Conclusion
Sapphire's PI-AM2RS780G motherboard, powered by AMD's RS780G IGPchipset, has some strong points.The strongest being the Radeon HD 3200 IGP's clear dominance over Intel's lacklustre GMA X3500 IGP, as found in the G35 chipset, with respect to both feature-set and performance. In fact, the HD 3200 is the only IGP that comes close to achieving playable frame rates at 1,024x768 in a number of popular first-person-shooters - albeit at rather humble settings.
Coming 'close' to playable isn't really enough, so if you want to play any relatively recent games, we'd strongly recommend investing in a discrete graphics card - even if it's a low-end solution. NVIDIA's GeForce 8200/8300 may have something to say about that, and we'll be looking at their performance in due course. Further, we see that Intel's G45 chipset, encompassing the all-new  GMA X4500 IGP, still doesn't have wide-ranging software support for DX10 gaming.
However, if you simply wish to be able to use Vista's Aero Glass interface, and playback media, be it standard- or high-definition, and maybe play a little Quake 4 for nostalgia's sake, the RS780G absolutely makes sense; offering all the functionality of a discrete graphics card, if not the absolute performance. The provision of both DVI-I and VGA outputs allows for a multi-monitor setup using only the on-board graphics - although two DVI-I connections would have allowed even greater flexibility.
But, as always, there are a few negatives to note.
Whilst IGP performance may be a leap above the competition, in other areas system performance can fall behind; limited by AMD's AM2+ processors which are only competitive at the lowest price-points.
Hybrid CrossFire, whilst good in theory, is less so in practice. Notably absent is a power-saving mode analogous to NVIDIA's HybridPower, where a more-powerful discrete GPU would only be activated when needed.
Being able to have the performance of a HD 4800-series card on demand, with the power-draw of the integrated HD 3200 during idle and media playback would be a far greater boon than receiving around 20 per cent additional performance when pairing the chipset with a HD 3450-based card.
The board layout is somewhat compromised for particular uses, such as adding a full-length graphics card or larger coolers, but is understandable given the limitations of the mATX form factor and the board's target market.
There are some irritating foibles in the BIOS - enabling memory timings or Surround View, for example - which could be made more intuitive, or, at the very least, better documented.
