieo321]

what is the video card???

[PCWizKid]

@catieo321, Hi I mentioned it at 0:56 its the ATI Radeon HD3300

[LGXYFTW]

I am surprised this board didnt come with a crossfire bridge but doesnt ati gfx cards always supply with those bridges because with my asus board they had a sli bridge in there for me .

[MrCanzara]

mine came with 2 crossfire bridges, but I have the M4A79 Deluxe.

My cards also came with one each, so I have 2 spare.

[RemnantsOfBeauty]

he keeps pronouncing Phenom incorrectly lol. Americans

[runescapeownyawe]

What does Crossfire and Hybrid support mean?

[MrCanzara]

Crossfire is the name for AMD/ATI's duel video card support. Hybrid just means it will allow to use the motherboards onboard video card and 1 addon card to do duel video cards rather then 2 addon cards.

[TTechinc]

I have a M3A78-EM ASUS MB :)

[upbeatmantis86]

Is this review applies the same for other same models ... like m4a78?..

[maz12004]

Nice mid-range board. Can't go wrong with Asus.

[jcng5]

gigabyte has the best quality!

[NightStrikeKill]

hey does the amd 6000+ fit into the am2+ socket ?

[Xen8]

yes

[Qbite]

Yes it does.. i have an 6400+ ;)

[JuninhoNKBR]

yes it does.

[24321619]

Yes I Fitted this Amd 6000 3.0 Ghz dual core and it works perfectly

[Bauks]

i have this board with a amd phenom 9600 x64 black edition pretty cheap really nice

[xXmAJorsONXx]

i have a motherboard that has duel bios and has 16gig ram

[AJSokrates]

it must be GIGABYTE!

[grpace]

its vince with shamwow!

[darkman1078]

amd phenom x4 9950 2.6 black edtion + gf 9800 gt 512 mb and asus m3a is good ? or i will have problem with amd with NVidia ?

[wawa779]

amd + nvidia is no problem but err do you already have this system or you planning to build one like this? you should just google it pretty easy lots of helpful forums around

[z1pfL]

sounds like a nice setup, should work great together!

[pathseen21]

Wait, I just got the M4A78-E, what's different about it?

[z1pfL]

4 pin cpu power??

not 8 pin?

[macbook56]

Hey man I am building an AM3 rig very soon and am wondering between a couple of motherboards :

This one,

A gigabyte UD5P AM3

and a MSI GD70..

so far gigabyte seems to be the best but overclocking wise, im not so sure

[PCWizKid]

@macbook56, Hi, standby, i just got the new Gigabyte AM3 board for review, I'll have a video out in a week about it.

[kenkoyABC123]

wihch is good Brand? Gigabyte or Asus Motherboard???

[PCWizKid]

Depends, let me review a gigabyte board for you.

[kenkoyABC123]

Really Thanks a lot PCWizkid... coz im thinkin what to buy and im lookin for a good Quality for long lasting usage. and my choice si Gigabyte or Asus, tnx

[speedwayaudio3]

this is a great board I've had it a few months now. Running phenon II X4 940 OC 3.5mhz I have 8 ghz OCZ plat dram 800. it all runs flawlessly. Great Board

[lochasch]

I am thinking of using Asus M3A78-VM with a Phenom X4 9950, will work allright? Thanks

[freedomdude0]

and how does this compare to the M4A78-E and the M3A79-T Deluxe?

[PCWizKid]

Its the same almost as the M3a79-T, layout and all are identical practically.

[MrCanzara]

WoW they are?

The 78E uses the 790GX northbridge the 79T uses the 790FX chipset for northbridge...these are similar but the FX is updated and apparently more stable and faster.

The REAL BIG difference is the 78E only supports 2 crossfire-x cards and only running in 8x mode , the 79t supports 4 cards with 3 of them at 16x..BIG difference here.

There are other minor differences

the 79T is a better board PERIOD

[freedomdude0]

i heard the layout of this motherboard isn't that good is that true ?

[TheMayor5000]

witch connector was for the power...the green or white?

[rednaiw]

can i use phenom 2 x3 720 with M3A78-CM

i need an answer now

[PCWizKid]

I think so, but check the Asus website to see that the have a bios update for supporting AM3.

