MSI A75MA-G55 AMD FM1 Motherboard Review

Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., LTD.
Product Name: A75MA-G55 FM1 Motherboard
Price as Tested: $99.99at Newegg

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by MSI.

The Lynx platform, otherwise known as Llano for desktop, is out in full force now. The new chipset offers something of an alternative to low-end Sandy Bridge systems with comparable CPU power and extremely heightened GPU power. These APUs don't themselves a system make, however, and all the usual manufacturers have been providing a plethora of motherboards in which to place your new Lynx APU. In this article Benchmark Reviews is taking a look at the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard. The MSI A75MA-G55 sports the new FM1 socket which takes Llano APUs. Currently the two available are the A8-3850 and the A6-3650, which come ready to rock with Radeon HD discrete level graphics. We have already seen the performance of the AMD A8-3850 APU, now let's look at the MSI design for the A75 chipset and how they differ from the competition.

The A55 and A75 chipsets that use the FM1 socket and are powered by the Llano APUs are the culmination of five years of work at AMD since their acquisition of ATI. The idea was to build a processor capable of handling CPU functions and GPU functions. And, just for kicks, they threw the northbridge on the die too. Well, Intel's Sandy Bridge beat AMD to the punch back in January 2011, but that didn't end things. AMD released the Llano chips for netbooks and notebooks early in 2011 and finally launched Llano for desktop in June 2011. The main difference between the Intel Sandy Bridge processors and the AMD Lynx APUs is that AMD uses ATI Radeon HD graphics as the on-die GPU. This brings up the level of graphics far above what Intel offers in the Sandy Bridge.

The Sandy Bridge processors, however, reach far ahead of the Lynx APUs, if you are willing to spend the money. The A8-3850 that we reviewed performed on par, and usually somewhat better, than the Core i3-2100 that we tested it against. But the A8-3850 is, so far, the top of the line of Lynx APUs. The Core i3-2100 is near the bottom of Intel's line-up. AMD hasn't given up on higher level performance, though. Just before the Llano for desktop release, they released the 990FX chipset, an upgrade from the 890-series. This release continues on AMD's mid- to high-end offerings and will be compatible with the new Bulldozer CPUs as well as the older Phenom-II and Athlon-II CPUs.

The Lynx platform comes in two flavors, the A55 chipset and the A75 chipset. While manufacturers have released some A55 motherboards, I wouldn't expect them to be too common. The A75 motherboards are already coming in at extremely affordable prices and the features they offer over the A55 alternative are well worth the extra couple bucks. The A55 chipset doesn't offer support for USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb/s.

The AMD Lynx APUs offer somewhat more that just superior graphics performance in comparison to similarly priced Intel processors. They also offer support for newer technologies that Intel left out. For one, the A75 chipset brings native USB 3.0 support to the table. The Radeon HD Graphics on the APUs support DirectX 11 as well. On top of that, AMD offers the ability to pair a discrete graphics card with the on-die graphics in a hybrid CrossfireX configuration for even better graphics. Of course, to use all of this new technology, you need a motherboard to put the APU in. That is why we are taking a look at the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard. We've seen the ASUS F1A75-M Pro and what it has to offer. Let's see what MSI does differently and how that affects the performance and price of your potential new Lynx system.

MSI A75MA-G55 Detailed Features

The MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard, like all of the new A55 and A75 motherboards, will sport the FM1 socket. The FM1 is a 905-pin socket, a little smaller than previous generation processors and also smaller than the bulldozer processors will be. Because of the different socket size, the older AM3 processors obviously won't fit the FM1 motherboards. They will fit in the 990FX chipset, however. Still, the FM1 socket uses the same size heatsinks as the AM2, AM2+, AM3, and AM3+ sockets. That's outstanding, especially for aftermarket heatsink manufacturers who won't have to change a thing to accommodate the new socket.

The MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard supports up to 32GB of DDR3 RAM in its four DIMM slots. The A75 chipset supports RAM speeds of up to 1866MHz. This a significant increase as Intel's Sandy Bridge only supports RAM speeds up to 1333MHz. That being said, the technical specifications for the MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard have 1866MHz listed as overclocked only. The default voltage for the RAM is 1.5V. The color scheme for the DIMM slots on the A75MA-G55 motherboard uses alternating blue and black slots. For dual-channel memory, you'll want to use both slots of the same color.

