Tuesday, May 24, 2011

ASUS M4A78LT-M LE review








The ASUS M4A78LT-M LE is a very small Micro-ATX Form Factor 24.4cm(L) x 20.8cm(W) motherboard. Allthough this board has a small form factor (SFF), using it as a HTPC will need an extra video card, because it lacks a HDMI connector. There's also no optical audio on the backpanel, using the SPDIF-out header will require an extra cable and this is the only way you can enjoy the 8-channel audio.

This board has no 'legacy' floppy connector, but still has an onboard printer (lpt) connector. The PCI Express (PCI-E 2.0) capabilities of the M4A78LT-M LE will be capable of using the full potential of most graphics cards. There's also an IDE connector so if you still have older hard drives, you'll still be able to use them. The are six SATA 2 - 3 GB/s connecters, usually we only see 4 connectors on these cheap boards. Hybrid CrossfireX is also supported. The official slogan for Hybrid CFX is : Boosted Performance with onboard GPU and discrete graphics card, it does not say that only ONE graphics card can be used, namely the AMD/ATI Radeon HD3450, this is the only card that can 'unleash' the Hybrid CFX on this board, so the Hybrid CrossfireX EXTRA is 'pretty useless'.

Read the full review