GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3 Review

Editor: Gavin Bonshor  Date: 18-04-13   0 Comment(s) - Join the discussion here
Conclusion

When we first received the GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3, we were quite excited as we have always found GIGABYTE products to be of a very high standard. With it being a mid-range offering we weren’t expecting the best but we did expect a board of a suitable calibre. Did it live up to our expectations or did it fall short of the standard we are used to seeing from GIGABYTE?

First off the motherboard is Micro-ATX, so while keeping the majority of the features of the ATX form factor boards. This model has plenty of options available such as 8 SATA3 ports, DVI, D-Sub and HDMI. On paper it would seem like the perfect base for a small budget gaming rig and at stock this board is brilliant. The feature we were impressed with was the 3D BIOS, we really wish other brands would take notice of this and implement it as it’s simple, elegant and definitely a lot easier to use for the novice than the regular BIOS.

While we were testing the F2A85XM-HD3 and looking at its overclock potential, we hit a couple of hurdles in obtaining our target. Firstly it wouldn’t boot with x45 multiplier, then it wouldn’t boot with 950MHz on the GPU. Knowing our AMD A8 5600k is capable of this and more we reached the highest overclock we could attain (CPU – 4.434GHz & GPU - 912MHz).

To make matters worse we had lots of overheating problems with this board, whether this is due to the lack of heat sinks on the MOSFETs, a badly designed PCB or even some form of power leakage internally, we did have the fans on our test bench to the maximum to aid with the cooling. To give you an idea of how much cooling we needed, we had 2 x Delta fans (very powerful and high performance) blowing over the CPU socket area to cool the board down. The PCB around the CPU socket was scorching hot and as seen from our power consumption tests, the power the board is using is a lot more than the ASRock FM2A85X-ITX that we recently reviewed. For a platform and with a CPU with such a low rated output we were disappointed in the figures we got from the GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3.

Aside from the thermal problems, during our testing in synthetic benchmarks and in games, we were impressed with the performance. It held its own against the ASRock FM2A85X-ITX pretty well and it really did shine through the tests (when it didn’t crash our test system).



The GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3 is priced perfectly in our opinion and for the price you really do get good value for money. If you are looking for a feature packed motherboard to run a home media PC, a small budget gaming rig, or even a small powered PC for general browsing, we would recommend this board. If you are planning on overclocking then make sure you have very good cooling, not just for the CPU but also inside your case.

If you are looking for a budget motherboard which has fantastic stock performance then look no further than the GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3 motherboard. It has oodles of SATA3 ports, connections for your monitor and has the fantastic 3D BIOS which we really do love. Based on our other results such as thermal performance and power consumption, we felt that the Bronze award we gave the GIGABYTE F2A85XM-HD3 was generous after taking everything into consideration.

Pros
+ 8 SATA3 ports available
+ Great stock performance
+ Price

Cons
- PCB gets really hot during overclocking as we hit our thermal limits too often under load
- No heat sinks on the MOSFETs
- A lot of competition in the same price range
- Power consumption is terrible




Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.


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