MSI Shows off A85XA-G65 Socket FM2 Motherboard

[btarunr]

MSI showed off its top socket FM2 motherboard, the A85XA-G65. Based on the AMD A85 FCH chipset, the board supports upcoming AMD "Trinity" APUs in the FM2 package. MSI designed the A85XA-G65 with its Military Class III construction. The FM2 APU is powered by an 8-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3-1866 MHz memory; and two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (x8/x8, when both are populated). Given that it supports both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire, it's a little strange that MSI didn't name this model "A85XA-GD65." Other expansion slots include three PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and two legacy PCI.

All eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the A85 FCH are wired out as internal ports, with no eSATA. Display outputs include one each of DVI, D-Sub, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Other connectivity options include four USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and 8+2 channel HD audio. The A85XA-G65 features quite a few OC-friendly features, including voltage-measurement points with lead-holders, OC Genie, ClickBIOS II UEFI BIOS, etc. It will be among MSI's first socket FM2 motherboards to be launched, a little later this quarter.

[JrRacinFan]

Ahhh about time we get to see an APU combined with SLI capability......

[de.das.dude]

and still no sign of trinity,....

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Ahhh about time we get to see an APU combined with SLI capability......

whaaat? what is the point? while its good to have the freedom of being able to use anything it makes no sense to pay extra for an apu quad core when u can get a fx quad core for much cheaper

[JrRacinFan]

Originally Posted by sergionography

whaaat? what is the point?

Flexibility. What is your point? That you feel as though that maybe your FX processor wouldn't stand a chance at multi gpu scaling if against a "little" APU? Where's the link to your cheap FX cpu? FX Quad core you say?

[NC37]

While SLI is nice, I still question the reason. If you are buying an APU, you aren't necessarily buying it for the CPU. It isn't like Intel CPUs were you can buy a combo CPU just for the CPU. You do have a dual graphics option on APUs with Crossfire.

And yeah...still no sign of Trinity here yet.

[TRWOV]

mmm... a full ATX FM2 board... who buys these things?

ITX sure, mATX, why not? full ATX?

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Flexibility. What is your point? That you feel as though that maybe your FX processor wouldn't stand a chance at multi gpu scaling if against a "little" APU? Where's the link to your cheap FX cpu? FX Quad core you say?

Well at the moment lano and fx use different architectures, but u sure can get a quad core Phenom ii that is clocked higher than an a8 for cheaper or at least the same price but it performs better,especially the 970 and 980. Oh and did I mention Intel lol, a CPU priced similar to the apu has better CPU power,amds selling point on these is graphics
My point was buying an apu is for its integrated graphics therefore even getting a crossfire system is kinda pointless because ur better off investing in am3+ system or an Intel if that's the case that way u won't be paying extra for features u won't be using, and by crossfire I mean 2 discrete and gpus not dual graphics.
Tho I agree with the flexibility argument, but I won't invest into such a setup intentionally

[JrRacinFan]

Are you from the future sergion? I have a really good feeling that the new stuff based on FM* sockets are going to have a better IPC/IMC, making SLI/Crossfire capable boards based off of them more worthwhile. Just throwing this out to you, sorry if you feel as though I am arguing. I don't argue. You're obviously just reading out of context wrong or flamebaiting.

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Are you from the future sergion? I have a really good feeling that the new stuff based on FM* sockets are going to have a better IPC/IMC, making SLI/Crossfire capable boards based off of them more worthwhile. Just throwing this out to you, sorry if you feel as though I am arguing. I don't argue. You're obviously just reading out of context wrong or flamebaiting.

yes they will sure be faster than lets say a phenom II or a bulldozer but amd will be releasing the FX series based on the piledriver cores with AM* chipset that dont include integrated graphics

i was talking about llano in my previous post as you now pay 130$ or something for a quad core llano, when u can pay 100 for a quad core phenom II or even a 6 core phenom II (clocked at 3.0ghz just like llano)
and llano cores are based on the same cores as phenom II so higher clockspeed = better performance and more cores also = better performance
i didnt mention the quad core bulldozers as some people might not like these chips
but at micro center you can a 6core bulldozer for 120 dollars, still cheaper than the llano apu's and overclock much better so even though ipc is lower the clock speed might make it up

http://www.microcenter.com/specials/...ndlePROMO.html

now do you see my point?
why pay extra for the onboard graphics when you will not use it?
though its important to note that AM* piledrivers will come months after trinity and the FM2 platform, so yes within that period your argument is valid and trinity apus might offer the best cpu performance from AMD.

