| ASUS F1A75-V Pro | ASUS F1A75-M Pro | ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe | |
| Size | ATX | Micro ATX | Mini-ITX |
| Price (01/16) | $120 | $110 | $140 |
| Power Phase | 6+2 | 4+2 | 4+2 |
| Memory | 4 x DDR3 | 4 x DDR3 | 2 x DDR3 |
| PCIe |
1 x PCIe x16 1 x PCIe x4 2 x PCIe x1 3 x PCI |
1 x PCIe x16 1 x PCIe x4 1 x PCIe x1 1 x PCI |
1 x PCIe x16 |
| CrossfireX/SLI | APU + Normal CrossfireX | APU + Normal CrossfireX | APU CrossfireX |
| Audio | Realtek ALC892 | Realtek ALC892 | Realtek ALC892 |
| LAN | Realtek 8111E | Realtek 8111E | Realtek 8111E |
| SATA 6 Gbps | 7 + 1 eSATA | 6 | 4 + 1 eSATA |
| USB 3.0 | 4 + 2 | 4 + 2 | 2 + 2 |
| USB 2.0 | 2 + 8 | 2 + 8 | 4 + 2 |
Size obviously has advantages - a full size ATX board has room for
better power delivery, a broader range of PCI/PCIe options, and scope
for more controllers (e.g. SATA 6 Gbps). In the micro-ATX smaller form
factor, most of the features are still there - ALC892 audio, gigabit
Ethernet, at least 6 SATA 6 Gbps ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports, and
opportunities for up to 16 GB of memory with 4 GB DIMMs. It's only on
the mini-ITX we lose some functionality - only 4 SATA 6 Gbps on board
(plus one eSATA), room for only 8 GB of memory, and no PCI/PCIe x1
slots. But the advantage of a small board is primarily its size, for a
sleeker and slimmer system. The question then becomes whether the
F1A75-M Pro, the micro-ATX board, is worth $10 less than the ATX board
as a whole.
Visual Inspection
The black and blue livery of ASUS systems of late has been the stalwart
of their consumer level line-up, and appears again here on the F1A75-M
Pro, with a little white for the SATA ports. The wavy design with
pretty substantial fins for both the VRM and South Bridge heatsink could
be considered more style rather than substance, but due to the
motherboard supporting 100 W processors, the VRM heatsink may be
required to shift a lot of heat and it should be sufficient to cope due
to ASUS’ careful attention to detail in their design.
We also have EPU and TPU (Energy Processing Unit and Turbo Processing
Unit) chips present. These two have separate roles - to reduce the
carbon footprint of your computer with the EPU processor, and the TPU
processor is there to diagnose the system for an optimal overclock when
either the TPU switch is used or the BIOS option is enabled.
Working our way around the board, you will notice that there are four
fan connections available. The CPU fan is located above the socket, and
in the lower left half of the socket area there are two more fan
connections available - one of them is a PWM based chassis fan header
whilst the other is the PWR header which is 3-pin. The final header can
be found on the right-hand-side of the motherboard just below the 24-pin
power and it is a chassis fan which is also PWM based. Unfortunately,
you do not have option to control the two chassis fans independently in
the BIOS nor in the software.
Looking at the expansion options on this motherboard; there are two
PCIe x16 slots which run at x16/x4 when in a CrossFireX setup, resulting
in limited bandwidth of the second GPU, as detailed in our previous A75
reviews. Also on board is a PCIe x1 as well as a single PCI slot.
As SATA 6 Gbps is native on this platform, there are no SATA 3 Gbps
ports to be found. There are six ports in total and they support RAID
with the option to use RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10 or JBOD. These are all
in white on the bottom right of the board.
On the back panel of the board, from left to right, we have a combined
PS2 port, two USB 3.0 ports, a HDMI output, an optical SPDIF output, as
well as VGA and DVI-D ports for your display outputs. Further along,
there are two more USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports with a gigabit
LAN port above. Lastly, there are the six ports for your various sound
inputs and outputs.
Corsair is one of the innovation leaders in the memory and power supply
market. They also provide SSDs which, so far, have been mostly based on
the Sandforce flash controllers. Now they are offering an SSD based on
Marvell's 88SS9174 controller, which promises best-in-class performance
that can compete with what Sandforce offers.