As you know, the FM1 socket APUs come with a decently powerful GPU on-die, as compared with current alternatives. With that in mind, the PCI expansion on the A75MA-G55 motherboard offers quite a bit. There are a total of two PCIe 2.0 slots. The first one runs on a full 16 lanes. The second one, however, runs at x4. While some motherboards may offer the ability to divert PCIe lanes with multiple cards and make it x8/x8, the MSI A75MA-G55 does not. These slots are stuck at x16/x4. Still, you can pair a discrete GPU in CrossFire with the integrated GPU. This is something we haven't seen before the A75 chipset from an on-die graphics solution.

The MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard doesn't go overboard on the USB headers, and in a way, I appreciate that. Mid-board there are just two USB 2.0 headers and a single USB 3.0 header, for which MSI provides you with an expansion port. While this is nice because it is unlikely that you will find a case that has more than four USB ports, it also doesn't take full advantage of the A75 chipset, which supports a total of 12 USB 2.0 ports. Another two headers would fit, but they are probably unnecessary. I know I'd never use all of them. That the A75 chipset supports native USB 3.0 at all is a step in the right direction.

MSI uses a few different third-party controllers to increase the functionality of the A75MA-G55 motherboard. We mentioned a couple of them, the Realtek ALC887 Audio Codec and the Realtek RTL8111E Gigabit Ethernet controller. Both are fairly standard across the board.

Another important feature of the MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard is the SATA ports. There are six of them on the motherboard and each and every one of them is a SATA 6Gb/s port. Since the ports are backwards compatible with SATA 3Gb/s drives, I see no reason not to make them all support the faster speeds. The really cool part about that is that they are all natively driven off the A75 chipset. The Sandy Bridge chipset only natively supports two SATA 6Gb/s ports.

Before moving on, I want to take a look at some of the software based features included with the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard. For overclocking enthusiasts, the A75MA-G55 motherboard comes with OC Genie II, MSI's overclocking tool. The tool is pretty useful. It automatically overclocked the voltage and CPU settings to the same level that I found to be most stable through manual adjustments. I didn't spend a whole lot of time manually tuning the components, but I was impressed by OC Genie II's overclocking ability nonetheless.

Another feature I found extremely useful was i-Charger. I wonder today who doesn't have a mobile device or some other gadget that can be charged by a USB port. The problem is, it's usually much more effective to plug it into the wall, especially if you intend to use it while you charge it. USB ports don't push a lot of power, so the devices may end up still draining battery life while you are using them, even if they are plugged in. MSI's i-Charger intends to change that. It detects when a charging device is plugged into the USB port and increases the amount of power sent to the port to facilitate faster charging. MSI isn't the only motherboard manufacturer implementing changes such as this, ASUS has a similar solution called USB Charger+.

MSI includes their graphics overclocking tool, Afterburner, on the utilities disc as well. Afterburner does a good job of automatically overclocking a GPU or allowing you to tune it manually. Paired with the A75 chipset's ability to add a second Radeon HD 6000 series card and connect it in CrossFire with the on-die GPU, MSI Afterburner offers easy overclocking and tuning and can yield some good performance increases.

Finally, MSI has included an innovating piece of software unlike anything I have seen yet from competitors. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, I just haven't seen it yet. I'm talking about the Winki 3 OS. This tiny, linux-based OS offers a free alternative to users that don't use their PC for much more than web-browsing and document creation. It comes ready with OpenOffice.org as an alternative to Microsoft Office. It's web-based and offers internet surfing, e-mail, instant messaging, etc. It even has a skype application built in. Winki supports wired and wireless networking options, so you can connect it immediately and start surfing. I must admit that I am quite impressed with this ChromeOS-esque interpretation on making the operating system free. It doesn't offer a lot of functionality, but for someone that doesn't require a lot, it saves a few hundred dollars by eliminating the need to by Windows and Office.

AMD A-Series A75 Fusion Chipset

In case you aren't familiar with the still-relatively-new A-Series Fusion Chipsets released by AMD, here is a refresher on what they are all about. I focus here on the A75 chipset, but the A55 chipset is overviewed as well.