[evilives34]

well i checked asus and yes you can with bios 0802

[jennymanda]

The heatsinks are anodized aluminium. Not copper. If they were copper, the board would cost a packet more.

[PCWizKid]

You could be right, but it looks like copper to me, and also this board was average price when I got it last year, it was not cheap at the time. So I would think that based on the quality of this board, that its copper. Not to mention the colour but they can paint anything orange I guess.

[EphraimRodrigez]

i have the M3A78-em where are the diffrence

it isn´t in the computer yet and i want to play games like fallout 3

[JuliBoyTelThem21]

can anyone tell me the best wireless card to hook up to this?

i cant seem to find a good one anywhere

[PCWizKid]

I used the D-link Wireless G PCI card with this board works great.

[JuliBoyTelThem21]

thanks alot :D

[PiranhaBytesGothic]

Hey nice video and I was wondering will you release a video how to build a custom PC?

[PCWizKid]

Yes, but if you watch most of my hardware videos I show you how to install things to make your custom PC, check them all out! :-)

[PiranhaBytesGothic]

Thanks for the reply :)

[joshnfsmw]

um hybrid and non hybird crossfire, wats the dif and u sure it can work with both? plz reply or pm coz im considering this board. thanks

[shotgunson]

I have the Asus M3A78-PRO Any big difference between the two? Also do you guys recommend I just get a 4850 radeon and just use that, or is getting a 3200 graphic card and using crossfire? I don't know if a dedicated video card is better. I want to play Call of Duty 5, will the integraded 3200 gpu do the job on medium settings? Thanks guys

[bbirocz540]

i have the m3a78-t board, as for your board, your board can only support 1 graphics card so in this case the ati would be the better choice, i recommend you go with a better card that what the mobo offers, mine supports 2 cards, thats the only real difference.

[purpledinosaurus]

What's different with this board an the M3A78..is it just the integrated gpu?

[kiloa29]

does this mobo have raid 0 built in?

[PCWizKid]

Yes, it has Raid 0 support

[x0xHellzSpawnx0x]

Great review man! I still can't decide between this board or the Gigabyte GA-MA79GP-DS4H. Your great overview might have edged me closer to the ASUS though :P

Question: did you have any problems POSTing? Newegg reviews lately seem to indicate that ASUS has dropped in quality testing their boards before shipping. Lot of DOAs on newegg's reviews of this board.

Again, thanks for great review. Will probably end up using it with the AMD X2 Kuma I just bought for my very first build!

[shinester184]

Will this board run a Phenom II 940 straight from the box without a BIOS flash?

[PCWizKid]

It would run it, but not recognize it unless the bios was already the updated. There is a newer board now the M3A79-T . But you can update this one to bios v8.02 and it will work with the latest Phenom's.

[madfoxx]

can u use the hybrid cross fire technology with ati hd 4800 series cards??

[PCWizKid]

No.

[pruttrick93]

I'm getting this board and a phenom II x3 720 BE.

Will it work?

[PCWizKid]

Did you see my latest video?

[pruttrick93]

which?

[jaju123456]

Im getting this soon. with phenom 940 black edition, custom cooler and antec 300 case.

[kiloa29]

i was wondering what operating system supports 4~8gb of ram.. right now im using windows xp professional sp2.. how much ram does my os supports?

[PCWizKid]

Windows Vista 64bit and Linux 6bit for example support over 4GB

[kiloa29]

ok thx..

[jaju123456]

up to 128 gigs I think?

[omnipotentidiot]

this board will support up to 16GB of RAM, not 8GB.

[PCWizKid]

Yes, 16GB Max not 8GB.

[SK1LLZDAK1LLZ]

hey if i use this baord and add a 4870 1gb how do i make it so windows recognizes it and not the crappy ram sucking intergrated?

[ya64]

change it on the bios options.

[DaPlatanero]

This board is ridiculous. I just purchased it along with a Phenom 2 920 (which will definitely be oc'd) and ocz 4gb of ram. I still haven't made up my mind on which ati hybrid crossfire videocard i want to use; they all seem so awesome. This is all coming from from someone that has always bought intel/invidia sets. I commend amd/ati for what they have done thus far.

[Generalvaldez]

what do you know about the Asus M3N78 PRO

[Generalvaldez]

what mobo do you use to do your Nvidea card reviews

[PCWizKid]

this same board is being used right now for both ATI and Nvisia, I just swap them.

