Conclusion

Even before this latest round of enhancements we were already big fans of AMD’s 690 chipset due to the platform’s outstanding array of features. With the recently added performance and overclocking tweaks AMD and their board partners have implemented, the 690 platform is even better than ever.

Our gaming tests showed a performance improvement anywhere from 5-12% overall. FEAR seemed to benefit the most from the newer AMD drivers, although we saw gains in the high single digits in Company of Heroes as well. We also managed to shave a few seconds off our media encoding tests with DivX and Windows Media Encoder, although LAME MP3 performance was the same.

The really sweet part about the performance enhancements though is that they can be had by all. Whether you purchased a 690 motherboard three months ago or three days ago, you’ll see the improvements. They’re also universal among all motherboard manufacturers.

Gigabyte’s GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard is our favorite implementation of the 690 chipset we’ve seen so far. DVI, VGA, and HDMI connections are all easily accessible on the motherboard’s backplane, while the x4 PCIe slot is a little more versatile than the x1 slots that are found on most motherboards due to its backward compatibility.

Our biggest gripe with the GA-MA69GM-S2H would obviously be its lack of voltage options within BIOS, but in all honesty OC’ing probably isn’t such a good idea for this system if it’s going to be housed inside a small HTPC chassis anyway; there just isn’t enough room for adequate airflow in this kind of environment.

If you really want to OC you should probably buy one of the full-sized ATX AMD-690 motherboards like Gigabyte’s GA-MA69G-S3H

We had no problems hitting an HT speed of 294MHz with the GA-MA69GM-S2H, so imagine what you could do with one of those boards.

What really excites us about Gigabyte’s GA-MA69GM-S2H motherboard is its price. These motherboards can be found on Newegg for just $76.99. That’s just $2 more than the ASUS M2A-VM and $7 less than the MSI K9AGM2 boards we took a look at back in February. That’s an outstanding deal when you consider the feature set of the Gigabyte board and as such, we’re awarding it with our Bull’s Eye Award.

The GA-MA69GM-S2H is quite simply the best value among AMD-690 motherboards right now and if you’re looking to build an inexpensive HTPC in the near future we highly recommend it.