[JrRacinFan]

I understood what you were saying from the get-go, Llano still has a stronger IMC than Phenom II lineup.

[suraswami]

Nice layout board there. Only thing I can wish when using SLI (or even CF) along with an APU is to turn off Add-on cards while not gaming and CF APU when using an compatible AMD card. Turning off Add-on cards will save few more watts at idle.

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

I understood what you were saying from the get-go, Llano still has a stronger IMC than Phenom II lineup.

IMC=integrated memory controller right?
if thats what you mean well lets just say that extra bandwidth is to feed the gpu and doesnt affect the cpu performance, remember phenom II has L3 cache but llano doesnt
however over all the llano in some cases was like 7% faster clock-clock than phenom II which isnt anything to be mentioned

[JrRacinFan]

Yup yet again you misread what I said above. Was never talking about core clock performance, because any current gen CPU that is clocked at 3ghz+ is enough for gaming. Was speaking totally from an imc bandwidth perspective.

@7%

I'm looking too. Link me if you can find a review that did a crossfire/sli config with Llano.

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Yup yet again you misread what I said above. Was never talking about core clock performance, because any current gen CPU that is clocked at 3ghz+ is enough for gaming. Was speaking totally from an imc bandwidth perspective.

@7%

I'm looking too. Link me if you can find a review that did a crossfire/sli config with Llano.

and what difference will the imc do? I still fail to see how that is relevant and why it should be a deciding point? I'm guessing you mean PCI e lanes like 16x 16x or 8x 8x?
Because if so then again the desktop am3+ platform has more PCI e lanes than fm2/fm1 therefore lets you crossfire sli with multiple cards running at 16x each(that's on 990fx chipset) while in fm2 you get a max of 24lanes with 16x on one and 8x on the other or 8x 8x 8x I'm not aware on how different vendors will use such configurations but in general my point is if that is your concern then know that am3+ has the edge there
As for IMC that has to do with cpu connectivity with the ram and between phenom II and llano is a huge improvement but is only to feed the gpu and doesn't affect over all performance

[JrRacinFan]

Originally Posted by sergionography

and what difference will the imc do?

Here, take this in comparison ....
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...-review-2.html

It has been said that the Sandy Bridge lineup has the strongest IMC. Difference between 16x and 8x 2.0 would be very very minimal loss (not exactly what I was trying to mention). Also I understand the A8-3850 is near the bottom, but at this time I cannot find any benchmarks/reviews of current fm1 chips that was paired with 2 dedicated cards for multi gpu to show how it stacks up against everything else.

[sergionography]

Originally Posted by JrRacinFan

Here, take this in comparison ....
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...-review-2.html

It has been said that the Sandy Bridge lineup has the strongest IMC. Difference between 16x and 8x 2.0 would be very very minimal loss (not exactly what I was trying to mention). Also I understand the A8-3850 is near the bottom, but at this time I cannot find any benchmarks/reviews of current fm1 chips that was paired with 2 dedicated cards for multi gpu to show how it stacks up against everything else.

yes Intel by far has the best IMC and the best cache subsystem
However all these factors shouldn't be compared as a deciding factor because each architecture is different. For example the bulldozer/piledriver architecture have higher cache latencies than phenom or sandy bridge because the architecture was designed for higher frequency throughput. Had it been that everything was faster with lower latencies and short integer pipelines then the shared resources would not be able to feed two integer cores with acceptable scaling and the cores would have shorter cycles but will be starved when both are running. Offcourse the architecture can still be fine tuned which is what amd has been doing