MSI A75A-G55 FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I bought the MOBO on Black Friday and needless to say to say it was a great deal.
The install was a breeze I was powered on in about 20 minutes and it booted up flawlessly.

Cons: Haven't found any

Pros: Good build construction
Plenty of SATA III ports
integrated GPU overclock to 880MHz on stock voltage was a breeze
1866 MHz memory support worked right away (Crucial Ballistix)

Cons: Complete lack of CPU and GPU voltage adjustment

Other Thoughts: CPU Vcore adjustment - BIOS v1.6 didn't have it, and v1.7 just came out and doesn't have it. Overclocking my A6-3670K is basically impossible because of this. 2.9 GHz is the absolute highest the CPU will go before losing stability. Although there is an option for "NB voltage" in the BIOS, this doesn't appear to change anything. There is also a Pstate option in the BIOS which appears to have absolutely no effect on CPU voltage.

This is somewhat baffling considering there are options for NB voltage, SB voltage, and DRAM voltage as well as advanced DRAM timing control. Why is Vcore missing? It's the most important one...

Basically - if you have a locked Llano cpu, this board is fine. If you have a K series unlocked Llano cpu, get something else because this board will not get you anywhere with overclocking.

Pros: Haven't found any!

Cons: The HDMI port was not working on the first board I received from Newegg and I RMAed to MSI. Waited for almost a month for the board to be returned and it's DOA. Wasted my time and money. Will not buy a MSI board again!!!

Other Thoughts: Will give this no "egg" if I can help it.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.

Please kindly visit the URL below to set up a RMA with the following information.
http://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/rma_form_new.aspx

1. Full name (first, and last)
2. Telephone #
3. Physical address
4. Email address
5. Serial number (located on the box, or underneath the motherboard, eg 601-xxxx-xxxBxxxxxxxxxx)
6. Symptoms you are having onto the Special Remark section (as detailed as possible)

Once your information and warranty coverage are verified then we can proceed with this RMA for you.
Our turn-around time is typically about one week and our system will notify you automatically at every stage of your RMA process.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, received the unit back from RMA but are still having issues, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Nice board, plenty of expansion options. Seems stable now.

Cons: Had a few teething problems. On board NIC failed shortly after purchase and RMAed. Tech support was excellent. Got it back ~1 month after sending it in. The BIOS, given that it supports EFI, should be more like DELL BIOS setup screens.

Other Thoughts: BIOS feels slightly odd, like the EFI parts and Mouse support was added latter. Its fast and now that I have it back seems very stable. I have no complaints.

Pros: nothing.

Cons: Works but nothing superior for the price. I had used MBs from 3 other manufacturers, 2 are superiors (unfortunately I could not write the names) and 1 is about the same as this MB. Will use other MB next time assembling new systems.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for any issues that you are having with this product.
If you need assistance you can contact our tech support team at 626.271.1004 option 1 during regular business hours from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific Time.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Mostly works with Ubuntu Server v12.04 (see below)

Cons: The only snafu I had is that the hardware RAID does not play nice with Ubuntu. The OS installer crashed midway through. Eventually I figured it out and used mdadm instead and everything is squared away.

Other Thoughts: I'm using this as the mobo for a file server (separate RAID card). My system is relatively low demand because it's just a file server.

Pros: Great board after all... Just get a GOOD video card, do NOT cut corners on this and make sure your power supply is at LEAST a 550 watt.

Cons: AMD shold never make the same core processor with 2 different features that makes thing priority like this.. if they make a series F motherboards with onboard graphics ALL processors should work on either but because the red box processoes support onboard graphics because they have the main features integrated into the CPU and the green box doesn't it should be stated in full on MSI and other manufactures websites in their CPU support listings plus

Other Thoughts: Newegg should also POST that on their sites as well.. both neglect to give out one simple piece of information that would save a lot of headaches plus keep people from sending GOOD boards back or contacting MSI for no reason at all! This little step makes everyone happy in the end so PLEASE NEWEGG do this for us.

Pros: GOOD BOARD BUT VERY PICKY ON THE SETUP WITH PROCESSORS EVEN THOUGH MSI WEBSITES TELL YOU WHICH ONES WORK. THEY NEGLECT TO TELL YOU WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR BEFORE BUYING THOUGH.

Cons: VERY PICKY ON THE SETUP WITH PROCESSORS EVEN THOUGH MSI WEBSITES TELL YOU WHICH ONES WORK. THEY NEGLECT TO TELL YOU WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR BEFORE BUYING THOUGH. ON THE FM1 PLATFORM MAKE SURE YOU READ THE PROCESSOR BOX VERY CAREFULLY! FOR EXAMPLE THE AMD ATHLON II X4 641 HAS A FINE PRINT THAT STATES "SOCKET FM1 - REQUIRES DISCRETE GPU" WHICH MEANS IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON USING THE ONBOARD GRAPHICS YOU CAN'T WITH THIS PARTICULAR PROCESSOR. YOU MUST BUY A SEPERATE VIDEO CARD TO MAKE THIS BOARD WORK OR YOU WILL HEAR BEEP CODES AND HAVE NO POST SCREEN.

Other Thoughts: AMD NEEDS TO WORK BETTER WITH OTHER MANUFACTURES AND FULLY STATE IN RED LETTERS WHAT WORKS WITH WHAT CORRECTLY AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO ENSURE PROPER CPU TO MB CONFIGURATIONS BEFORE YOU BUY.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Scott,

We sincerely appreciate your help by posting this response and we would like you to know that our headquarter has been preparing to launch a new CPU support list which will indicate CPUs with/without GPUs, and additional warning will be added to our website to alarm customers to avoid incorrect processors purchased.

Thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: none

Cons: Dead right out of the box, 3 beeps - NO POST no matter what you had to interchange or swap out. I noticed others having the same problem. I would not recommend this board to anyone!

Other Thoughts: I would not recommend this board to anyone!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
There are no issues with this motherboard.
You will need to use a CPU with integrated GPU in order for the integrated display to work, or install an external graphics card.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: none

Cons: 3 beeps during POST.. no screen at all no matter what ram or processor you try to swap out. No leads to cut on the back of the motherboard as someone stated on an earlier review. This is not normal for MSI but I would not buy this board if I was you.

Other Thoughts: Need a better protection plan to help prevent bad items to be sold to the customer. My opinion, send all these boards back to their companies until they get it right...

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
There are no issues with this motherboard.
You will need to use a CPU with integrated GPU in order for the integrated display to work, or install an external graphics card.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com