Wednesday, January 30th 2013

ASRock Unveils FM2A85X-ITX Motherboard

by
btarunr
 Discuss (34 Comments)
In what could bring an ear-to-ear grin on DIY NAS/home-server builders, ASRock launched the industry's first mini-ITX motherboard with a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports (of which one is eSATA 6 Gb/s). The new FM2A85X-ITX, as the name suggests, is a socket FM2 motherboard based on the AMD A85X chipset, in the mini-ITX form-factor. Everything on this board is just where you'd want it to be: the centrally-located APU socket is powered by a fairly strong 6-phase VRM, which along with ancillary phases, draws power from 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors.

The APU socket, which supports today's AMD A-series "Trinity" APUs, and likely tomorrow's A-series "Richland" APUs, is wired to two DDR3-DIMM slots supporting a maximum of 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866 memory; and the lone expansion slot, a PCI-Express 2.0 x16. The AMD A85X FCH wires out seven internal SATA 6 Gb/s ports (with RAID 0/1/10 support), and an eSATA 6 Gb/s port. Display connectivity includes one each of dual-link DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. The board features a total of four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers). Gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel HD audio, PS/2 keyboard, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports make for the rest of the connectivity. The ASRock FM2A85X-ITX is expected to be priced around US $110.

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34 Comments on ASRock Unveils FM2A85X-ITX Motherboard

#1
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
mSATA would make that sort of grin.
Posted on Reply
#4
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
FrickI don't want to read through the entire thread, but is that just that one board or are there many reports?
Many reports, just google "FM2A75M-ITX fire" and see what is posted.
Posted on Reply
#5
TheinsanegamerN
I dont think this one will have the fireissues. the a75 version only has a 3+1 phase vrm, this has a 4+2 phase. it was usually that 1 phase for the gpu that lit up. 2 phase should be much more stable.
Posted on Reply
#6
RaZZ3R
ASRock fuck'ed me up really bad
brandonwh64Hope this ITX board is better than their first cause it had been know to explode MOSFET's when OCed.

www.overclock.net/t/1337304/asrock-fm2a75m-itx-motherboard-fire
After the last fiasco with ASRock FM2A75M-ITX I'm not so easy in trusting ASRock anymore. While I do like some of there products I still think about my burned 600$ PC when it went up in flames (literally) after 1 minute spent in BIOS. I really hoped that an extra heatsink with thermal glue would have helped but it didn't so it went kboom and burn my CPU water cooler and the fire went out with an epic splash on my motherboard, CPU, RAM and GPU and fried my PSU also. Should have gone with MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 but I was to stubborn . That's the problem with not many products on the market, just 2 motherboards in ITX format for FM2, now 3 with this product. I'll just have to wait for ASUS and A10-6800K for my new PC.
Posted on Reply
#7
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
RaZZ3RAfter the last fiasco with ASRock FM2A75M-ITX I'm not so easy in trusting ASRock anymore. While I do like some of there products I still think about my burned 600$ PC when it went up in flames (literally) after 1 minute spent in BIOS. I really hoped that an extra heatsink with thermal glue would have helped but it didn't so it went kboom and burn my CPU water cooler and the fire went out with an epic splash on my motherboard, CPU, RAM and GPU and fried my PSU also. Should have gone with MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 but I was to stubborn . That's the problem with not many products on the market, just 2 motherboards in ITX format for FM2, now 3 with this product. I'll just have to wait for ASUS and A10-6800K for my new PC.
Its not ASRocks fault if you were OCing a CPU on a media style board that is suppose to be used at stock settings.
Posted on Reply
#8
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
RaZZ3RAfter the last fiasco with ASRock FM2A75M-ITX I'm not so easy in trusting ASRock anymore. While I do like some of there products I still think about my burned 600$ PC when it went up in flames (literally) after 1 minute spent in BIOS. I really hoped that an extra heatsink with thermal glue would have helped but it didn't so it went kboom and burn my CPU water cooler and the fire went out with an epic splash on my motherboard, CPU, RAM and GPU and fried my PSU also. Should have gone with MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 but I was to stubborn . That's the problem with not many products on the market, just 2 motherboards in ITX format for FM2, now 3 with this product. I'll just have to wait for ASUS and A10-6800K for my new PC.
If the motherboard did that, I'm pretty sure Asrock would replace all of the stuff you lost. Unless you were overclocking of course.

