MSI Announces A75MA-G55 Military Class Socket FM1 Mainboard

[btarunr]

World famous mainboard and graphic card manufacturer MSI today officially announces their brand new AMD A75-Series mainboard A75MA-G55 with Military Class II components to equip the mainboard with the best quality and highest stability. The amazing graphical performance of the A-Series APUs is complimented by the implementation of USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s ports to give the fastest performance when you're playing games, video editing, transferring files from mobile devices. With support for HDMI, DVI and 7.1 channel audio, the A75MA-G55 in its small MicroATX form factor is the perfect choice whether it is as a complete and powerful desktop PC or a versatile and efficient HTPC. MSI's A75MA-G55 is truly the best choice in high quality, high performance and high convenience.



Certified Military Class II: The highest quality and Stability components
With MSI's A75MA-G55 you never have to compromise on system stability. MSI's Military Class II mainboards are only built with the best Military Class II components available, which have been Military Certified to US Department of Defense stands. They provide the ultimate stability when playing games or overclocking and give reduced power consumption when watching a movie or working on documents.

MSI's Hi-c CAP, Super Ferrite Choke and Solid cap improve overall lifespan, power consumption and system stability regardless of the way the MSI A75MA-G55 is operated.

Amazing Graphics Performance
With the MSI A75MA-G55, a whole new level of integrated graphics is achieved. With support for the latest technologies such as DirectX11 for the most detailed games and ‘Steady Video' which removes shaky images from home videos. The latest AMD APUs offer better performance than general mainstream video cards meaning that not only your games will run smoother, but also Full HD Blu-Ray can be played back without slowdowns and converting videos from your PC to your smartphone or tablet is sped up greatly!



With MSI's A75MA-G55 today's hottest games like StarCraft II, DiRT3 and the ever so popular World of Warcraft: Cataclysm run at smooth frame rates with rich detail.

Winki 3 free full operating system
Providing consumers with the most convenient solution possible is the unchanged focus of MSI. That is why the A75MA-G55 comes with Winki3 the fully operational and free operating system that supports everything you need for daily computer use and more. Whether you're just browsing the internet or want to use the fully functional office suite with word processor and spreadsheet program, Winki 3 supports that as well as photo editing software, Instant Messaging programs, Skype and a hard-disk backup utility. Winki 3's versatility is its greatest strength and serves everyone from first time owner to power user.

Native USB 3.0 & SATA 6Gb/s for ultrafast data transfer
The A75MA-G55 is equipped with the native USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s interfaces for users to connect any latest storage devices. These interfaces are ten times faster than USB 2.0 and two times faster than SATA 3Gb/s. This means they support ultrafast data transmission at 5Gb/s and 6Gb/s respectively. When connecting any USB 3.0 external devices or devices or SSD supporting SATA 6Gb/s, users can fully enjoy the true sense of speed in data transmission.

MSI UEFI Click BIOS
The A75MA-G55 with Click BIOS Concept is based on the new UEFI technology which supports todays latest hardware. From faster booting to supporting large hard drives with a capacity of over 2.2TB. MSI's Click BIOS can be controlled with both a keyboard, but it also supports mouse control which simplifies navigating and manipulating system settings.

i-Charger energizes iPad at any time
The A75MA-G55 with i-Charger technology allows anyone to quickly charge the newest networking device.

To deal with the rising popularity of mobile networking devices like the Apple iPad, the A75MA-G55 is also equipped with the i-Charger technology for users to recharge their mobile networking devices. After installing the and activating i-Charger software, users can freely recharge their iPad at any time to enjoy the true convenience of mobile networking.

[TheLaughingMan]

Yeah, Winki's back!

[RejZoR]

When will they ditch stupid PCI slot in favor to another PCIe... It's 2011 for god sake and even though they got rid of IDE connector, this ancient PCI really has to go away.
If you use a discrete graphic card you instantly lose two (and only) extra PCIe slots. Rubbish and pointless.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

When will they ditch stupid PCI slot in favor to another PCIe... It's 2011 for god sake and even though they got rid of IDE connector, this ancient PCI really has to go away.
If you use a discrete graphic card you instantly lose two (and only) extra PCIe slots. Rubbish and pointless.

I like to have at least one PCI slot, but on this board it's kinda useless yes.

[scazbala86]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

When will they ditch stupid PCI slot in favor to another PCIe... It's 2011 for god sake and even though they got rid of IDE connector, this ancient PCI really has to go away.
If you use a discrete graphic card you instantly lose two (and only) extra PCIe slots. Rubbish and pointless.

Well, chances are if someone were to get this board they would probably only go with one lower end discrete card to take advantage the asymetric crossfire. Most of those types of card would probably be single slot as well, and being that this is only a mATX board, having two PCIe x16 slots would make for a decent single slot crossfire rig, I wonder if asymetric crossfire is compatable with two discrete cards for a nice little three way.

[Thatguy]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

When will they ditch stupid PCI slot in favor to another PCIe... It's 2011 for god sake and even though they got rid of IDE connector, this ancient PCI really has to go away.
If you use a discrete graphic card you instantly lose two (and only) extra PCIe slots. Rubbish and pointless.

the list of pci audio cards in use and are still available today new is mind numbing. Thats the reason there are still pci slots. I have a need for 2 pci slots on every motherboard I use.

[faramir]

Originally Posted by Thatguy

the list of pci audio cards in use and are still available today new is mind numbing. Thats the reason there are still pci slots. I have a need for 2 pci slots on every motherboard I use.

