MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 (A85X) Motherboard Preview

To sum things up, I don’t want to dwell to much on the APU itself, as we will have a separate review based around that, but instead I want to go over a few features that the MSI board has, and most importantly, that the A85X chipset enables it to have.

The board from a first glance is definitely a looker with some clean lines, and a nice colour scheme that should match up well in any system. The inclusion of the Click BIOS II should be welcomed by existing MSI users as well as new users wanting a simple to use interface, and though we didn’t show the BIOS, we can assure you that we’ll take a look in the full review when the NDA is lifted. For now, we can only invite you to check out our other MSI motherboard reviews, where you will see the type of BIOS we’re dealing with.

USB 3.0 and SATA III are a must-have feature in this day and age, as with the inclusion of Intel’s Z77 platform sporting it natively from the chipset, AMD have had to step up their game, and they’ve certainly done that with two USB 3.0 ports on the rear I/O and an internal USB 3.0 header on the board (albeit in a stupid place, at least in our opinion). The feature that really stood out for us, was the amount of SATA ports, especially knowing that all EIGHT of these ports are rocking SATA III speeds, AMD have most definitely stepped up their game and are rivalling Intel beyond belief in this department.

In terms of performance, we are limited, but wanted to show you the strong numbers when it comes to the power consumption side of things with some of the lowest figures we’ve seen in our time and this can only be explained by the success of the FM1 Llano platform as this gave AMD a starting point to work from and from what we’ve seen so far; they’ve done a lot of improvements, straight away.

One key area that we’re keen to explore in the full upcoming review is of course; performance and overclocking. This is our bread and butter, and we’re eager to open the lid on it, but for now, we’ve been silenced, but once again, we invite you to check this out when we publish the full more in-depth review when the NDA lifts.

Pricing, we’re hoping to see something similar to FM1 and the Llano platform which will provide an affordable, yet performance driven solution to those needing it, who perhaps want to see a greater amount of performance, while being eco-friendly and kind to your wallet, when compared to Intel i3 based processors.

Until then, we hope you enjoyed the preview and from now until the NDA, we will be testing this board rigerously, trying to squeeze every drop of performance out of the board and APU to give you the best and most accurate results that you’d expect.

A quick word to AMD and MSI from us is to congratulate them on what we’ve been graced with so far, as this looks like a step in the right direction for AMD and MSI have managed to harness these features to the fullest. Hopefully this can be the product that will put AMD back on the map and get the AMD/Intel fight back on track, especially after seeing Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge processors dominating the market for so long. All we can say, is that the future looks to be a good one and we are glad we’re be around to see what comes of it.