Product Description

GIGABYTE Technology latest S series motherboards for AMD socket AM2platform featuring with two innovative features- Safe and SmartTechnologies. The new S series motherboards GA-MA69VM-S2;supporting AMD new generation AM2 processor with dual channel DDR280

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165061 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Gigabyte
• Model: GA-MA69VM-S2
• Released on: 2007-06-23
• Dimensions: 26.77" h x 105.91" w x 105.91" l, 2.55 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
GIGABYTE Technology latest S series motherboards for AMD socket AM2 platform feature two innovative features - Safe and Smart Technologies. The new S series motherboard GA-MA69VM-S2 supports AMD new generation AM2 processor with dual channel DDR2 800MHz high frequency memories, providing reliable and user friendly computing and reaching the maximum system performance easily via personalized software settings. GIGABYTE S series motherboards, the champion's choice for AMD Socket AM2 platform!

Customer Reviews

A great disappointment from a once favorite brand
For a long time I've considered Gigabyte one of the most reliable motherboard manufacturers, so I was extremely disappointed when I installed this board, which I purchased for my secondary system. For starters, Gigabyte doesn't include the mini PC Speaker, a small and very cheap component, but essential to a computer's operation, as it emits sounds which help indicate a series of possible problems with the system, like hardware problems when the computer is turned on, CPU fan failure and CPU overheating. Although inexpensive, this component isn't easily found for purchase separetely, so I had to borrow one from another board I own. The AMD/ATI chipset drivers are very problematic, and getting SATA-2 hard drives to work in true SATA mode instead of IDE mode is very troublesome. The SATA drivers must be installed during OS installation, so if you already have an OS installed, you'll have to resort to a registry patch (available in some web sites, since this is a common problem with the SB600 southbridge) to install the drivers and enable the SATA features (although, again, there will be no indication on the drivers properties in the device manager as to whether NCQ and other SATA-2 features are enabled or not). ASUS has a mobo with exactly the same chipset and provides an installer for the SATA drivers even with an OS already installed.

The manual is very basic and lacks a lot of information about the board's features and connectors. The chipset's northbridge is passively cooled (no fan) and located too close to the PCI-E 16x slot, so if you install a graphics card, it will run much hotter than usual. This is my backup system and it's fitted with a 7600GS video card, which usually runs very cool, but its temperature raised about 10 degrees celsius from when it was fitted on a Foxconn motherboard with a better layout. The increase in the video card's temperature might also be a case of the motherboard supplying the PCIe 16x slot with more power than it should. The case where this board is installed has a lot of ventilation space and 3 extra fans fitted (two 8 inch + one 12 inch), and ambient temperature is currently below 20 degrees celsius. There is no BIOS setting for "smart" control of the system fan speed, just for the CPU fan, so if you use the system fan connector to power a fan it will always run at full speed, thus making the system quite noisy.

The last nail in the coffin is that the sounds produced by the hard drives working leak to the motherboard's sound outputs, so you'll actually hear your HD's through your speakers. I can see no point in fitting a motherboard with a high definition codec and let a flaw like this render it useless. As to whether the board is a budget product or not, that doesn't justify all these flaws. I own another basic mobo (PCChips A33G), which is quite inferior and cheaper than the Gigabyte, and still it does come with the small PC speaker (which I had to borrow for the Gigabyte mobo). It should also be mentioned that Gigabyte's support seems to have gone downhill, as the "technicians" who answer the questions seem to have no clue about what they're saying.

Don't get me wrong here - Gigabyte was for many years one of the brands I trusted the most, but after this board and the (very poor) support I got from Gigabyte, it is very unlikely that I will be buying something from them again in the future. Gigabyte should spend more time designing (and supporting) a product with the consumer's satisfaction in mind rather than making cheap flawed products aimed only at reaping huge profits.