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The MSI FM2-A75MA-35 is an FM2-socket MicroATX motherboard that supports AMDs latest Trinity processors, such as our Best Buy-winning AMD A10-5800K.
It uses AMDs mid-range A75 chipset and provides six SATA3 ports, eight USB ports (two of which are USB3) and three USB headers (one of which is USB3). The FM2-A75MA-35 also has VGA, DVI-D and HDMI graphics outputs, six analogue audio outputs with support for 7.1-channel surround sound, a Gigabit Ethernet port and a single legacy PS2 port for an older keyboard or mouse.
Thats not a bad specification for a budget MicroATX motherboard, but wed have preferred another two USB3 ports on the back panel. As all six SATA ports use the faster SATA3 standard, you dont have to worry about shuffling your connections to get the best speed for your new drives. We like the selection of graphics outputs too, as they provide a tremendous degree of flexibility, with a connection for every eventuality. Conveniently, it also supports dual and triple monitor configurations.
As the FM2-A75MA-E35 is a MicroATX motherboard, there isnt much room for expansion. You get two PCI-E x1 slots, which is convenient for adding more USB3 ports or a TV tuner, but one slot is obscured when you install a dual-slot graphics card. The board also has a legacy PCI slot. Again, this is handy if you want to install any old Fire Wire or USB expansion cards you have lying around, but not much else in this day and age.
Similarly, the MSI FM2-A75MA-35 has a useful, but not exciting, set of I/O headers. Weve already mentioned the single USB3 header, which can provide a further two USB3 ports for your cases front-panel or for a backplane bracket, and the two USB2 headers, which can provide a further four USB2 ports, but the board also has a front-panel audio header and serial and parallel legacy headers. The USB headers are very much welcome, but the other headers fail to set the pulse racing.
The two RAM slots accept RAM modules up to a capacity of 32GB. Supported RAM speeds range from 1066MHz to 2133MHz, although that last speed is only available through overclocking. The memory slots are very close to the heatsink, which could cause problems if youre using a large, high-performance heatsink, although we had no problems using the stock AMD heatsink and our reference Corsair XMS3 RAM.
The A75 chipset comes below the A85X chipset in AMDs pecking order, but its performance didnt suffer in our benchmark tests. We used the FM2-A75MA-E35 in combination with an AMD A10-5800K CPU and 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory, and achieved an overall score of 65 in our multimedia benchmarks. This is score is oh-so-slightly higher than the much more expensive Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4, which scored 63 under the same conditions, making the FM2-A75MA-E35 a bargain in comparison.
As for gaming ability, AMDs Trinity processors, such as the A10-5800K, have excellent built-in GPUs that can provide surprisingly good performance, making the FM2-A75MA-E35 a good choice if you want to create a small media PC that you can also use for some casual 3D gaming.
At a resolution of 1,280×720 with graphics settings set to High and with 4x anti-aliasing, the setup scored a very smooth 45 frames per second in our Dirt Showdown benchmark. With the graphics options set to high, anti-aliasing set to 4x and the resolution at 1080p, the setup delivered an average frame rate of 28 frames per second in our Dirt Showdown benchmark. That isnt blazingly fast, but it looks good and is comfortably playable, which is amazing considering youre using the CPUs built-in GPU.
The board has MSIs great Click BIOS II UEFI setup interface, which has powerful and comprehensive overclocking and configuration settings. Your CPUs temperature is always displayed, as is the motherboards, and you select categories of options by clicking panels located at either side of the screen. You can also choose between three profiles: Eco mode, Standard mode and OC Genie II mode. Eco mode is a power-saving profile, standard mode lets you adjust settings manually, and OC Genie II chooses safe and reliable overclocking settings for your components.
OC Genie II overclocked our components modestly, setting our CPUs frequency to 4GHz from its native 3.8GHz, our memory to 1680Mhz from 1600Mhz and the built-in GPUs frequency to 840MHz from 800MHz. Our system remained stable and the overclocked setup scored 68 overall in our multimedia benchmarks. That isnt a great increase, but it did give make our setup a snappier system.
OC Genie II is a great way of giving your system a slight overclock if you arent confident with overclocking or dont want to do it yourself. You can also overclock manually and save separate overclocking profiles, as well as adjust the voltages of your CPU and memory.
The MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 is a great motherboard for enthusiasts on a budget, or those needing to build a compact PC who still demand lots of configurability, and it wins our Budget Buy award.
