ECS A785GM-M is a fully-loaded microATX motherboard targeted to users that don’t want a bigger ATX motherboard and/or probably won’t be running games all the time – don’t even try to run newer games because the on-board video from AMD 785G isn’t powerful enough for that: the game will load, but at a frame rate way below 30 frames per second even at a low resolution and with all image quality enhancements disabled, the game will run ultra slow. Older titles will run at a playable, but not great, performance.

With the presence of an HDMI output, an optical SPDIF output and eSATA ports, this board is an option for users building a home theater PC. Audio specs are not that bad but they are not professional-grade, so if you want to work professionally editing and mixing audio an add-on card or a motherboard with a coded with a signal-to-noise (SNR) of at least 100 dB is advised.

What kills this motherboard is its price: it is being sold today for USD 100 at Newegg.com, a price way above users would expect for a microATX motherboard with on-board video (if you live in the USA you get an USD 18.00 mail-in rebate, making this board to be more affordable at USD 82.00). Of course it has several extra features not present on cheaper models.

If you have this kind of money to spend on a motherboard you may consider paying USD 10 more and getting A790GXM-AD3 also from ECS, which is based on the higher-performing AMD 790GX chipset and gives you a second PCI Express x16 slot. This other motherboard, however, lacks DVI and FireWire ports and comes with only one eSATA port, plus uses the standard ATX size, so it may not fit your plans if you idea if building a small HTPC.

Another problem we faced with this motherboard is that it would stop turning on out of the blue. We’d try turning on, the POST display would lit “FF” for a fraction of a second and then the power supply would shut down. We requested a second sample from the manufacturer, which suffered from the same problem.