Exterior and function
MSI is not a new
competition on the motherboard market. In fact, it’s one of the big
manufacturers. So, there’s nothing to be surprised when FM2-A85XA-G65
is neatly and smartly designed and even looks
compelling.
Product
images
MSI is extremely proud of the high-quality Military Class III accessories it uses on its motherboard. Tantalum
capacitors and Super Ferrite chokes are used in the voltage regulator while the
regular solid capacitors have the feature of life-improving. The high-quality accessories work faster and more stable than the
primary ones, have better technical specs, consume less energy and create less
heat. The hottest parts in the voltage regulator are covered on MSI
FM2-A85XA-G65 with 2 heatsinks secured by screws and connected to each other by
a heat pipe. The complex cooling solutions are a sign of pretty high status at
the motherboard, not a necessary thing because the heatsinks are not supposed
to be hot even at high data load. MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 is compatible to all of
modern Socket FM2 processors and
capable of support the up-to 64-GB system memory right after the suitable
modules appears. It’s not much different at the 3 models we tested before in
this respect but in general MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 is simple, and not always bad.
Motherboard
at tilted angle
For instance, the other motherboard has 3 PCI
Express 2.0 x16graphics slots, using the same operating formula: 1x16, 2x8 or x8/x8/x4. MSI
FM2-A85XA-G65 only has 2 (1x16 or 2x8) but it hardly a weakness. The Socket FM2 processor is quite interesting in
their quite-advanced graphics cores, so if you’re hoping to combine 2 or 3
independent graphics cards in your computer, you may want to prefer another
platform to begin. 3 other motherboards have an extra USB 3.0 controller to add
2 USB 3.0 ports at the back but MSI travel without it, limiting itself with 4
ports provided by AMD A85X chipset. We think that it’s enough to have 2 USB 3.0
ports at the back and 2 on the front of your computer. And finally, the 3 other
motherboard has 6 Gbit/s SATAs on the motherboard in
addition to an eSATA connector at the back while MSI provides
all of them as well as 8 internal connectors. Lacking eSATA port may be considered as a weakness, but not of the special
motherboard model. It seems to be an intentional solution for some parts of the
maker. None of the MSI motherboards, we tested recently has the eSATA port
though they can have the additional SATA controller. MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 also
lacks a COM port, available with
each product in the 3 other models, but most of users suing computer recently
don’t know what it is or don’t use it anyway.
Here are the selections of the connectors
for the back control panel of the motherboard:
·
PS/2 connector for keyboard or mouse
·
Four USB 2.0 ports, six more USB ports are
available as three onboard pin-connectors
·
A local network port (network adapter is built
on Gigabit Realtek RTL8111E controller)
·
D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort Video outs
·
Two USB 3.0 ports (blue connectors) and one
internal connector for two additional USB 3.0 ports implemented via AMD
A85X chipset
·
Optical S/PDIF, and six analogue audio-jacks
provided by eight-channel Realtek ALC892 codec
Connectors
There’re highlighted Power, Reset and OC Genie buttons on the top right corner of the
motherboard. OC Genie can help you overclock your
computer automatically. Besides, there’s a clear CMOS button on the bottom. V-Check Points control panel you can see is next to the 24-pin power connector, which can be used with the accompanying set of V-Check cables to easily keep track of the voltage with a voltmeter. The
motherboard offers 5 fan connections, 3 of which are almost identical to the 4-pin connector.
The
description of the motherboard structure
MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 motherboard can also be
called MS-7793 ver. 1.1 but the webpage of MSI only provides a description for
the 1.0 version. None of the motherboard makers offers a user-friendly
comparing system allowing us to quickly find the differences between the 2
models, separate 2 versions of an identical motherboard, but here, the versions
are almost identical. The only difference is the head of USB 3.0 sitting at the bottommost of the 1.0 version and the PCI Express 2.0
x16 slots on the 1.1 version.
Motherboard
detail