The A75 FCH is one of a pair that was launched with the Fusion for desktop release. The A55 FCH is the other. Both platforms support the new socket FM1 APUs and have almost all of the same features. With the Sandy Bridge release, we found ourselves with two very distinct platforms, one supporting the on-die graphics, the other allowing for limited overclocking. With the Fusion launch, the A55 FCH just seems like an antiquated and outdated version of the A75 FCH. I have to be honest, I'm not really sure what the purpose of the A55 FCH is, except that it is used in a lot of notebooks. The A75 motherboards can be found from near $100, so they are at a good price point, and the few differences between the two ensure longevity and expandability.

The reason I call it antiquated is because of the features differentiating the A75 FCH and the A55 FCH. There are really only three. The first, and most shocking, difference is the lack of native SATA 6Gb/s functionality on the A55 FCH. The reason this is shocking is that SATA 6Gb/s has been a standard since the 890 Chipset and has even been an add-in due to third-party controllers since before that. I'm not really sure why AMD would leave it off of any of their newer chipsets. Granted, the need for SATA 6Gb/s ports is still low, as is the availability of devices that take advantage of the higher transfer rates. But things don't stay the way they are for long in the computer hardware industry and limiting yourself to SATA 3Gb/s is a good way to ensure yourself slower speeds in the near future. Undoubtedly, many of the motherboard manufacturers will include SATA 6Gb/s capabilities through the use of a third-party controller. Or maybe they won't. That would cost them more money, and with the price of the A75 motherboards already pretty low, why bother?

The second difference is in the USB ports. Both the A55 and the A75 FCH offer two USB 1.1 ports, very outdated but still useful. They also offer a wide array of USB 2.0 ports. The A75 chipset offers up to ten USB 2.0 ports while the A55 offers up to fourteen. Those four extra that are included with the A55 FCH is made up by the four native SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports that are available on the A75 chipset. The A55 offers no native USB 3.0 compatibility. This isn't quite as shocking, considering none of the Sandy Bridge motherboards offer native USB 3.0 capabilities. All that means, really, is that a third-party controller has to be used. But again, with the price of the A75 motherboards, what is the point?

The final difference between the A55 and A75 chipsets is also related to the SATA ports. The SATA ports on the A75 FCH can utilize FIS Based Switching, while those on the A55 FCH cannot. This difference is the least concerning because it probably won't affect most users. FIS switching basically splits the bandwidth of a single SATA port so that you can utilize more than drive on a single port. Remember the IDE/PATA days where we hooked up multiple devices on a single port? This is similar. Hooking up two devices onto a single SATA 6Gb/s port would effectively split its bandwidth, giving you, essentially, two SATA 3Gb/s ports. That's not exactly true, because FIS based switching chooses how to allocate the available bandwidth. It's more like an external USB hub that you power off a single USB port from your computer.

I suppose what they technically means is that you could have up to a total of 12 SATA 3Gb/s lanes on the A75 FCH. I am a little unclear on exactly how many times the FIS Based Switching could potentially split the available bandwidth from a single SATA 6Gb/s port, but the potential for a lot of devices is there. I'm not sure how many users interested in the A75 chipset would need more than 6 SATA devices in the first place, but it does speak to the possibility of a very large home server of sorts.

Everything else about the chipsets is identical. The APU itself controls, of course, the GPU and the Memory Controller in addition to the CPU. The DDR3 RAM supported by the socket FM1 APUs includes speeds up to 1866MHz not overclocked. This is certainly more compatibility than the Sandy Bridge CPUs, which only support up to 1333MHz DDR3 RAM. The APU also houses support for a single PCIe x16 lane and four PCIe x1 lanes. Naturally, the APU controls the capabilities of the GPU, which include the legacy VGA in addition to HDMI and DVI. The APU is linked to the FCH through a Unified Media Interface with a bandwidth of 2GB/s.

The FCH (both the A55 and the A75) offers a few more additives, similar to what you find in a Southbridge, were this a legacy motherboard. The FCH controls another four PCIe x1 lanes, the 16 total USB ports (in their varying capacities), the SATA ports, the Audio controller, and the PCI port. A couple of interesting add-ins include an SD controller, an IR controller, and a controller for the APU Fan.

