Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H review

If you’re desperate for AMD’s brand-new A10-7850K “Kaveri” processor you’ll need a motherboard to go with it, and the Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H, with its budget price, could be just the motherboard you need.

The F2A88XM-D3H is a microATX FM2+ board compatible with not just the latest Kaveri processors but older FM2 processors too. This means you can upgrade to the F2A88XM-D3H now if you already have an FM2-compatible processor and then upgrade the processor to a Kaveri chip at a later date.

Although the F2A88XM-D3H is a microATX motherboard, it has all the features that most user will need. There are four memory slots into which you can press a maximum RAM capacity of 64GB. Even better, the F2A88XM-D3H supports memory speeds up to 2,400MHz, which is comforting given the better on-chip graphics performance afforded by faster memory.

The F2A88XM-D3H also has a whopping eight SATA3 ports, which is more than enough for even the most dedicated disk hoarder, and you can be sure that all your drives will be working at the highest potential.

The F2A88XM-D3H is a compact motherboard, measuring just 244x244mm, so there’s predictably little room for expansion. However, the board does have two PCI Express x16 slots that support CrossFire. Bear in mind, though, that only the first PCI-E x16 slot conforms to the PCI Express 3.0 standard. The second x16 slot conforms to the PCI Express 2.0 standard and runs at x4.

The board also has a single x1 slot, which is ideal for adding USB3 and LAN cards, for example, and a single legacy PCI slot for installing older expansion cards such as TV tuners. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to access the x1 slot if you use a dual-slot graphics card.

Looking at the rear of the board, it’d be good idea to add a USB3 card. There are only two USB3 ports on the backplate, along with four USB ports, a single PS/2 port, three 3.5mm analogue ports, an optical S/PDIF port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The F2A88XM-D3H also has three graphics outputs, one of which is a HDMI output that supports a massive resolution of 4,096x2,160.

We tested the F2A88XM-D3H with an A10-7850K, and the test system scored 70 in our multimedia benchmarks, which is what we’d expect to see. If you’re using an unlocked processor, you can alter clock and voltage settings in the F2A88XM-D3H’s BIOS.

We like the Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H, especially the four memory slots and support up to 64GBs of fast RAM and many SATA3 ports. However, it isn’t perfect, with few USB3 ports and expansion slots. Even so, if you need a compact motherboard for your new Kaveri processor and don’t want to spend a lot of money, you should check out the bargain F2A88XM-D3H.

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Basic Specifications
Part Code	GA-F2A88XM-D3H
Review Date	1 Feb 2014
Rating
Processor socket	FM2+
Form factor	microATX
Size	244x244mm
Processor support	Trinity, Richland, Kaveri APUs
Processor external bus	100MHz
Chipset north bridge	A88X
Chipset south bridge	A88X
Passively-cooled north bridge
Integrated graphics
Supported memory type	DDR3
Maximum memory speed	PC3-19200
Memory slots	4
Maximum memory	64GB
Dual-channel support

Internal Ports
Power connectors	1x 24-pin ATX, 1x 8-pin ATX
PCI-E x16 slots	2
Dual graphics architecture	CrossFire, AMD Dual Graphics
PCI-E x4 slots	0
PCI-E x1 slots	1
PCI slots	1
Fan headers	2
Floppy ports	0
IDE ports	0
Serial ATA ports	0
RAID chipset (max disks)	AMD A88X (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD)

Features
Wired network ports	1x 10/100/1000
Sound (ports)	Realtek ALC887 (optical S/PDIF, 3x analogue)
USB2 ports / headers	6/3
Firewire ports / headers	0
Legacy ports	parallel header, serial header
Other ports	VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI
Cables included	2x SATA
Brackets included	none
Software included	none

Setup and Overclocking
Voltage adjustment	CPU/RAM/Chipset
CPU clock max adjustment	40MHz

Buying Information
Price	£53
Supplier	http://www.ebuyer.com
Details	www.gigabyte.co