GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-D3H FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X (Bolton D4) USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Great feature set and performance for the price. Run's flawlessly once bios is updated.

Cons: Bios needs to be updated big time. I had issues with correct memory settings until I did so.

I used the @asus utility from windows with success. I agree it's trippy, but I'm glad it works that easy. It's a nightmare to build and boot a DOS diskette these days.

In my case the bios update killed my raidxpert web gui, and I had to reinstall windows and AMD chipset drivers completely after the upgrade to get it back in working order. This is kinda to be expected after a significant bios update but it's a lot of work, which is also to be expected for a product of this quality at a price this low. There is always a gotcha

Overall Review: Raid worked flawlessly the whole time and updating the bios caused no problems with the data on my raid set. The issue was specifically to the raidxpert gui software after the bios update.

I would recommend this to tech savy types on a budget doing a budget build. I built this for my grandmother and it worked great. It it shipped with the current bios I'd give it 5 stars.

Pros: Great feature set. Modern BIOS, 4 DDR3 slots, supports DDR3 2133, has two PCIe x16 slots, good layout, and came shipped with a recent enough BIOS to "support" my A10-7850k.

Cons: Though it supports the A10-7850k and boots with it, the BIOS shows the CPU temp at 70 degrees Celsius when idle. I assumed it was a bad heatsink/paste install, so I took it off, applied some Arctic Silver, and ensured I was installing the stock heatsink properly. No change. I then exchanged the processor thinking it was the issue. Received the new one, but same issue. Next I exchanged the board for the same one. Sane problem. Went ahead and picked up an EVGA 600B PSU to see if that was the issue, but again same problem. Turns out, reading through the reviews, some others have the same issue.

Overall Review: Though the BIOS shows high temps, if I install Windows 7 and install the EasyTune 6 software, the software shows temps that I would expect. It says I idle below 30 degrees Celsius and under a stress test with Prime95 it only climbs to 58 degrees max. Also, when the BIOS says I'm at 70 (sometimes as high as 80) degrees, I can touch the heatsink and it doesn't feel that hot (just warm). I even quickly shutdown the machine and removed the heatsink and the processor doesn't even feel hot. At those temps, I would expect to have blistered my finger. In conclusion, I believe it is operating at the correct temps, but this motherboard is interpreting them incorrectly. Perhaps it was not properly calibrated by the manufacturer. I would definitely keep the board if Gigabyte would acknowledge the issue and provide a BIOS update to fix. Without an update, my peace of mind is missing, and I am unable to use the CPU Temp warnings, as they will constantly alarm. Also, I believe this causes the fan to run at full speed all the time, even though the actual temps would allow it to slow down.