MSI A75MA-G55 Specifications

Testing and Results

Before I begin any benchmarking or overclocking, I thoroughly stress the CPU and memory by running Prime95 on all available cores, normally for 12 hours. In this review I stressed them for 6 hours. If no errors are found, I move on to a gaming stress test. To do this, I use Prime95 again to stress the processor, while running an instance of FurMark's stability test on top of this. If the computer survives this test for 2 hours without lockup or corruption, I consider it to be stable and ready for overclocking. After achieving what I feel is stable overclock, I run to these tests again for certainty. The goal of this stress testing is to ensure the clock speeds and settings are stable before performing any benchmarks. I adopted this method from another writer here at Benchmark Reviews and it seems to do a great job of flushing out what only seem to be stable overclocks.

Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proves extremely important in many gaming benchmarks, as the first run serves to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article.

AMD FM1 A-Series Platform

• Motherboard: MSI A75MA-G55
• Motherboard: ASUS F1A75-M PRO
• Processor: 2.9GHz AMD A-Series A8-3850 APU ($135 MSRP)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: APU Radeon HD 6650D; ASUS GT430 (Forceware 275.50)

Intel H67 Test Platforms

• Motherboard: Intel DH67BL with BIOS 1596
• Processor: 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) Intel Core i5-2500K ($225)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Yasya
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

Intel P67 Test Platform

• Motherboard: ASUSSabertooth P67 B3
• Processor: 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo) Intel Core i5-2500K
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Yasya
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI Radeon HD 6870 Twin Frozr III (Catalyst Control Center 11.5)

Intel X58 Test Platform

• Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro LGA1366 Intel X58 ATX
• Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield/Nehalem BX80601920 ($280)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
• System Memory: Kingston 6GB (3 x 2GB) KVR1333D3K3/6GR DDR3 1333MHz (PC3 10666) (CL7-7-7-20)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

AMD 890GX Test Platform

• Motherboard:Biostar TA890GXB-HD (890GX/SB850)
• Processor: 3.6GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-980BE HDZ980FBK4DGM (MSRP $195)
• Processor: 3.6GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-975BE HDZ980FBK4DGM (MSRP $175)
• Processor: 3.2GHZ AMD Phenom-II X4-840 HDX840WFK42GM (MSRP $105)
• Processor: 3.3GHz AMD Phenom-II X2-560BE HDZ560WFK2DGM ($110)
• Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X4-645 ADX645WFGMBOX ($110)
• Processor: 3.1GHz AMD Athlon-II X3-445 ADX445WFK32GM (~$79)
• Processor: 3.2GHz AMD Athlon-II X2-260 ADX260OCK23GM ($70)
• CPU Cooler: Scythe Mugen II
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1333MHz@7-7-7-21)
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI NVIDIA GTS450 Cyclone (Forceware 260.99)

AMD 990FX Test Platform

• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX/SB950)
• Processor: 3.7GHz AMD Phenom-II X4-980BE HDZ980FBK4DGM
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3
• Primary Drive: Filemate Solid GO 60GB SSD
• Power Supply Unit: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Graphics Adapter: MSI Radeon HD 6870 Twin Frozr III (Catalyst Control Center 11.5)

Benchmark Applications

• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1
• PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0b1019
• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage v1.0.1.0 64-Bit
• Futuremark 3DMark 11 v
• Futuremark PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 64-Bit
  • TV and Movies
  • Gaming
  • Music
• SiSoftware Sandra 2010.1.16.92 CPU Test
• Maxon CINEBENCH R11.5 64-Bit
• Resident Evil 5 Benchmark
• Lost Planet 2 Benchmark
• ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 transcoding
• Handbrake 0.94 video transcoding

AIDA64 Extreme Edition v1.1 Benchmarks

In November, 2010, FinalWire acquired and discontinued Lavalys EVEREST, updated it, and released it as AIDA64. AIDA64 is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes AIDA64 a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC.

All of the benchmarks used in our test bed rely on basic x86 instructions and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. While the AIDA64 CPU tests really only compare the processor performance more than it measures platforms, it still offers a glimpse into what kind of power each platform possesses.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used. The AIDA64 Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

The Zip Library test measures combined CPU and memory subsystem performance through the public ZLib compression library. ZLib is designed as a free lossless data compression library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The ZLib data format is itself portable across platforms and has a footprint independent of input data that can be reduced at some cost in compression.

