Asus F2A85-V Pro & AMD A10 5800K Review (w/ HD7660D)

The Asus F2A85-V Pro ships in a traditional ASUS box, with the primary focus on the product name. There are some specifications listed along the bottom and right sides of the box. The A85X chipset is based on the FM2 socket and has Crossfire support, and 8x SATA 6 GB/s ports. It is worth pointing out that the Crossfire support is x16 bandwidth in single mode or x8 bandwidth if two cards are used. The A85x is designed to support 4 USB 3.0 ports and 10 USB 2.0 ports.

The bundle includes several SATA cables, a software disc, user manual, and backplate panel.

The ASUS F2A85-V Pro is an ATX form factor motherboard, measuring 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm. It isn't quite as attractive as the Gigabyte F1A85X-UP4 which is black and grey. ASUS have opted for a mixture of pale and dark blue slots which ruins the appearance slightly.

ASUS use ‘Dual Intelligent Processors 3' with a new DIGI+ Power Control. There is a Direct Key on the board, which lets the end user get access to the BIOS directly.

There are several substantial heatsinks scattered around the board to help improve VRM cooling. There is plenty of space however around the CPU socket for large heatsinks.

The four memory slots support up to 64GB of memory, with official timings rated 1066, 1333, 1600 and 1866mhz. As we will find out later however it is possible to configure the memory faster than these speeds. This is a dual channel memory architecture, like Intels' Z77 platform.

There is a handy ‘MEM OK' button close to the memory slots, which we had to use on several occasions. This is in an ideal position, close to the top of the motherboard and not obstructed with a discrete graphics card.

There are seven SATA ports on the motherboard, six horizontal, and one vertical as shown in the image above. All of these ports are SATA 6Gbps capable with support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD.

The motherboard supports 3 way Crossfire. The top slot runs at x16, the middle slot x8 and the bottom slot x4. While Crossfire is supported, the top slot with downgrade to x8. There are also 2 PCI Express x1 slots and a single PCI slot.

There is a single 8 pin CPU power connector close to the heatsink next to the processor socket.

The back panel connectors are:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port(s)
• 1 x DVI
• 1 x D-Sub
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x eSATA
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 4 x USB 3.0 (blue)
• 2 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 6 x Audio jack(s)

The Internal I/O Connectors are:

• 1 x USB 3.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 2 USB 3.0 port(s) (19-pin)
• 4 x USB 2.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 8 USB 2.0 port(s)
• 1 x COM port(s) connector(s)
• 7 x SATA 6Gb/s connector(s)
• 1 x CPU Fan connector(s) (4 x -pin)
• 4 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (4 x -pin)
• 1 x S/PDIF out header(s)
• 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector(s)
• 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
• 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
• 1 x System panel(s)
• 1 x DirectKey Button(s)
• 1 x DRCT header(s)
• 1 x MemOK! button(s)
• 1 x TPU switch(es)
• 1 x EPU switch(es)
• 1 x USB BIOS Flashback button(s)

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