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Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H
Join the community - in the OCAU Forums!
Date 2nd November 2010
Author DiGiTaL MoNkEY
Editor James "Agg" Rolfe
Manufacturer Gigabyte


Gaming, Overclocking & Conclusions

Gaming:
This is a category that most integrated solutions don't fare well in, and the Radeon HD 4250 is in the same boat - which was somewhat expected. Nevertheless we did find some more recent games that were playable at low settings even when running them at 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080) resolutions via the living room HDTV.

Game: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X (Demo)
Score: Average Frames per Second (FPS) - Higher is Better.
Download Link: here.


Game: STALKER: Call of Pripyat (Benchmark)
Score: Average Frames per Second (FPS) - Higher is Better.
Download Link: here.


Game: Devil May Cry 4 (Benchmark)
Score: Average Frames per Second (FPS) - Higher is Better.
Download Link: here.


Game: Half Life 2: Lost Coast (Benchmark)
Score: Frames per Second (FPS) - Higher is Better.
Product Link: here.


As you can tell with the mix of games tested, while playable frames-per-second are possible it does come at the cost of graphical detail. The games tested above did still look on par with their console counterparts, but it's clear from the results it's best to stick to older games, or some of your favourites developed by Valve, if you intend on doing any gaming with this integrated graphics solution.

We did try games such as DiRT 2, Mafia II, Lost Planet and Resident Evil 5 at their lowest settings, however frame rates were around the 10fps mark which made the games unplayable even at 720p, so only above were selected as they proved the most playable results.

Overclocking and Conclusions:
Next we move on to a bit of CPU and GPU overclocking to see how it affects 3DMark 2005 and 2006 scoring. First up we test the system in its default configuration, then we move to overclocking the GPU from the standard 560MHz on the core to 900MHz, and then finally we overclock our Phenom II X4 965 to 4GHz with the integrated GPU running at 900MHz for our final result.

Program: Futuremark 3DMark 2005 (Benchmark)
Score: Points - Higher is Better.
Download Link: here. here.


Program: Futuremark 3DMark 2006 (Benchmark)
Score: Points - Higher is Better.
Download Link: here.


Overall I'm quite impressed by what Gigabyte was able to include in such a small form factor. The ability to integrate both USB 3.0 and the latest SATA 3.0 6Gb/s specification makes it an ideal motherboard for a media hub. With the integrated Radeon HD 4250 graphics solution, Blu-ray playback for a home theatre PC setup is an effortless experience thanks to ATI's Stream Technology that offloads video processing on to the graphics processors instead of the CPU - this includes HD content online that is GPU accelerated too (via Adobe Flash, or Microsoft's Silverlight).

While the motherboard isn't the cheapest Micro ATX motherboard we've seen on the market, it sure is one of the most feature-rich and simple to work with. If features like USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 6Gb/s and an integrated graphics solution that can handle 1080p Blu-ray playback are important, this board from Gigabyte should definitely be on your list.

Thanks to Gigabyte Australia for providing the review sample.



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