Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H

CONCLUSION

The MA785GMT-UD2H is a nice board coming from Gigabyte. It board is packed with enough ports and features that should satisfy budget buyers. Gigabyte is also going a step further than most manufactures by pairing the board with the Realtek ALC889A codec to give it support for Dolby Home Theater through S/PDIF connector. Though the ALC889A may not satisfy a true audiophiles, it is nonetheless a nice touch from Gigabyte to include it without incurring additional cost from the user.

The biggest issue we have with the board is broken ACHI that has been plagued with AMD chipset so it is not totally Giabyte's fault. In addition, we are not a big fan of the SATA port placement as it will get in the way with larger graphic cards.

At retail price of 89.99 over at Newegg, the MA785GMT-UD2H is priced at the same price as the MSI 785GM-E65 board we have reviewed in the past. Either board is a nice board for a budget buyer or HTPC use. While the MSI board comes with 128MB of SidePort, which is a nice feature to have, the Gigabyte board comes with Dolby Digital Audio. Both boards overclock to the same result and have the same feature. We believe it is a toss-up between the two boards. If you are looking to build an HTPC, we probably go with the Gigabyte board for its audio feature; however, if you are looking for light gaming, the MSI one would probably be a slightly better choice due to the SidePort to alleviate the need for accessing motherboard memory.