Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI review - The A85X chipset - Socket FM2 - APU SKU overview

The A85 Chipset & Socket FM2

With the launch of Llano alongside came A75 motherboards, with Trinity and Richland that would be A75 and A85X. The APU's all have an embedded Northbridge, the motherboards do need some sort of a Southbridge for external connectivity and other controllers. This takes the form of the A75/A85X chipset, also known as the Southbridge or FCH. It connects from the APU's PCI-Express 2.0 bus over four links to the chipset.  The A85X series chipsets are preferred for FM2 socket processors. It's a little more enthusiast in terms of features.

In regard to chipset differences, the tier 1 motherboards will ship with either a A85X or A75 FCH. Now please understand that A75 can actually be used with both Llano and Piledriver APUs so you can expect channel availibility with brands using the actual A75 FCH being tagged sneaky as 'A85'. Then there is A85X which has eight SATA 6 Gbps ports embedded (as you can see from the upper overview) native opposed to six on A75. Aside from RAID 5 support that really is the biggest difference, well besides its PCIe lane configuration.

Now then to add to the confusion, A85X can support 2x8 lane for Crossfire multi-GPU configurations. This is all alongside 10 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 1.1 ports and yes, four native USB 3.0 ports straight out of the A85 chipset. Obviously the chipset also offers support for the older PCI slot, up-to three of them actually.This is all managed inside the FCH, thus motherboard manufacturers do not have to purchase extra USB 3.0 and SATA controllers, making the bill of materials a chunk smaller and cheaper.

The Richland APUs Overview

At launch AMD will be releasing five Richland based APUs with two different TDPs (100/65W). Have a look at the overview below as to what you may expect.