SFF.Network [SFF Network] ECS A960M-MV – M-DTX… or is it?

AMD’s AM3+ platform is great for value performance, but there’s one major market segment left unfilled by motherboard manufacturers with this socket – SFF. The board featured here today is the ECS A960M-MV, the smallest FX-Capable motherboard, but it has it’s caveats. Lets find them.

Read more here.

 

[iFreilicht]

Very good for a first review, and quite a good look at the details, but I think there might be a few more things you could've covered. I noticed the SYS_FAN header only has 3 pins, did you check whether the CPU_FAN header actually uses PWM or does it just use voltage modulation? Would've been nice if you took a look at the BIOS as well. With a board that fits this niche, you can expect that the BIOS might be missing functions vital for some users.
I guess it doesn't matter too much, because if you need a close-to-ITX sized board with an AM3+ socket, this is your only hope anyway.

 

[confusis]

Very good for a first review, and quite a good look at the details, but I think there might be a few more things you could've covered. I noticed the SYS_FAN header only has 3 pins, did you check whether the CPU_FAN header actually uses PWM or does it just use voltage modulation? Would've been nice if you took a look at the BIOS as well. With a board that fits this niche, you can expect that the BIOS might be missing functions vital for some users.
I guess it doesn't matter too much, because if you need a close-to-ITX sized board with an AM3+ socket, this is your only hope anyway.

It's not my first review Anywho, to address the points
-I don't have hardware capable of capturing BIOS screens (this board has the older style BIOS - non UEFI)
-I will have a look at the fan headers and get back to you.

The article was a tad bit rushed as we needed content to launch with And yes, it is the smallest AM3+ board, hence why I bought it to go with my FX-8350

 

[iFreilicht]

It's not my first review Anywho, to address the points
-I don't have hardware capable of capturing BIOS screens (this board has the older style BIOS - non UEFI)
-I will have a look at the fan headers and get back to you.

The article was a tad bit rushed as we needed content to launch with And yes, it is the smallest AM3+ board, hence why I bought it to go with my FX-8350

TBH, if you can make a photo of the BIOS look good, that would be fine, but I'm more concerned about whether you found any anomalies in the BIOS, missing support for SATA hot-swap, wrong temperature readings, interesting options for case-intrusion behaviour, stuff like that. Didn't want to see a picture of it, I'll trust you if you say that something's there or isn't.

 

[confusis]

I'll be booting it up for testing in the next few days - am going to be building the world's smallest FX rig.. I hope

 

[confusis]

UPDATE!!one!

BIOS is pretty sparse. I did note the following though
-No CPU voltage control (dang)
-Fan control is simple at best and doesn't seem to really function
-The CPU fan header is PWM and functions as such
-The only system fan header is 3 pin and seems to be locked to 100% all the time

Also;
-The sensors that Speedfan picks up for the chipset always read 0c (may be a SpeedFan issue though)

 

[iFreilicht]

Thanks for the update. Quite disappointing, though... :/ Maybe you'd want to include that information in the article?

 

[confusis]

I will write it up in a better form and add it at the bottom as an update (would have done it eaerlier but I was reviewing and building in the Jonsbo case)
It is disappointing but with the price point (under US$50) and the fact that it's the smallest AM3+ board, it's one of those grin and bear it situation for us SFF folks :/

 

[iFreilicht]

Corners have to be cut of you want to be on the cutting edge of SFF.

 

[confusis]

Of course. And fingers/hands -_- Thanks Jonsbo

 

[confusis]

I've discovered something interesting - while there is no discrete voltage control in BIOS, it appears the board automatically decreases the voltage as you downclock a processor.
FX8350;
4ghz - 1.35V (125w)
3.6GHZ 1.2v (90w or thereabouts)

Will do further testing to confirm.

 

[Urgentget]

Hi. Nobody has posted here nothing in a while. But I ended up owning this motherboard with an fx8370e and had to find out that it doesn't support the gskill ripjaws ram. So before I go and order the next one. I Would like to know which ram did you use with your 8350 platform?
Thanks.

 

[Urgentget]

I am trying to fuse a small amd platform.
ESC A960M MV,
Amd fx-8370e,
Cooler master seidon 120
Cooler master elite 130,
Xsilence 600w PSU,
Nvidia gtx 770 4gb,
Ram : ? Need help here,

 

[confusis]

I was using generic Crucial Value RAM in the build. It was over a year ago so the details are a bit fuzzy! That and the board exploding soured my opinion of this board. 125w cpu support.. Not :|

 

[Urgentget]

Hi. Thank you for your answer.
I kinda got stuck with the troubleshooting right at the start, and havent got time untill today.
The "experiment" turned on to install windows, and after the driver updates from the official ecs hompage it crushed and doesnt want to turn on again. I thought it was the RAM incompatibility, so i tried it with other sticks, after reseting cmos and all.
It powers on, i can feel the capacitors near the cpu and the onboard gpu get warm, but without any signal on the screen.

So i most probably will switch to intel for this built.
What really got me in depth tho is the rumor that some am3 boards which offer fx support after bios upgrade. There doesn't seem to be much information offered by the internet about this topic.
Do you know of any mini itx am3 boards that could support am3+ after bios upgrade? Has anyone ever did it?
Regards.

 

[confusis]

No itx am3 boards support FX, even after bios updates. I spent years researching, trying and testing