The AES integer benchmark measures CPU performance using AES data encryption. It utilizes Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Paulo Barreto's public domain C code in ECB mode and consumes 48 MB of memory.

While I normally like to put both of the Everest integer performance tests on one graph, the Core i5-6500K made that impossible this time. With the new Sandy Bridge processors, Intel made some major changes to the way their CPUs handle AES compression. This new processing is a boon to webmasters everywhere, as well as anyone who deals with encrypted files on a regular basis. With that in mind, the Core i5 processor completely destroys the competition in the AES test.

Next we will take a look at the Passmark Performance Test results.

Passmark Performance Test

PassMark Performance Test is a PC hardware benchmark utility that allows a user to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems. The Passmark Performance Test CPU tests all benchmark the mathematical operations, compression, encryption, SSE, and 3DNow! instructions of modern processors.

In our tests there were several areas of concentration for each benchmark, which are combined into one compound score. This score is referred to as the CPU Mark, and is a composite of the following tests: Integer Math, Floating Point Math, Find Prime Numbers, SSE/3DNow!, Compression, Encryption, Image Rotation, and String Sorting. For this review, we've also decided to run the memory benchmark, which results in a composite score based on the following tests: small block allocation, cached read, uncached read, write performance, and large block allocation.

Up next are the results from the Futuremark Benchmark tests.

3DMark Vantage DX10 Benchmark Tests

Every few years, FutureMark updates their video card benchmark suites, but the older versions remain relevant for years after they've been superseded. 3DMark Vantage is a good example: it's an excellent test for DX10 support, and still can strain the burliest graphics cards with its two GPU-specific tests. Benchmark Reviews runs the Jane Nash and New Calico tests to stress our test cards. For this review I set the 3DMark Vantage settings to high quality, with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.

Of the two GPU tests 3DMark Vantage offers, the Jane Nash performance benchmark is slightly less demanding. In a short video scene the special agent escapes a secret lair by water, nearly losing her shirt in the process.

The New Calico test is more intensive, with a giant carrier spaceship sending a fleet of smaller bombers through a tumbling asteroid field with hundreds of spinning space rocks. The camera swoops among the asteroids as it follows the bombers through the field for a clear shot of the doomed planet below. Changing light sources and lens flares, as well as a fly-through of the carrier, add to the complexity of the test.

The score we have included here is a benchmark score rating the computer's performance throughout both of the graphics tests and a number of CPU tests. Both of the A75 motherboards perform similarly, but the MSI A75MA-G55 shows a slightly lower score than the ASUS F1A75-M Pro.

3DMark 11 DX11 Benchmark Tests

The 'Performance' level setting applies 1x multi-sample anti-aliasing and trilinear texture filtering to a 1280x720p resolution. The tessellation detail, when called upon by a test, is preset to level 5, with a maximum tessellation factor of 10. The shadow map size is limited to 5 and the shadow cascade count is set to 4, while the surface shadow sample count is at the maximum value of 16. Ambient occlusion is enabled, and preset to a quality level of 5.

3DMark 11's four graphics tests take the user through two underwater and two jungle scenarios. The underwater scenes (GT1 and GT2) do not use tessellation, but the jungle scenes (GT3 and GT4) do.

The score above represents a benchmark score using the performance presets. Unlike the 3DMark Vantage tests, the MSI A75MA-G55 slightly outperforms the ASUS F1A75-M Pro in the 3DMark 11 tests.

PCMark Vantage Benchmark Tests

PCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. PCMark Vantage is well suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista/7 PC: from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops, to dedicated workstations and high-end gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has decided to use a few select tests from the suite to demonstrate simulated real-world processor usage in this article. Our tests were conducted on 64-bit Windows 7, with results displayed in the chart below.

