The launch of Athlon II and Phenom II processors revives the user’s interest to AMD solutions. As we have already pointed out several times in our reviews, these processors manufactured with 45nm process offer very attractive combination of price and performance together with pretty good overclocking-friendly functionality. Moreover, AMD doesn’t shoot for the upper price segment but targets these solutions for the mainstream and budget markets, trying to win the hearts of affordable systems owners. And it looks like there are no reasons for the new generation of AMD solutions to face any problems on the way to success here.

Although, it is important to keep in mind that a CPU is not enough for a relatively high-performance platform with an affordable price tag: you also need an appropriate mainboard, of course. In addition to that, this mainboard should meet a number of requirements: on the one hand, it should support all contemporary technologies and offer overclocking-friendly functions, and on the other hand, it should be moderately priced. For example, all the new Socket AM3 AMD processors that we have tested so far were tested in Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P mainboard. During all our tests it performed perfectly fine, proved highly stable and predictable and offered excellent overclocking-related functionality. And we could certainly recommend it as a great Socket AM3 choice, if it hadn’t been for one small thing: its price is as high as $180. I believe that only the owners of the fastest Phenom II processors might be willing to spend so much money on a mainboard. Compared with the prices on triple-core Phenom II CPUs, not to mention dual-core ones, it is extremely expensive. Therefore, we ask a very logical question: are there any mainboards of the same remarkable quality, but at a more affordable price?

And it seems to me that I can give an affirmative answer to this question. We managed to get our hands on an inexpensive Socket AM3 mainboard called Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P that can offer you almost the same functionality as the more pricy Socket AM3 solutions at a low price of only $80. The secret of this low price tag is simple: this mainboard is built not on the high-end AMD 790FX chipset, but on a somewhat simpler AMD770 chipset, which, however, is quite capable of satisfying the needs of most AMD fans. That is why we decided check out if this supposition is true and correct and got our hands on a new low-cost Socket AM3 mainboard from Gigabyte.