Plus there are TV tuners and other niche products people use in their computers that are still stuck with PCI. Heck, I own a communication board which requires ISA so I still keep an old Pentium machine around

[MikeMurphy]

Originally Posted by faramir

Plus there are TV tuners and other niche products people use in their computers that are still stuck with PCI. Heck, I own a communication board which requires ISA so I still keep an old Pentium machine around

Holy crap!

I remember upgrading my trident isa video card to a PCI bus card. Difference was mind blowing. Cheers to you, sir!

[Thatguy]

Originally Posted by faramir

Plus there are TV tuners and other niche products people use in their computers that are still stuck with PCI. Heck, I own a communication board which requires ISA so I still keep an old Pentium machine around

I have a machine that needs 2 isa slots, I have 5 motherboards and 5 cpus and a pile of ram and ide hardrives to keep it going. Sucks balls to.

[TheLaughingMan]

I threw all that old crap away because replacing it all with better, faster solutions was just too damn easy. Seriously, if it doesn't involve the phrase "I need it for work" why would anyone still be using old ass coms boards or anything on an ISA?

[Pestilence]

Rumor has it llano will overclock really well.. In the 4.4Ghz range. Pity is still a Phenom II core with Die shrink to 32nm

[micropage7]

and thats marketing says military class bla bla bla
every one talk about it has many features. higher price. and makes their board looks like abrams tank and your recent board looks like rusty fiat 500

[faramir]

Originally Posted by TheLaughingMan

I threw all that old crap away because replacing it all with better, faster solutions was just too damn easy. Seriously, if it doesn't involve the phrase "I need it for work" why would anyone still be using old ass coms boards or anything on an ISA?

There are no faster alternatives. The board in question is a communication interface for two particular HAM radio "modems" (transceivers; modulator/demodulator bit is part of the board itself). Back when this board was developed and built one could only dream of speeds it was able to achieve over air (over 1.2 mbps on lower microwave band), plus the entry cost was negligible compared to (slower !) professional gear. Mind you this was back in the days when people used PSTN line modems (28.8 and 33.6 kbps were top stuff back then) to connect to the Internet via dial-up with ISDN (64 kbps per B channel) just starting to take off, majority of computer networks (LAN) were still stuck to 10 mbps and thin coax was found in many places. The setup isn't limited to short range (WiFi-like) operation either so the two aren't directly comparable (WiFi, which came many years later, is faster).

PCI bus (and its successors, including PCI-e) bring their own set of problems, two of the more important ones are vastly more complicated bus interface and PCI ID requirement, which costs real money (though honestly I'm not sure whether this can be sidestepped by the use of a suitable bridge chip). It would take a heap of money to "fix" something that was never really broken to begin with and - seeing how it's an amateur effort - isn't very likely to happen

It isn't really needed for work though but neither are my completely maxed-out Vaxstation 4000/M96 (100 MHz CPU before even first 60 MHz P5 came out, full 128 MB of RAM, Turbochannel adapter board with quite some TC cards, plus I have a choice of different graphics boards) or other gadgets I keep around

[TheLaughingMan]

I am not sure how you can consider increased complexity and PCI ID as "problems". For one a ISA slot is limited to 16-bit bus communications and the PCI is up to 64-bit. It being more complex is a requirement. That is like saying a Pentium 2 processor is better at certain things than a i7-920 because the i7 is more complicated. And neither of which cost any additional money. It does waste space in a monolithic style kernel and softare interconnection layer, but most modern computers have enough storage to ignore that.

A HAM radio transceiver? Does anything still support that as a PC communication system? <- actual curiosity.

I simply do not believe you are using a HAM radio modem to access the Internet right now. Regardless of speed, lack of support, bus limitations, range, and availability of far better solutions vastly out weight the non-existent list of advantages of ISA.

Don't get me wrong, if old tech is a hobby, cool. I have no issue with you loving an old system or working with them just cause. But to say you NEED them is a long long long stretch.

[faramir]

Originally Posted by TheLaughingMan

I am not sure how you can consider increased complexity and PCI ID as "problems".

Have a closer look at interface specifications. With ISA you've got simple (essentially) addressing and DMA without multiplexing (Z85C30, the serial chip that handles the traffic, is essentially connected directly to the bus). PCI on the other hand complicates the interface, resource allocation and startup immensely and as mentioned before, there's the issue of acquiring suitable PCI IDs before you can even consider building a PCI card. It's not a hobbyist domain anymore unless said hobbyist has large budget at his disposal.

A HAM radio transceiver? Does anything still support that as a PC communication system? <- actual curiosity.

Yes, there is [and has been for a long time now] a Z85C30 driver in Linux kernel. Board does all the modem stuff while RTXes take care of actual transmission and reception.

I simply do not believe you are using a HAM radio modem to access the Internet right now.

I'm not, I never stated as much ? What I said was that I keep certain bits of old hardware around (as a hobby). I don't use my old computers to access the Internet either but I figured mentioning one of them might put things into perspective and perhaps trigger some fond memories in other board visitors

But to say you NEED them is a long long long stretch.

This started with the comment stating that PCI should go. I mentioned an example of PCI hardware that I use daily (Gigabyte P8000 DVB tuner) and I pointed out (with a smiley face ) there are still dinosaurs among us who'd prefer ISA was still around - for convenience's sake rather than necessity - because there are bits of hardware that have no modern replacement (on PCI or PCI-e) that we still keep and use.