TV and Movies Suite

• TV and Movies 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback: HD DVD w/ additional lower bitrate HD content from HDD, as downloaded from net
• TV and Movies 2 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 19.39 Mbps terrestrial HDTV playback
• TV and Movies 3 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD Media Center
• TV and Movies 4 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Video transcoding: media server archive to portable device
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 48 Mbps Blu-ray playback

Gaming Suite*

• Gaming 1 (CPU=30%, GPU=70%)
  • GPU game test
• Gaming 2 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD: game HDD
• Gaming 3 (CPU=75%, RAM=5%, SSD=20%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • CPU game test
  • Data decompression: level loading
• Gaming 4 (CPU=42%, RAM=1%, GPU=24%, SSD=33%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • GPU game test
  • CPU game test
  • HDD: game HDD

Music Suite

• Music 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=3%, GPU=13%, SSD=34%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • Web page rendering - w/ music shop content
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player
• Music 2 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
• Music 3 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: MP3 -> WMA
• Music 4 (CPU=50%, SSD=50%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Audio transcoding: WMA -> WMA
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player

* EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully our readers will carefully consider how relative PCMark Vantage is as "real-world" benchmark, since many of the tests rely on unrelated hardware components. For example, per the FutureMark PCMark Vantage White Paper document, Gaming test #2 weighs the storage device for 100% of the test score. In fact, according to PCMark Vantage the video card only impacts 23% of the total gaming score, but the CPU represents 37% of the final score. As our tests in this article (and many others) has already proven, gaming performance has a lot more to do with the GPU than the CPU, and especially more than the hard drive or SSD (which is worth 38% of the final gaming performance score).

SiSoftware Sandra

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

The SANDRA DhryStone and Whetstone tests are CPU tests that run completely within the CPU + cache memory itself. These tests are perfect for seeing general efficiency per processing core. Dhrystone is basically a suite of arithmetic and string manipulating programs and is an older CPU tests. Even so, it remains a simple and accurate way to show RAW CPU processing performance. The whetstone benchmark primarily measures floating-point arithmetic performance.

Cinebench R11.5 is a great CPU specific benchmark. Its results are up next.

Maxon Cinebench is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. Cinebench is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. Cinebench Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward.

The Cinebench R11.5 test scenario uses all of a system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes" the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The OpenGL graphics card testing procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase with which the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode is measured. During the benchmark tests the graphics card is evaluated by way of displaying an intricate scene that includes complex geometry, high-resolution textures, and a variety of effects to evaluate the performance across a variety of real-world scenarios.

Resident Evil 5 DX10 Gaming Benchmark

On the PC version of Resident Evil 5, both DirectX 9 and DirectX-10 modes are available for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Operating Systems. Microsoft Windows 7 will play Resident Evil with backwards compatible Direct3D APIs. Resident Evil 5 is branded with the NVIDIA The Way It's Meant to be Played (TWIMTBP) logo, and receives NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision functionality enhancements.

NVIDIA and Capcom offer the Resident Evil 5 benchmark demo for free download from their website, and Benchmark Reviews encourages visitors to compare their own results to ours. Because the Capcom MT Framework game engine is very well optimized and produces high frame rates, Benchmark Reviews uses the DirectX-10 version of the test at 1920x1080 resolution. High quality settings are configured, with 8x MSAA post processing effects for high demand on the GPU. Test scenes from Area #3 and Area #4 require the most graphics processing power, and the results are collected for the chart illustrated below.

Lost Planet 2 DX11 Gaming Benchmark

A decade has passed since the first game, and the face of E.D.N. III has changed dramatically. Terra forming efforts have been successful and the ice has begun to melt, giving way to lush tropical jungles and harsh unforgiving deserts. Players will enter this new environment and follow the exploits of their own customized snow pirate on their quest to seize control of the changing planet.

Test A
The primary purpose of Test A is to give an indication of typical game play performance of the PC running Lost Planet 2. (i.e. if you can run Mode A smoothly, the game will be playable at a similar condition). In this test, the character's motion is randomized to give a slightly different outcome each time.

Test B
The primary purpose of Test B is to push the PC to its limits and to evaluate the maximum performance of the PC. It utilizes many functions of Direct X11 resulting in a very performance-orientated, very demanding benchmark mode. (Information obtained from the Lost Planet 2 website)

For the following benchmarks, Test A was used.

Let's take a look at some video transcoding tests next.

Video Transcoding Tests

ArcSoft MediaConverter 7

ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 is a powerful and easy-to-use all-in-one multimedia file converter. This utility quickly and effortlessly converts multimedia files into formats optimized for use on your mobile phone, PMP, TV, and many other popular devices. Newly added is the ability to turn your 2D photos and videos into 3D for playback on supported devices, as well as uploading to YouTube. Your desired media is just one click away! ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 takes advantage of Intel QuickSync when transcoding videos, making it a powerful tool for testing media transcoding capabilities.

