ECS A75F2-A2(1.0) FM2 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Stable, lots of features for the price. Overclocking tools present on a budget board is a nice touch, passively cooled VRM also helps in that regard.

Board layout posed no problems, nice to have a full-size ATX option in the value (integrated graphics) segment.

Cons: BIOS needs a lot of work. This one reminds me of a BIOS of 10 years ago, when jumperless voltage & clock settings were just introduced. The options are there, but nothing is calculated for you; for example, CPU speed does not change as you ramp up FSB, you're left to get out the calculator and figure it out yourself. That in and of itself is not the end of the world, but some things get more complicated, such as the resulting RAM speed, or hyperthreading and Northbridge frequency at a given FSB- You pick the base speed (DDR3-1333, DDR3-1600, etc), but if you want to know the real speed you need to figure out what RAM divider you'll be given, and calculate the actual RAM speed as you turn up FSB. Again, not rocket science, but I feel the auto-calculation should be there; every other board has it.

Voltage settings is similar. You can up the voltage, but nowhere do you see defaults, you can only see what amount of voltage you're adding or subtracting.

Has no means of setting RAM to XMP settings. I see mention of that (or the AMP, AMD memory profile?) in their literature, but there is no BIOS setting to access it. As such, you must set timings manually if you want your RAM running at its best. This leaves me wondering if some of the more advanced timings (the ones RAM manufacturers typically don't published) are getting set to their correct values when you choose "AUTO," or whether you're getting slow timings for max compatibility. That's why I like XMP options-- set it and forget it.

The BIOS just has some crudeness to it and needs a little polishing, and then I think this board could have serious potential.

Has been out some time, and no BIOS updates yet? Other manufactuers would have at least two or three out not long after release. Wonder how much attention ECS is giving to bug fixes, and product support..?

Board is using DPAK MOSFETS (field effect transistors) in the VRM, but at least there's a large heat sink sitting on top. I did not have any issues overclocking, but I found that heatsink getting too hot to touch under Prime95 stability testing, which is pretty typical of these inefficient transistors. The 3+2 phase design of the VRM puts a lot of stress on these components, and generates a lot of heat through those transistors. With such power hungry processors (100W TDP) getting put in these boards, I'd like to see a more modern design, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is a budget motherboard.

Other Thoughts: Overall I like the board. It's stable, cheap and performs well. Sure there are things that could be improved, but for what it is, I'm not complaining. I have an A8-5600K processor overclocked to 4.2 ghz.

Played well with all my other hardware and was a breeze to set up. All drivers can be found online (to get the newest version), or you can find older versions on the included CD.

Would like to see 4 RAM slots, but since I see a lot of other FM2 boards with only two slots, I attribute this to a possible limitation in the memory controller of FM2 CPU's. Still 8gb is pretty future proof, and 16gb can be had for not much more $$.

I wish all manufacturers would color code their I/O brackets. The cheap flimsy metal ones with the icons stamped in them scream cost cutting. I see more and more budget mobos with the higher quality, color I/O shields, so I believe change is coming! Just hasn't made it to this board yet...

Not much else to say. Good motherboard for the price.

Pros: It works fine

Cons: Bad layout,the front panel headers are towards the end of the motherboard so if you have a case with bottom mount power supply you have to remove the power supply to plug the cables.Also there is no connector for internal speaker for troubleshooting.Only 2 USB headers,the average case has 2 but if you are installing an internal card reader you have to have one case header unplugged. BIOS is minimal,no options for fan speeds

Other Thoughts: Its an OK board for a budget build

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your feedback on the layout/design concerns. Speaker connection can be found on edge of motherboard between the LPT and COM headers. There are 3 USB headers, 2xUSB 2.0 and 1xUSB 3.0 along the edge of the motherboard. In the BIOS you do have the speed fan controls to manually adjust to your liking.

If you have any questions or concerns with your motherboard feel free to contact us.

When contacting us, you can refer to case #ECD13050110006

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

Elite Member 99-hour service|

Pros: Inexpensive
Plenty of expansion slots
USB 3
6gb SATA
Better bios than I expected

Cons: None, so far, but double-check RAM installation...easy to think the sticks are fully seated when they are ALMOST fully seated

Other Thoughts: I purchased this motherboard (my first ECS) with an AMD A10-5800, to replace a Pentium D 3.4, and MSI motherboard, and a Radeon graphics card. Only hitch with installation was my own failure to properly seat the DDR 3 memory sticks (salvaged from the old system). With that one, self-infilcted hiccup out of the way, the new system not only posted, but booted up the Linux Mint I had been running on the Pentium system. No problems, so far, but it's only been a week. Longevity is the question mark.

Having said that, I have built quite a few PCs, for myself and some other people, and have used ASUS, MSI, DFI, Gigabyte, and Shuttle motherboards. So far, I am at least as pleased with the ECS. I decided to try the ECS not only because it offered everything I wanted or needed at a very low price, but also because a friend of mine who is a professional geek told me that, despite the reputation ECS may have had in the past, he's encountered remarkably few problems with them.

Pros: Worked great after reseating RAM

Cons: Manual's troubleshooting tips is sparse

Other Thoughts: When I first tried it, the display didn't work and I didn't hear the beeps mentioned in the manual. It turned out my RAM wasn't 100% seated, so re-seating them firmly fixed the issue. I just wanted to put this in the review to help other users who might encounter the same issue. Newer RAM with their fancy heatspreaders can be fiddly and may take several tries to get them all the way in.

Pros: Probably the best a75 mb you can get. Solidly constructed & fast.
No problems installing drivers.
Supports XP,7, and 8.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Recommend. I am very impressed with the speed and power of my pc now.

Pros: It worked right out of the box. Had the system built in 35 minutes and installed Win 7 with standard factory bios settings. This was a build for a customer in his 80's, so there was no point in installing all the utilities, as he would never use them anyway and he could be more apt to screw stuff up, but it is loaded with lots of good tweak software.
A great board for the elderly and packed with the latest goodies.

Cons: NONE.

Other Thoughts: I will be using this board for budget system builds using the AMD FM2 processor line. Trouble free system builds are one click away!

Pros: Nice and easy to setup and use. A well featured board for the price.

I used this to upgrade a customers computer from FM1 to FM2 with the A10-5700 and 2x4GB sticks of Kingston HyperX Red DDR3 1600 that they purchased and everything was easy to configure and went together smoothly. Windows 7 Pro 64-bit is very fast with this hardware combination.

Cons: None really, I have not used ECS boards in a long while but it seems that they have a new hit with this board.

Other Thoughts: To Bennie, he said the hard drive was from an intel i3 system not that he is using an intel system.

Here's to hoping this board lasts for the 6 years my previous ECS board I owned lasted.

Pros: Bob I belive your feedback is meant for a intel system this board is actually a amd fm 2 socket board. I am glad your intel system worked fine for you Thanks

Cons: n/a

Pros: Fast intelligent bios loaded all drivers and booted directly into an Intel i3-Windows 7 operating system on first boot-up (I was too slow with the delete key!) so I did not have to re-install Windows. System is running very cool with an A4 CPU. I was watching a Blue Ray Movie in about 2 hours. EZ, just like ECS said.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: This is my second ECS MoBo and I have been happy with both.

Pros: Great product, great performance. Used an AMD A4 5300 processor, 8 gigs of memory, Lepa N500 power supply,
1TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive, assembled in a Thermaltake V-3 case, Asus cd/dvd player, O.P. Windows
8. All went well during initial start, set-up and regular use.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Plan on using a ECS, ATX mobo in a new computer. Highly impressed with the quality of materials used and overall performance. I will recommended to my best friends.