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PCWizKid takes a look at the latest AM3 motherboard from Jetway, the HA08.  This AMD motherboard supports the latest Phenom II's and even the new Athlon II x2 250 which are AM3 socket CPU's.   On first impression, the looks of the board is very similar to the Jetway HA07.  In fact, if it wasnt for the different coloured yellow and orange and the markings on the board for DDR3 support, you would think this is the same board, but it is not.  The beauty with a AM3 board is the support for DDR3 with the AM3 CPU, that is the main reason for getting this over the AM2+ versions which are limited to DDR2 RAM.  One thing to note also is that on ALL AM3 motherboards the CPU support is for not for AM2 or AM2+, just the socket AM3 processors can be used.

Test System

PCWizKid's Test system uses the latest Dragon Update Configurations, however today we will use the nVidia GTX260 video card instead of a ATI Radeon.

- AMD AM3 Athlon II X2 250 @3Ghz to 3.37Ghz overclocked.
- 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600 (at 8-8-8-24 and 1.7volts timings)
- MSI GTX260 Lightning
- Seagate EIDE HDD 500GB
- In Win Commander 1200 Watt Power Supply
- Lian Li PC-7FW Case
- SilverStone NT06 CPU Cooler
- Windows 7 Ultimate RC
- Ambient room temperature 21C or 70F

Video Review

Notes: I did not have to update the BIOS for it to detect the latest AM3 Athlon II X2 250 CPU.

Highlights of main features

1. AMD™ 790GX Chipset and AMD™ SB750 Chipset
2. AM3 CPU Ready
3. Supports AMD AM3 Phenom II™/ AM3 Athlon II X2 series processors
4. High-polymer solid electrolysis aluminum capacitors
5. Integrated ATI Radeon HD 3300 GPU(For Directx 10)
6. Support AMD OverDrive(AOD) Technology
7. Supports ATI Hybrid CrossFire Technology
8. Supports ATI CrossFireX Technology
9. Supports Dual Channel DDR3 1066/800
10. Integrated Serial ATA2 3Gb/s with RAID function
11. Integrated Gigabit LAN and e-SATA
12. Integrated ALC888 HD Audio CODEC with 8.0 CH
13. Supports Blu-ray/Full HD DVD playback
14. CPU Vcore 7-Shift / DVI Port/ Debug Port/HDMI port/VGA port
15. Ready for Windows® Vista™
16. Integrated DDR3 128MB side port memory
17. AMD GAME Ready
18. ATX Form Factor

Specifications

Conclusions - Good Value and Features for the Price


The Jetway HA08 is a stable board with lots of BIOS features and support for overclocking.  However as mentioned in the video review there are some areas of improvement relating to the SATA ports which can be partially covered if installing a large dual slot graphics card.  I also would like to see Jetway get rid of the switch card to make the PCI-e run at x16, this logic should be automatically detected. The heatsink/copper heatpipe design for dissipating the heat is of very good quality as in the previous model HA07.  The performance and compatibility with the latest Athlon II X2 250 proves that Jetway has tested and prepared their motherboards and the quality of the solid capacitors and parts show how this is more than a mainstream motherboard. Other than that I was pleased that the new AM3 Athlon CPU was detected without issues nor was a BIOS upgrade required .  All round for the price you cant go wrong for a a beginner enthusiast , this AM3 board with overclocking capabilities gives good value for roughly $100.