I really miss your comments next to the specs

I'm glad to see the power usage doesn't look to bad. 50W at 1.6Ghz/0.9125V. I'd like to see what it could do at at 800MHz and maybe 0.8V? I wonder if it could get close to 40W idle. I was a little leary about the new AMD's as they have a pretty high TDP still. But if they idle well, that's not such a big deal. Does AMD Overdrive or any other C'n'Q software work with it? Also, what's the lowest stable voltage at max speed?

On a side note, it seems from a BIOS perspective, we're still stuck either using C'n'Q at stock voltages or setting a single multiplier and voltage if you want to stray from stock. Sure would be nice to be able to have the functionality of something like CrystalCPUID in the BIOS so you didn't have to use software to do it. Or are there any motherboards that can do something like this?

K10stat or PhenomMsrTweaker should work.
The most interesting thing with the 710 and 720 is the fact that the fourth core can sometimes be unlocked. In reality, it's just as certain as overclocking: you may or may not get CPU that can do it.
The fourth core may be as good as the others and will be stable at 3.6 GHz, or it can only do stock speed, and in worst case it doesn't work at all or at a reduced speed.

56W on AM2+ board at idle looks good to me.
I'm considering upgrade my rig in this summer, and the timing seems right.

One thought about AM3 and AM2+ power consumption difference:
Maybe, the memory controller in AM3 CPU turns on both DDR2 and DDR3 parts
when it is plugged on AM2+ socket?
I thought that after looking the differences in WINRAR test.
I heard that - please correct any statements if I say something stupid -
WINRAR causes lots of memory accessing during archiving.
Thus, when the DDR2 memory controller works hard, the DDR3 one is also in full speed state, but does nothing (lower the power efficiency).

According to the DDR3 spec, some DDR3 memory modules have thermal sensors. Did you see any extra temperature readings in SpeedFan?

I have an Asus M4A78-E (DDR2 version of pretty much the same board).

I tried the M3A78 before, but RMA'ed it 2x because the large heatsink is very unstable (it wobbles like a teeter totter on that tiny little 7mmx5mm chipset with only two plastic pins to hold it and lots of 'wobble space' under the sink). Anyways, the M3A78 had Gigabit LAN... which is a known, tried and true make, and the M4A78-E has this Atheros L1e LAN. Is it just me, or is this Atheros a budget oriented inferior LAN controller?

It seems to me that its not as fast (latency wise) as my earlier nForce chipset LAN controllers (590a for instance). Im a gamer, and it seems like there is more of an 'interface lag' or something with this LAN controller than my previous boards. Or maybe its the chipset or bus interface (I think nForce is controlled right on the chipset, so the LAN has a direct interface with the chipset rather than through the BUS with the windows stack... not sure though). I suppose Ill have to spend the money on an i7 setup to get real performance, but this does concern me.

I wish there were more tests performed regarding LAN latency, stack, etc with the various chipsets and such. Maybe Im just such a 'twitch' gamer that notices these things more (my ping to most servers I play on is under 30 usually, so small things do make a difference), but things like this matter...

OR, I can pony up for a Killer NIC...

As usual Mike's article are worth reading the whole thing, and often more than once. Such are the traits of a good article and writer.

But I just noticed this little item after having to deal with it elsewhere. On other sites doing reviews I tend to go directly to the power consumption numbers and that's all. On many sites I can't do this, I have to page through the entire article. I just noticed this is true here as well.

I can live with it here, just an FYI.

A

well, im officially mad i didnt wait for am3/ 720BE like i planned.

nice review!