Asus F2A55-M review
A good-value FM2 board with some useful features, but you'll have to do without SATAIII
Specifications
FM2, microATX, AMD A55 FCH chipset, supports: AMD 2nd gen A-series
Once we fitted an AMD A10-5800K processor and 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory, we saw an overall score of 72 in our benchmarks. This ties in with the preliminary results we’ve seen from a motherboard with the top-of-the-range A85X chipset, so the cheaper chipset doesn’t seem to impact performance. We also used the OC Tuner in the BIOS to overclock the system automatically. This led to the processor boosting up to 4.3GHz instead of its stock 3.8GHz, and took our benchmarks up to an overall score of 77. The processor fan was pretty noisy at this speed, however.
We’ve covered graphics performance in our review of the AMD A10-5800K processor already, and we had no problems fitting an AMD Radeon HD 6570 to the board to run in CrossFire mode, which led to a significant boost in 3D performance.
Asus’s F2A55-M has a good specification for its size, and the addition of USB3 helps to overcome one of the limitations of the A55 chipset. However, we wouldn’t like to live without SATAIII, and we’re beginning to see ATX Socket FM2 boards with both USB3 and SATAIII built in start to appear for only around £20 more than Asus’s board. Despite this, as a good basis for a MicroATX PC with some gaming performance, the F2A55-M is a budget buy.
Basic Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Rating | **** |
| Processor socket | FM2 |
| Form factor | microATX |
| Size | 244x244mmmm |
| Processor support | AMD 2nd gen A-series |
| Processor external bus | 100MHz |
| Chipset north bridge | AMD A55 FCH |
| Chipset south bridge | AMD A55 FCH |
| Passively-cooled north bridge | yes |
| Integrated graphics | No |
| Supported memory type | DDR3 1066/1333/1600(OC)/1866/2000(OC)/2133(OC)/2200(OC)/2250(OC)/2400(OC) |
| Maximum memory speed | 19200 |
| Memory slots | 4 |
| Maximum memory | 64GB |
| Dual-channel support | yes |
Buying Information | |
| Price | £63 |
| Supplier | http://www.scan.co.uk |
| Details | www.amd.com |
Internal Ports | |
| Power connectors | 1x 24-pin ATX, 1x 4-pin ATX |
| PCI-E x16 slots | 1 |
| Dual graphics architecture | none |
| PCI-E x4 slots | 0 |
| PCI-E x1 slots | 1 |
| PCI slots | 1 |
| Fan headers | 2 |
| Floppy ports | 0 |
| IDE ports | 0 |
| Serial ATA ports | 6 |
| RAID chipset (max disks) | AMD A55 (RAID 0, 1, 10, JBOD) |
Features | |
| Wired network ports | 1x 10/100/1000 |
| Sound (ports) | Realtek ALC887 (optical S/PDIF, 6x analogue) |
| USB2 ports / headers | 6/3 |
| Firewire ports / headers | 0/0 |
| Legacy ports | serial header |
| Other ports | DVI, D-Sub |
| Cables included | 2x SATA |
| Brackets included | none |
| Software included | none |
Setup and Overclocking | |
| Voltage adjustment | CPU/RAM/Chipset |
| CPU clock max adjustment | N/A |