Introduction

The dual dragons are at it again! NO, not some side-scrolling arcade game; not those dragons! ECS's battle of the twin dragons, AMD and Intel, has been joined by yet another warrior clad in flashy golden armor and, maybe, a bit of edge. ECS has a legend behind their products that centers around their design philosophy of competing twins trying to take over the world, an apt tale for the battle in the semiconductor arena.

ECS has long been a producer of motherboards for OEM boxes, but has made the foray into the enthusiast market, slowly building up its technology offering to the point of being competitive on a broad scale, several years ago. I've recently covered many of their products including nearly every socket, and AMD's FM2 is no exception. The ECS A85F2-A Golden is ECS's high-end product offering for the FM2 socket, but that platform itself is value-oriented, so there is not much room for board makers to offer a lot. Be that as it may, many have succeeded in putting together quite a package, and I now get a chance to see what ECS has accomplished.

I'll be very straight and to the point: ECS has, lately, taken their product design into a slightly different direction. Focusing on offering a stable platform of standard features, ECS has a bunch of additional features catering to the modding crowd, including the launch of a design competition with a grand prize of $1,000,000 NT, which is about $30,000 USD. Such competitions show that they aren't exactly pushing the boundaries of overclocking but are more focused on flashy designs and "bling". Still, they have a new hardware testing gauntlet, called "Non-Stop", that encompasses stricter quality standards and tougher burn-in testing. Let's take a look:

Specifications