Let’s take a look at the Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H, a microATX, socket AM3 motherboard from Gigabyte based on the AMD 880G chipset, featuring five SATA-600 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, and two PCI Express x16 slots.

We have already posted a detailed comparison between AMD chipsets with integrated video. In summary, the AMD 880G chipset is based on the Radeon HD 4250 graphics engine, which is a slower version of the graphics engine used on the AMD 890GX (Radeon HD 4290). Normally, the AMD 890GX uses a new south bridge chip, called SB850, and the AMD 880G uses the older SB710 south bridge. SB850 natively supports SATA-600 ports (a.k.a. “SATA 6 G”) and it is the first chipset with this feature (currently on motherboards based on other chipsets featuring SATA-600 ports an external controller chip must be used). Gigabyte used the SB850 south bridge instead of the SB710 on the 880GMA-UD2H, so this motherboard offers the native SATA-600 ports.

As you may know by now, on systems with integrated video the video memory is achieved by stealing part of the main RAM. Chipsets from AMD have a feature called SidePort, which is an optional memory chip soldered on the motherboard in order to increase video memory. The portrayed motherboard doesn’t have this feature.

In Figure 1, you have an overall look at the Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H.

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Figure 1: The Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H motherboard