Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H Review

Introduction and Technical Specifications

| Source: Gigabyte Price: £56.39 Author: Bryan Waters

Introduction

Despite many attempts by AMD to plant their flag at the top of the mountain, the high-end marketplace is completely dominated by Intel at the moment. However, the actual marketplace, in terms of units shipped, is all about the low-price, good performance, office-spec machines.

Any trip to your local PC emporium will show how the shops take advantage of the lack of knowledge from the average consumer to sell them a £300 PC that's "capable of gaming". Of course Freecell is a game, and so in a lot of ways that's accurate, albeit economical with the truth.

Speaking of economical, welcome to the Gigabyte F2A85XM-D3H, hereafter the D3H. An mATX motherboard that's available for the bargaintastic price of £60. We loved the Z77 D3H when we reviewed it and consider it one of the best value motherboards around. Even with the apparent limitations of the AMD processors, have Gigabyte have pulled another winner out of the bag?

Technical Specifications

For such a compact motherboard the D3H is actually rich with features for the price-point, including a whopping 8 SATA6 connectors, Gigabit LAN, support for some (for AMD at least) speedy RAM.

APU FM2 Socket:

AMD A series processors AMD Athlon™ series processors Chipset AMD A85X Memory 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 64 GB of system memory Dual channel memory architecture Support for DDR3 1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules Support for AMD Memory Profile (AMP)/ Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules Onboard Graphics APU:

1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 2560x1600 * The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.

1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 Audio Realtek ALC887 codec High Definition Audio 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel Support for S/PDIF Out LAN Realtek GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4) 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (All PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) 1 x PCI slot Multi-Graphics Technology Support for AMD CrossFire™ technology Support for AMD Dual Graphics technology Storage Interface Chipset:

8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors supporting up to 8 SATA 6Gb/s devices Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and JBOD USB Chipset:

Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header) Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers) Internal I/O Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector 8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 1 x APU fan header 2 x system fan headers 1 x front panel header 1 x front panel audio header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers 1 x serial port header 1 x parallel port header 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header Back Panel Connectors 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port 1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector 1 x HDMI port 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x RJ-45 port 3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone) I/O Controller iTE I/O Controller Chip H/W Monitoring System voltage detection APU/System temperature detection APU/System fan speed detection APU overheating warning APU/System fan fail warning APU/System fan speed control BIOS 2 x 64 Mbit flash Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS Support for DualBIOS™ PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a Unique Features Support for @BIOS Support for Q-Flash Support for Xpress Install Support for EasyTune Support for Smart Recovery 2 Support for Auto Green Support for ON/OFF Charge Support for 3TB+ Unlock Support for Q-Share Bundle Software Norton Internet Security (OEM version) Operating System Support for Microsoft® Windows 8/7/Vista/XP Form Factor Micro ATX Form Factor; 24.4cm x 24.4cm

1 - Introduction and Technical Specifications 2 - Up Close 3 - Test Setup and Power Consumption 4 - AIDA64 5 - SiSoft Sandra 6 - PC Mark 7 - CineBench and x264 8 - Gaming and wPrime 95 9 - Conclusion «Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next»

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