Handbrake 0.9.4 Video Transcoder

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder program designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file in MPEG-4 Part 14 (.mp4) or Matroska (.mkv) containers. The program is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on portable media devices and with most media players. While Handbrake was originally developed for BeOS, it is now available for Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

Handbrake is a readily available program that easily handles and utilizes multiple CPU cores and threads. This makes it an ideal program for us to use to test CPU performance. The amount of time it takes for Handbrake to convert a media file scales very nicely based on the clock speed and available cores of the CPU. For this test, I used a 1.12GB video file in MPEG format to be converted to MP4 format using the "iPhone &iPod Touch" presets. I recorded the total time in (min:sec) that it took to transcode the video file.

These tests really illustrate a major difference between the AMD A75 platform and the Intel Sandy Bridge platform. This may be a big deal to you if you transcode a lot of video files for playback on mobile devices. The Handbrake tests don't take advantage of Intel's QuickSync technology and, therefore, the AMD platforms outperform the Sandy Bridge system due to better GPU performance. However, the ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 program uses QuickSync. The difference is clear.

That's it for the benchmarks. Let us know what you think below.

A8-3850 Overclocking

Overclocking the Lynx platform is quite a bit more difficult than it was on the previous generation of AMD platforms. The Athlon-II and Phenom-II series of CPUs were excellent overclockers, and it was easy to do. With Black Edition Processors, the CPU multiplier was unlocked and you could crank it up as high as it would go and still boot. This is the best way to overclock the CPU alone, as increasing the reference clock ends up overclocking the RAM and GPU (if one is onboard) as well. On the A-Series APUs, however, the reference clock is the only way to overclock. Overclocking enthusiasts were dismayed when the Sandy Bridge CPUs were locked down tight on the H67 boards and severely limited on the P67 boards. Luckily, the AMD A-Series APUs are not limited to Turbo overclocking only, but, as I said, the only way to overclock them is through increasing the reference clock. The CPU and GPU are completely locked.

I must admit that overclocking the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard was a little more difficult to do manually than it was on the ASUS F1A75-M Pro motherboard. I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that the A75MA-G55 uses a BIOS instead of a much more friendly uEFI. Still, the manual overclocking wasn't that difficult. Unfortunately, the AUTO settings for voltage didn't increase automatically as I pushed up the reference clock like they did on the ASUS motherboard, so I had to manually adjust CPU and RAM voltages in addition to the reference clock. Just like with the ASUS motherboard, I had to tune down the RAM settings on the A75MA-G55 motherboard in order to get a decent overclock. Since I can only adjust the reference clock, it affects everything, including the memory bus. The integrated GPU didn't have any problems adjusting to the overclock. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was actually more headroom in the GPU for higher overclocking. Unfortunately, I couldn't overclock it separately from the CPU due to the reference clock only restrictions.

Unsurprisingly, I reached the exact same overclock with the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard as I did with the ASUS F1A75-M Pro motherboard, 130MHz on the reference clock.

Temperature

The MSI A75MA-G55 runs very cool. That being said, it ran a couple of degrees hotter than the ASUS F1A75-M Pro motherboard. These temperatures are still extremely cool.

Power Consumption

The Power Consumption on the MSI A75MA-G55 beat the already impressive ASUS F1A75-M Pro by at least a few watts in every measurement except the Netflix stream, where it pulled 1W more power. Still the power consumption was higher than that of the Intel H67 platform, even with the i5-2500K processor.

MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard Conclusion

IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.

MSI has been around the motherboard manufacturing community for a long time now and they have set a standard for high quality products. The MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard falls right in line with that vision. The Military Class concept has evolved for MSI and they have continued improving the quality of their components. They are well into the second generation of that concept and the Military Class II components add longevity and durability to their products. The A75MA-G55 motherboard upheld our expectations and provided all of the features considered necessary for computing today as well as many that extras.

