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The A85X chipset and FM2 socket is supposedly here to stay for Trinity plus one more generation. As a result, AMD needs to make sure that the platform is right so that the new processors can slot straight in (whenever that may be). While they may have missed the ship on PCIe 3.0 (despite AMD pioneering it on the GPU side), we do get a tasty array of eight SATA 6 Gbps ports from the chipset with RAID 5 support and a promise that the integrated graphics part of the APU is powerful. In the next installment of our series of FM2/Trinity motherboard reviews, MSI sent us their top line motherboard to test. The FM2-A85XA-G65, while a rather lengthy classification, is a full sized ATX motherboard using the FM2 chipset in an MSI Military Class black and blue theme. At a mid-pack price of $100, MSI gives us the full eight FM2 SATA 6 Gbps ports, 5 fan headers, a full array of video outputs, and special features such as voltage read points and an OC Genie button.
<p><span style="font-size: small;">The answer to the question ‘What makes a good motherboard?’ can generate an alarming number of responses. When a manufacturer starts with a new chipset, the idealized view is that they partition the market off into segments – system integrators, HTPC, gaming, enthusiast, overclocker, legacy et al, and then try and get a fixed number of SKUs to target each one but encompass several others. This is not always true – design can be driven by sales of particular regions where certain features go down well, for example in the Chinese Internet Café market only one HD video output is needed. Today we look at the ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6, the high-end ASRock solution to Trinity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/6478/asrock-fm2a85x-extreme6-review">Read more...</a><br />
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This mainboard has a ton of peculiarities and two major features distinguishing it from the others. The first one is an extremely powerful voltage regulator circuitry with 32 phases for the processor alone. The second one is a special individual graphics card slot, which will ensure that your single graphics card works at the highest speed possible, even though this mainboard is originally designed for multi-card graphics configurations.
<p><span style="font-size: small; ">Reviews of the Ivy Bridge platform at AnandTech have focused solely on the primary chipset supplied to most desktop users – Z77. In a twist, today we are reviewing both the H77 platform, but also a mITX product in the form of the Gigabyte H77N-WiFi. Gigabyte has released two mITX motherboards for use with Ivy Bridge processors – both the H77 and Z77 variants, and they see the H77 as the one to focus on. This makes sense as mITX builds are not often overclocked, and are limited to a single PCIe slot, making two of the main benefits of Z77 void and pointing to H77 as the answer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; "><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/6427/gigabyte-h77nwifi-review-first-look-at-ivy-bridge-with-mitx" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
This mainboard is based on Intel Z77 Express and offers extensive networking and wireless functionality. It comes with a pre-installed mSATA drive and supports Thunderbolt. This is a very high-end model for those users who need maximum functionality immediately.
This product is based on Intel Z77 Express chipset and its functionality is significantly expanded due to a large number of onboard controllers. This mainboard belongs to the “Republic of Gamers” series and therefore supports a lot of additional features and technologies. However, we uncovered some minor issues, which, unfortunately, seem to be a little too numerous for a mainboard of this rank.
The long list of various peculiarities and features of this mainboard should make overclocking and performance optimization very easy. Free from any major issues, this award-winning product is definitely worth your attention.
<div><span style="font-size: small; ">The new release of Trinity processors on the desktop opens up a cascade of issues when it comes to choosing a new motherboard for your Trinity system. The main point of confusion comes in the face of chipsets, whereby multiple sockets and processor families can use the same chipsets and each motherboard manufacturer has a different naming scheme in order to differentiate the two. Both Intel and AMD have been guilty of this in the past, but in the past 18 months we had no real cause for concern - until now. With that, I give the first FM2 motherboard we are testing here at AnandTech, the ASUS F2A85-V Pro. This full sized ATX board is aiming for the enthusiast in the Trinity space.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small; "><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/6360/asus-f2a85v-pro-review-a-look-at-fm2-with-a85x" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
This mainboard could easily be based on Intel Z75 Express; however, it is indeed built on Intel Z77 Express chipset, although it doesn’t use all of its functionality. There is nothing wrong about it, the mainboard is still exceptionally feature-rich, but its price is a little above the desired level.
Besides two distinct peculiarities mentioned in the title of this article, both LGA 1155 mainboards on Intel Z77 Express chipset have a lot of other indisputable advantages. For example, a discrete Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card bundled with the top model of the two. However, both of them cause one unique inconvenience: both mainboards turned out very sensitive to the type of the power supply unit.