The Basics:
An overview of the board is shown in the images below, and the first thing you might notice is the bold color combinations. The yellow, red, and orange features all stand out against the black PCB, and the combination reminds me a bit of the DFI LAN Party series from a few years ago (
like this one). The board is printed with a variety of information regarding connections and random announcements of features, and it is all very easy to read thanks to being done in white.
My first impression of the layout is a good one, as everything seems to have plenty of room. It doesn't look like there should be any issues with things like the CPU cooler interfering with the memory, or the memory being too close to the PCI Express graphics card to be installed easily. In addition, the two chipset coolers are extremely low profile and should create zero issues with any coolers or expansion cards installed.
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Many recent motherboards have chosen non-standard layouts that can really make installations more difficult than they need to be. The ECS A780GM-A Black Series is not one of those, as things are where you might expect them. Power and drive connectors are located along the front or top edge, and many of the headers for other features are located along the bottom edge. The only connections that struck me as somewhat odd are the two PCI Express x1 slots. They are just above the PCI Express x16 slot, and while it shouldn't create any kind of issue, it just struck me as an uncommon location.
The next two images take a closer look at areas near the top of the motherboard. The below left image zooms in on the CPU socket, memory slots, northbridge chipset cooler, and some of the drive and power connections. The AM2+ CPU socket is wide open, so even if the stock retention mechanism was to be removed to make room for the biggest air or water cooler there should be no chance of an installation issue. The board supports up to 4 sticks of DDR2 memory in dual channel mode, and the color scheme had me reaching for the manual. Usually you see color coordinated slots in alternating rows, as pairs of memory in dual channel mode are generally installed in rows 1 and 3, or rows 2 and 4. On the A780GM-A, the dual channel pairs are installed side-by-side, so you would place a pair of memory in rows 1 and 2, or rows 3 and 4. This seems unusual to me, and could create issues for those using oversized coolers on their modules.
The above right image takes a look at the board between the CPU socket and the rear I/O connections. This image shows off some of the white print which is used mostly to identify connections on the board, but there are a few examples of the random announcements, like the "Hybrid CrossFire", "HT 3.0", and "HDMI" tags shown.
There are only two fan headers on this board, and both can be seen in the images above. A 4-pin connection for the CPU cooler is located right next to the top of the memory slots, while a 3-pin connection for a case fan is located right on the other side of the processor's socket.