Kinda sad because i totally love Asrock.
Posted on Reply
#9
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
All board manufacturers are not perfect. MSI has had the same issues with there lower end boards like the one I have (785GTM-E45) and the same issue with weak mosfets caused failures twice now and if it blows again I will karate chop this motherboard and make sure it cannot be see by man ever again...
Posted on Reply
#10
seronx
A85X series has more VRMs than the A75 series.



My general rule is don't overclock if you have a 4-pin ATX.
Posted on Reply
#11
Ikaruga
RaZZ3RAfter the last fiasco with ASRock FM2A75M-ITX I'm not so easy in trusting ASRock anymore.
There were times when a whole truck of Asrock motherboard arrived in a state where the cheap KZG caps just fell off from the boards when you removed them from the antistatic bag. It was all defective and Asrock put their name on it.
If you see things from that perspective, you could say that it's much better now than how it was 7-8 years ago, more to that, I have to admit that some boards from the Sandy Bridge generation were quite good and well made;)
Posted on Reply
#12
Disparia
Having all 8 SATA ports internal or 7 ports + mSATA would have been the bees knees, but 7 internal ports on mITX is still pretty nice.
Posted on Reply
#13
RejZoR
I wouldn't mind if more vendors released more microATX boards. The selection is really poor compared to like 3 years ago...
Posted on Reply
#15
cadaveca
My name is Dave
I have one of these boards for review. Burn-in Testing will begin on Friday.
Posted on Reply
#16
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
cadavecaI have one of these boards for review. Burn-in Testing will begin on Friday.
Posted on Reply
#17
BrooksyX
cadavecaI have one of these boards for review. Burn-in Testing will begin on Friday.
Nice, sounds like you might want to have the fire extinguisher ready. :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#18
Sinzia
This would sound like a good home server, a shame there's one esata port and its not another internal port tho.
Posted on Reply
#19
TheGuruStud
At least they're not ECS :roll:

Their mid and high end boards are fine. Z77/970 extreme 4 and 990fx pro builds I have done are running great, even when OCed.

They've actually become my go to board for anything in that sector b/c they're built well and are much cheaper than competitors. Microcenter also has great deals/combos on them :cool:
Posted on Reply
#20
blibba
SinziaThis would sound like a good home server, a shame there's one esata port and its not another internal port tho.
You can always route a sata cable out of the back of the case and into the I/O panel if you're desperate.
Posted on Reply
#21
TheGuruStud
blibbaYou can always route a sata cable out of the back of the case and into the I/O panel if you're desperate.
This makes me want to upgrade my server as 6 on the low end 760 chipset isn't enough (so I stuck in a raid card :laugh: :o ).
Posted on Reply
#22
blibba
TheGuruStudThis makes me want to upgrade my server as 6 on the low end 760 chipset isn't enough (so I stuck in a raid card :laugh: :o ).
What case are you using with that many drives and no MATX mobo support, out of interest?
Posted on Reply
#23
TheGuruStud
blibbaWhat case are you using with that many drives and no MATX mobo support, out of interest?
The MB is microatx and the case is a midtower. Fractal Design Arc Midi Black High Performance PC ...
I was commenting in here b/c I'm looking for something more low power (SoC ITX with lots of satas hopefully, but unlikely).

50 bucks during BF crapfest (one of the few good things). I bought 5 of them ;)
Posted on Reply
#24
blibba
TheGuruStudThe MB is microatx and the case is a midtower. Fractal Design Arc Midi Black High Performance PC ...
I was commenting in here b/c I'm looking for something more low power (SoC ITX with lots of satas hopefully, but unlikely).

50 bucks during BF crapfest (one of the few good things). I bought 5 of them ;)
Seems like the best value bet would be a lame old C2D era MATX board with an undervolted chip and some PCI sata cards.
Posted on Reply
#25
TheGuruStud
blibbaSeems like the best value bet would be a lame old C2D era MATX board with an undervolted chip and some PCI sata cards.
But I won't use intel :p

I have a nice RAID card, but I F'd myself. I bought it with the intention of running tons of 2 TB drives...I ended up buying 3TBers and it's an enterprise card that wasn't updated (assholes), so no 3TB support.
Posted on Reply
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