New Processing designs like the APU and the A75 chipset take away some of the choices for motherboard manufacturers in terms of on-board features like GPU and even third-party controllers for USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s. At the same time, the costs saved by the integration of these components onto the chipset allow for further innovation by manufacturers as to what they will include on their finished products. The inclusion of higher quality components is one of those options. As far as the APU performance is concerned, the A75 chipset looks like it is going to be a big competitor for lower-end Sandy Bridge platforms. The A8-3850 APU keeps right up in there with the similarly priced i3-2100. At the same time, the integrated GPU on the A8-3850, the Radon HD 6650D, outperforms the 2nd Generation Intel HD graphics by a long shot. In fact, it graphically outperforms the much more expensive i5-2500K processor. For entry-level systems, this chipset is a force to be reckoned with.

Where appearance is concerned, it looks like MSI tried to stick with their major feature set, the Military Class II components and build off of that. The blue and black theme is complemented by metallic gray throughout the board, giving the appearance of a high-tech, high quality machine. There is a little flare on the MOSFET heatsink, but only a little. The other components appear to be very functionally formed. This is consistent with the Military Class theme. Like the ASUS A75 motherboard I reviewed previously, the MOSFET heatsink itself looks like it's probably mostly cosmetic, as the PWM isn't covered. It's not as though the PWM is going to generate a whole lot of heat powering the Lynx APU anyway.

There is a lot to be said for the construction quality of the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard. The fact that they advertise their Military Class II components over anything else on the box pays tribute to that fact. They start off their Military Class II components with Highly-conductive polymerized capacitors that tout a tantalum core. Tantalum is a very hard metal that is corrosive resistant and tends to form a protective oxide surface layer. Since this oxide layer is very thin and can be used as a dielectric, tantalum capacitors can achieve a high level of capacitance in a very small volume. Tantalum cores are predicted to have a life-span about 8x longer than traditional solid capacitors. Up next is the Supper Ferrite Chokes. You have undoubtedly seen ferrite chokes on the ends of your USB or other cables. They are the big, round bump before the tip of the cable. Ferrite doesn't dissipate the energy running through it; it simply filters out high-frequency interference. This makes it great for power management, as it runs very cool. Finally, MSI uses Solid Capacitors. These are quickly becoming the industry standard and have a life-span of over 10 years. You can still find some motherboards made without all Solid Caps, but they are becoming rarer. As one final note on the construction of the A75MA-G55 motherboard, I found it difficult to locate and use the front panel headers for the power and reset switches and LEDs without using the manual. Sometimes they are labeled on the motherboard. On the A75MA-G55 they are not.

MSI really put in the effort to provide extra functionality with the A75MA-G55 motherboard. Some of that effort paid off, and some of it didn't. Mainly, when I say some didn't, I'm talking about the ClickBIOS. Rather than use a uEFI, MSI went with a traditional BIOS with some upgraded features. For one, it supports 3TB and larger drives. For another, it supports a mouse. The mouse support is spotty, however, and may be looked at in future BIOS upgrades. Those should be easy enough with the M-Flash functionality, allowing you to flash from a USB drive. Additionally functionality comes in the many programs included on the utilities disc. The i-Charger program helps to improve mobile device charging times. The OC Genie II helps you to overclock the A75MA-G55 to its full potential and it can do so automatically. It even auto sets the voltage, which is rare in an overclocking program. Another overclocking utility, MSI Afterburner, is designed to overclock your GPU. Finally, Winki 3 is a fantastic addition that comes with the MSI A75MA-G55 motherboard. Winki 3 is a fully functional linux-web-based OS that comes ready to go with OpenOffice.org and Skype, as well as IM and web-browsing features.

As of September 7th 2011, the MSI A75MA-G55 would cost you $99.99 at Newegg. That sits right about middle-of-the-road for an A75 motherboard. That being said, in my opinion, the features of the MSI A75MA-G55 are not middle-of-the-road. Starting right from the front you get their Military Class II components in addition to a slew of software items that enhance the functionality of the motherboard. Winki 3 by itself could potentially save you a couple hundred dollars off a whole system. There are two PCIe slots where the lower-end competitors have only one. Also, MSI gives you a USB 3.0 expansion port in the box. You won't generally find MSI at the bottom of the price scale, but their components make a difference and the additional features bring a lot to the table. In this case, I have to give good marks to MSI for the value of the A75MA-G55 motherboard.

Pros:

Cons:

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.00
• Appearance: 9.00
• Construction: 9.50
• Functionality: 9.00
• Value: 9.50

Final Score: 9.20 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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