Jetway M2A692-GDG is the 3rd AMD 690G board we reviewed so far. Over the test period, we find the board stable and is quite pleased with its performance for a mATX board.

From the benchmark results, it can be seen that the 3D performance of the integrated core seems to have surpassed most of the other intergrated chipsets in the market. When overclocked, we see almost a 8% gain in GPU performance which definitely boost the 3D performance to another level.

In terms of USB and SATA II perforamance, they are all governed by the South bridge SB600. As we can see from previous test of the SB600 in the EPoX 690G board, the performance surpasses most of the competiting chipsets. PCmark05 score also improved. Most importantly, the board comes with passive heatsinks, that definitely save a lot of costs.

In terms of features, the board is very similar to the EPoX and ECS which we reviewed earlier.  Again, there is no 1394 support on this board. The SATA II ports support RAID 0,1,0+1. On its right is 4 DDR2 DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of memory runing in Dual Channel. The back panel consists of PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse, 4 USB ports, 1 VGA, 1 DVI, 1 x GbE LAN port and 8 ch audio.

The BIOS has a lot of options for those who loves to tweak, this is especially for the voltage levels supplied. The Vcore 7 SHIFT adds more voltage to the wide window of cpu vcore voltage available. The BIOS Back function using SPI bios is a good feature in case you killed the board with a wrong bios flash, you still have a back up.

Overclocking wise, the board has no issues running at 275x10. For those who wants to tweak the GPU CLK, it is a bit disappointing that option are left out in the BIOS. It can still be achieved using a utility to adjust the GPU CLK only.

In terms of image quality, HQV test reveals that 690G does not support 3:2 pulldown. This is in fact a let down as it is useful for fast motion images. The SiS 771 seems to do a better job in this area.

If you are those who wants surround view, this board supports it too. Just disable the TMDS support in BIOS and plug in an external graphics card. You will be able to get 3 displays. Check this page to see how it can be configured.

As this board uses a DVI interface, if you intend to playback HD videos, you can get a DVI-HDMI cable and hook it up to your LCD TV. Audio won't be channeled through the DVI port.

Overall, the Jetawy M2A692-GDG is a good choice for HTPC builders if you intend to playback HDCP contents to your LCD TV. The board is also VISTA READY. The only regret is the image quality which I hope future drivers will be able to solve it.

Pricing (US/UK)

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Pros

• 7.1 HD audio
• GbE
• Good USB performance
• Integrated 3D performance is good
• BIOS BACK

Cons

• 3D performance
• No 1394
• No SPDIF

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10.