Asus’ F1A75-M Pro goes several steps beyond its low-cost competitors by providing more USB 3.0 connectivity, more on-board graphics options, and greater discrete graphics support.
Though the board lacks DisplayPort output, Asus has most monitors covered with its selection of HDMI, VGA, and DVI connectors. Users with two HDMI or two DVI monitors can even use an adapter on the other digital connector, since these are cross-compatible.
Four USB 2.0 ports ease the installation of front-panel bay devices, such as card readers, in addition to the traditional port extension cables. Internal USB 3.0 is also available in addition to the I/O panel’s four ports, since two of the rear ports are interfaced through a third-party PCIe-based controller.
Llano-based APUs have twenty PCIe 2.0 lanes, so Asus adds a second graphics card slot capable of running in x4 mode. While that might be fast enough for certain mid-range 3D cards, its probably most useful for adding displays that won't be tasked with gaming. And choose carefully. A dual-slot card in that bottom slot would almost certainly conflict with the USB 2.0 and 3.0 headers lining the board's bottom edge.
Switches on the side support Asus’ TPU automatic-overclocking utility and EPU energy saving modes, while the MemOK button underclocks memory to make it easier to boot up with low-quality modules installed.

Like its lower-cost rivals, the F1A75-M Pro only includes two SATA cables. While we would have liked to see four cables accompany such a fully-featured board, we earnestly question why Asus didn’t include at least three.
- AMD's A75 Platform: The Triumph Of Adequacy
- ASRock A75M
- Overclocking ASRock's A75M
- Asus F1A75-M Pro
- Overclocking Asus' F1A75-M Pro
- ECS A75F-M2
- Gigabyte A75M-UD2H
- Overclocking Gigabyte's A75M-UD2H
- Jetway TA75MG
- MSI A75MA-G55
- Overclocking MSI's A75MA-G55
- Test Settings
- Benchmark Results: Aliens Vs. Predator
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Benchmark Results: Crysis
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Which A75-Based Motherboard Is The Best?


Qne question, what does the APU,( either the A6 or the A8), have on F@H applications?
I know F@H is a great cause, might cure cancer etc, but wouldn't it be more geeky to search for radio signals of little green men?
I checked the CPU reviews and didn't see anything there either. You know it's going to be low utilization for these processors, which means it will be closer to the idle power than to the full-load power...
I think micro atx fits into plenty of SFF cases. Maybe we need to redefine..
I'd like to see a showdown of mini itx boards though, I think Anand did something like that recently. That's probably where the A8 CPU's need to go head to head with atom anyway, most reviews I've seen show the CPU's aren't all that cut out for desktop. Maybe the next batch that comes out in Q4/Q1 2012 will be better for desktop.
lol wut? Dude you got this QUAD CORE based on the phenom II architecture mixed up with the e-350 or the c-50 those are the ones that are going up against Atom.
1.) SFF originally stood for Shuttle Form Factor and was proprietary, using 2-slots.
2.) It was copied by companies like First International Computer and AOpen
3.) AMD established a standard for "open architecture" systems of similar design, called DTX.
4.) ITX is smaller than DTX and fits DTX cases.
Notice this has nothing to do with Micro ATX. People who claim that anything shaped like a cube is SFF need only be shown a full ATX cube before they start making excuses. People who point to horizontal cases and say SFF need only look at ancient AT desktops before they're forced to come up with excuses.
2-slots. That's what makes Shuttle copies different from everything else. Cubes can be any "size", HTPC's can be any "size", if SFF is a size standard it can only be used to apply to two-slot cases.
Some competitors have been trying for years to expand the definition of SFF. They are, of course, wrong.
Nobody's perfect, one of Tom's old team members once said that barebones always refers to SFF systems (even though full sized barebones existed long before SFF). But at least Tom's tries to fix those types of errors rather than force them into the vernacular.
I'm just asking people to be specific. If you mean cube, say cube. If you mean desktop, say desktop. If you mean mini-tower, slim tower, or slim desktop, just say it. Then apply a form factor "Mini ITX slim tower" or "Micro ATX desktop". And if you're saying "SFF" rather than media center, well it's obvious that SFF can do other things so just be specific and say media center.
If you're not specific, you might find yourself in a discussion about what the meaning of "is" is.
Would love to see some benches on the gigabyte with those max overclock numbers as the GPU would benefit greatly from the memory oc.
I used to run SETI@home for a while, but then thought that using up resources on earth to look for little green men, after which me may or may not find them (most likely will not), rather than address issues closer to home (disease research, weather prediction, etc) is kind of a waste, no matter how geeky the LHC and SETI projecs are.
On the topic:
They're selling the A8-3850 for around Rs.10,000 ($220)in India, when the Core i3-2100 sells for around Rs.5500. What's the point? I'd rather get a Core i3 + Radeon 5770 in almost the same price....
Now if only I could figure out how to force VLC to default to HD audio output to SPDIF instead of having to select it every time I play an .m2ts file.
Anyway, great article Tom's. You could add more "stream" games in there as well (WoW, CS Source, LoL, etc). Also a good Video playback review would make the chip show it's colors.
Cheers!
- analog audio SNRs and distortion levels
- data rate performance for included features such as extra USB 3.0 ports
- bandwidth and latency for ethernet connections
- gaming performance when overclocked
As far as the target resolution goes, I would assume that most HTPC builders would connect one of these up to a 1080p LCD or plasma display via HDMI, and would therefore try to match that native resolution during game play. So the question then becomes, "Both OOTB and optimally configured and O/Ced, what are the maximum settings that a gamer might hope to achieve in a given game, at 1080p?"