[Generalvaldez]

tigerdirect doesnt have the nvidea one just the ati one which sux

[poisonr]

have you been successful with getting raid0 to work with this board with windows xp pro 32bit? I have had trouble with asus and raid drivers.

[lipshultz]

Would that support all of the intel processors, too?

[PCWizKid]

No, this is a AMD cpu board

[unlifted41]

how much is that board?

[PCWizKid]

I posted the info to the latest pricing on my blog, click on the link here in the video description.

[zeldafreak008]

So how good is the on-board video? I plan to eventually upgrade, but if I can, I want to swing by with the integrated for now. This is going to be for a gaming rig, so keep that in mind.

[TheNinjaMonk]

on-board video= Fail will be ok if wanna play CSS high 1024x748 25fps + maybe, BUT IDK

[DeadFredVideo]

You would be surprised!

I have a 780g board and the 3200 graphics it uses can play most things , not at super high settings but still pretty well :) E.g. San Andreas 1680x1050 Very High 1xAA :)

The ATI 3300 used on this board is, at the time of writing this, the fastest on board graphics solution out there, beating the 9400 set from Nvidia :)

[zeldafreak008]

Yeah, my Computer Networking instructor said this is the best integrated he has seen. My friend also bought it for his system (in which I helped build), and it looks really nice, too!

[SniperssOnly]

You can be classed as a genius

[snowman4839]

I really hope that was sarcasm. This is all basic computer knowledge.

[SniperssOnly]

Maybe i dont know "basic" computer knowledge. Do you understand ALL the terms he uses in the video?

[snowman4839]

yes I do, as a matter of fact

[SniperssOnly]

ok fair enough I class you as a genius as well, happy?

[snowman4839]

sure...

[Jammowns]

I know the terms too.

[SniperssOnly]

k, your a genius to.

[orangedrink]

i dont know some of those...

[JamboyStu]

wow youtube just went to proper HD. Better than the crap "HD" they had before.

[Branhower1]

I got the EMH variant of this board, highly recommended for integrated graphics use, and playing some older games without needing a dedicated graphics card.

[gordon37336262]

thank goodness you showed that metal cutout for the external plugins, whew! I have ordered this board and it should be coming in anytime, I kept wondering if my case would be able to shield it. thanks, great review

very descriptive! :D 5/5

[shirke01]

Excellent review but your HD video quality is not that clear.

[RamenJutsu]

you represent a company, i mean u got so much hardware XD

[PCWizKid]

Hi, I represent myself. PCWizKid.

cheers

[RickyTomatoes]

What software do you use to edit your vids in HD?

[PCWizKid]

Sony Vegas

[RickyTomatoes]

Figures. I made an HD video using Windows Media Player but YouTube didn't recognize it as HD.

I've noticed that a lot of HD videos on YouTube are edited using Vegas. I think i'll start using that instead.

[r31ncarnat3d]

I agree with the comment below me; the intro doesn't need to be that long.

As for motherboards, you should immediately state what it's for, be it general use, overclocking, gaming, HTPCs, servers, etc.

Sound quality could use some tweaking, and try to avoid "filler words". Common ones you use are "alright" and "okay". Take these out, and the verbal quality of the reviews would improve dramatically

Other than that, pretty good reviews you have here. Very professional and thorough. Very nice :)

[PCWizKid]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll take some of your comments into consideration.

Cheers

[niggasoffdablock]

just a tip for u man, dont make the intro that long...

if its someone's first time they re going to be like wtf? why is it so long. otherwise, nice review man

[PCWizKid]

Thanks I appreciate your comments and support

[niggasoffdablock]

no problem man

glad to see more people doing reviews and caring about tech, then stupid videos.

[atlaschooty]

i have used AMD and Intel , both are great processors but when it come to the heat generated from these two processors the AMD is leading on that but i should say when it come to graphics the AMD surely leads the way.......

[adamisthereinventer]

Why would you want on board graphics...

[PCWizKid]

Right now I dont want onboard graphics, but eventually I want to review it all with the hybrid crossfirex.

[adamisthereinventer]

Oh I see. Im building a gaming computer in a few months and I thought I would check out the motherboard. This one isnt my thing tho because its an AMD board and I was aiming towards a quadcore but nothing is set.