Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 Review – Are PowIRStages Needed with Trinity?
by Ian Cutress on December 14, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- FM2
- A85X
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly donating hardware for our test bed:
OCZ for donating the 1250W Gold Power Supply and USB testing SSD
Micron for donating our SATA testing SSD
G.Skill for donating our memory kits
ASUS for donating AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit
ECS for donating NVIDIA GPUs
Test Setup
| Test Setup | |
| Processor |
AMD Trinity A10-4800K APU 2 Modules, 4 Threads, 3.8 GHz (4.2 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASUS F2A85-V Pro ASRock FM2A85X Extreme6 MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 |
| Cooling | ThermalRight Copper TRUE |
| Power Supply | OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series |
| Memory | G.Skill TridentX 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 9-11-11 Kit |
| Memory Settings | 2133 9-11-11 |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 12.3 NVIDIA Drivers 296.10 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | Corsair Force GT 60 GB (CSSD-F60GBGT-BK) |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - DimasTech V2.5 Easy |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method may not be ideal for XYZ, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
In the Power Consumption tests, it is clear to see the Gigabyte take a commanding lead. This should be derived from the efficiency of the power delivery used on board.
POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
In the grand scheme of going through POST in our dual GPU scenario, we put an ideal line around 12 seconds for a great POST time. The Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 just misses this, and attempts to reduce the time by disabling controllers had no effect. Compared to other FM2/A85X motherboards we have tested, only the ASRock is faster than the Gigabyte.
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SodaAnt - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
I've never been sure why motheboard manufacturers continue to insist on skinning their main windows software instead of just using the default interface options, which in my opinion would go a long way to making their software not look like it was released for windows XP.Flunk - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
I always figured that they did that so the software looked like a 6th grade computer project. That way you know that they have to be good at hardware, otherwise who would buy it with such ugly software?arthur449 - Monday, December 17, 2012 - link
That's the best rationale I've heard yet.DanNeely - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
Should 6 SATA cables really be counted as a plus? With the exception of first time builders doesn't everyone already have a huge number of excess cables from older stuffed into their parts box?JonnyDough - Sunday, December 16, 2012 - link
Agreed. It might be a bit of a PITA to order cables, especially for first time builders but it would be great not creating more garbage. I think we're disposing of enough already, don't you? Just consider that you can't go anywhere on earth without finding trash on the shore.arthur449 - Monday, December 17, 2012 - link
Either way, we don't have as many as we do power cables.klmccaughey - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - link
I think the Sata ports make it a very interesting buy. With onboard sound/video that makes it an interesting option for a server / media server.I bet there are a lot of people (especially Anand readers) that have a second computer they user as server / bittorrent downloader / backup station all in one. I have one right next to me and had this board been around when I built it I would have been sold on it.
I use this 'server' as a 4TB Raid5 backup station, it's plugged into one of my monitors so I can use it as a media station to watch stuff while I, um, work ;)
I have been buying Gigabyte motherboards exclusively for about 8 years now. The reason for that is they are generally really reliable and overclock well. I build quite a lot of systems and they have not once let me down.
Another use it for your HTPC or media PC.
Their BIOS though is a bit annoying, but any time I contact their support they know what they are talking about and actually get back to you. ASRock would be my next choice.
PA Systems1 - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
As I now understand SATA, it requires an SATA 3 cable to get SATA 3 functionality. It is a good thing this mobo has 6 of those cables as I'm going from a build of SATA II to SATA III. Being so way behind the curve I don't have ANY of those updated cables. 6 cables is very generous and I'd thank Gigabyte for that should I choose this board. It's still a tossup between this one, MSI, Asrock or the higher priced ASUS V-Pro boards. I'm reading all these reviews very closely. There isn't any other board I've seen so far that offers 6 SATA cables. Anandtech is as comparable or better than Toms Hardware in providing in depth reviews and helpful information.jameserlay - Friday, December 14, 2012 - link
Last paragraph, wouldn't it make more sense if it said "peace of mind" instead of "piece of mind"???PA Systems1 - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
So we must give the writer/editor a piece of our mind. I've seen worse mistakes.