ASUS F1A75-V Pro vs. Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H – Llano at ~$120
by Ian Cutress on November 7, 2011 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Asus
- A75
Board Features
| ASUS F1A75-V Pro | |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | FM1 |
| CPU Support | Llano - AMD A series and E2 series |
| Chipset | AMD A75 |
| Base Clock Frequency | 100.0 MHz |
| DDR3 Memory Speed | 1866 9-9-9 |
| Core Voltage | Auto, offset and manual, 0.8 V to 1.7 V |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 8x to CPU limit |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 2.30 V to 1.35 V |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1T or 2T |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB Dual Channel Support for DDR3, 2400/2200/1866/1333/1066 MHz |
| Expansion Slots |
1 x PCIe x16 (runs at x16/x0 or x16/x4) 1 x PCIe x4 2 x PCIe x1 3 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 6 x SATA 6 Gbps, Support for RAID 0, 1, 10 |
| Onboard |
7 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x Fan Headers 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x Front Panel Audio Header 1 x S/PDIF Out Header 4 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x USB 3.0 Header 1 x COM header 1 x TPU Switch 1 x EPU Switch |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek® ALC892 |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header 2 x CHA 1 x PWR |
| IO Panel |
1 x PS/2 port 1 x D-Sub 1 x DVI-D 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out Connector 2 x USB 2.0 4 x USB 3.0 1 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet Audio Jacks |
| BIOS Version | 0902 / 1501 |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
As with the Gigabyte board, we see a Realtek NIC+Audio combination, although this is the ALC892 rather than the ALC889 on the Gigabyte. Also of note is that there is no Firewire here.
One of the big things to note is that the second PCIe x16 lane actually only runs at x4. This should put severe limitations on throughput if CrossFireX is planned between to discrete GPUs - however our GPU testing later shows that for some titles, it's not that much of a bottleneck.
In The Box
Driver CD
User Guide
IO Shield
Q-Connector for Front Panel
2 x Locking SATA 6 Gbps cables, right angled.
As we are in the $120 region for motherboards, we do not expect anything spectacular in the box. It is a shame that there is nothing special in here, such as a USB 3.0 back panel connector.
Software
Driver installation is very easy from the driver CD, using an ‘Install All’ option to do everything, or drivers can be picked from a list then installed at once. The same goes for the software, though ASUS’ software has focused primarily on the AI Suite application, which we have covered on various ASUS boards before, so I will only cover it briefly here.
The AI Suite is designed to cover everything—overclocking options, energy efficiency options, fan controls, sensors for monitoring, and BIOS updates. Over the iterations it has got quicker to use and works rather well.
The fan controls are of importance here, allowing the user to control the CPU and Chassis fans, in terms of a double gradient speed profile.
One flaw to mention is the saving of overclock profiles. When a profile is saved, if you have changed the voltage in the software, saving the profile does not save the current voltage. It saves the voltage to which the board was booted at. Hopefully this will be corrected in future iterations.
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Mitch89 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
A proper sound card definitely sounds better than the integrated ones that come on every motherboard, no question about it.As for PCI slots, I still have a few devices in use in my machines including a few DVB-T digital tuners and a soundcard.
When building my latest Media Centre, however, I purchased a PCI-e DVB-T tuner, so the legacy slots we're something I was looking for.
knedle - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - link
not really, the funny thing is that if you are interested in perfect sound, it's better to buy a board with integrated sound card and connect it with digital cable to amplifier, this way you are using amplifier as D/A Converter and you get way much better sound, than any sound card bellow $500 you can buycjs150 - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - link
It is interesting to see what people use the old legacy PCI slots for. As mentioned in my first post I still use a TV card in one but to be honest there are better PCIex1 cards for that now (do not get me started on USB TV tuners - useless is the nicest description). I havent used a PCI sound card for at least 5 or 6 years. Last time I had an external card (bundled with an ASUS motherboard) it also used a PCIex1 slot.Now I am all for recycling old bits of kit to keep build costs down but there does come a point when it is time to wave good bye to legacy slots. Motherboards do not often come with a floppy drive port and IDE socket has basically gone the way of the dodo as well. PCI surely is the next to go. But maybe posters here have convinced me that there is at least a little bit of time left in it
DanNeely - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - link
The only card I have that's legacy PCI is a BIOS POST code reader that I've been unable to find a PCIe1x replacement for; but with UEFI replacing BIOS it's about to become obsolete anyway.Googer - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link
Sounds like you ought to keep an old legacy system for TV Tuners, SCSI, etc along side your new-fangled PC; both on the network so you can easily access the older equipment.Second, all of those devices listed are available in PCI-e, Quality Network Cards are available from Intel in PCI-e flavor. Creative makes X-Fi in PCI-e, and LSI (and adaptec?) Made a SCSI card in PCI-e. Serial Parallel ports can also be had with PCI-e and I agree that USB emulators for RS232/IEEE1284 are garbage.
Edgar_Wibeau - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
From the screenshots I can see, the BIOS/UEFI version used with the Asus board is 0902. Yet, their current version is 1502, which dates 2011/10/21, and in between 1103 (2011/10/07) and 1102 (2011/08/26). Did you flash a more current UEFI after taking the shots? Or if not, why?See
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_Socket_FM1/F1...
jan.peralta - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
i would love to see gaming benchmarks for HD6670 with the A6, especially for the ASUS boardthanks!
Dug - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I second that!Dug - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I must be out of the loop.What does One 580 mean?
silverblue - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
A single 580 as opposed to two of them.