Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2 Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2: Packaging and Bundle3. Gigabyte F2A88XM-DS2; Layout and Features4. Testing Methodology and Overclocking5. Synthetic: PCMark 86. Synthetic: 3DMark7. Synthetic: 3Dmark 118. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage9. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201310. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.511. Synthetic: Cinebench R1512. Synthetic: Super Pi13. Real World: MKV Playback14. Real World: Media Encoding15. Gaming: Battlefield 416. Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 217. Gaming: DiRT Showdown18. Technical: Power Consumption19. Closing Thoughts20. View All Pages

Gigabyte have chosen to use an all-black colour scheme for the motherboard which looks very nice.  This should make it fairly simple to colour co-ordinate your system.  Its official form factor is Micro-ATX, but it is considerably smaller than a standard Micro ATX motherboard. It is the same length, but is only as wide as a mini-ITX motherboard.

As this is a value model, there aren't any heatsinks covering the VRM circuitry.  This is an indicator that this particular model hasn't been designed with overclocking in mind.  The 4-pin CPU header is located in the top right-hand corner of the motherboard.

This motherboard features AMD's FM2 socket which can be easily differentiated from the previous generation as it is black in colour, rather than white.  This is located right in the centre of the motherboard.

Gigabyte has clearly been trying to cut costs in a number of areas, starting with the memory slots.  This particular model only features two, which limits memory choices considerably.  Regardless, Gigabyte claim that it supports up to 64 GB of memory.  In reality though, you'll be limited to 16 GB as larger memory modules are very costly.  The two slots are capable of running DDR3 memory at speeds of 2400/2133/1866/1600/1333 MHz in a dual-channel configuration.  The 24-pin power connector is located just to the right of the memory slots.

There are four SATA-600 connectors on the motherboard in total, which should be enough for most of the target customers of this model.  These are hooked up dirrectly to the A88X chipset, and support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 configurations.

The remaining internal connectors are located along the bottom edge of the motherboard.  From left to right we find the HD Audio connector, a S-PDIF connector, a COM header, two USB2.0 headers, the front panel connector and a USB3.0 connector.

There is only one PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot on the motherboard, in addition to a PCI Express x1 slot and a legacy PCI slot.  This should provide enough expansion options for the target market of the motherboard.

On the rear I/O panel we find a fairly limited selection of connections, including:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 4 x USB2.0 ports
• 1 x DVI-D port
• 1 x VGA port
• 2 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 3 x Audio jacks

We are surprised to see that Gigabyte have included a VGA port instead of an HDMI connector. This would have made more sense for a media center build.

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