PCMark Vantage simulates the use of real-world applications and gives scores for the following categories:

• PCMark
• Memories
• TV and Movies
• Gaming
• Music
• Communications
• Productivity
• HDD

For a detailed description of each one of these tests, please download and read the PCMark Vantage Reviewer’s Guide.

You can see the results for each category below. We are not going to compare the results for the Memories and HDD suites.

This benchmarking was done using the motherboard on-board video. Usually the motherboard with the fastest graphics engine achieves the highest score on this program. The result for “Radeon HD 3450” refers to the results achieved by the reviewed motherboard with this video card installed and its on-board video disabled.

ECS A785GM-M achieved a PCMark score on the same level as Biostar TA785GE 128M (AMD 785G with 128 MB) and ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX with 128 MB), with Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G (AMD 780G) achieving a score 3.02% higher.

On the TV and Movies benchmark, Biostar TA785GE 128M achieved a performance 3.45% higher, ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX with 128 MB) achieved a performance 8.34% higher and Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G (AMD 780G) achieved a performance 8.64% higher than the reviewed motherboard.

On the Gaming benchmark ECS A785GM-M achieved the same performance level as Biostar TA785GE 128M (AMD 785G with 128 MB) and Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G (AMD 780G), with ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX with 128 MB) being 3.98% faster.

On the Music benchmark all three motherboards achieved the same performance level.

On the Communications benchmark ECS A785GM-M achieved a score similar to Biostar TA785GE 128M (AMD 785G with 128 MB) and to Sapphire PI-AM2RS780G, being 5.38% higher than the one achieved by ECS A790GXM-A (AMD 790GX).

And finally on the Productivity benchmark all three motherboards achieved the same performance level.

As you can on PCMark the performance difference between the reviewed motherboard was practically negligible.

Installing a Radeon HD3450 increased the overall score by 9.00%, the TV and Movies score by 16.76%, Gaming score by 5.32%, Music score by 5.10% and Communications score by 3.33%. On the Productivity batch the score actually decreased 6.41%.