Question 1

hey everybody, does that thing have a AM3+ socket?

Accepted Answer

No, it has an FM2 socket designed for the APU processors with Radeon Graphics.

Question 2

Upgrading a dead motherboard. Will my AMD Athlon II X4 620 fit the MSI FM2-A85XA-G65?

Accepted Answer

NO!!!!
The motherboard is an FM2 socket motherboard.
You would have to buy a new CPU such as a AMD A10-6800K.
Check out the motherboards on  the web if you want a new motherboard for your AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU.

Question 3

can this board take ddr2?

Accepted Answer

Unfortunately, this board will NOT take DDR2 memory.

It is DDR3 only. (Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1866/2133*(OC) DRAM, 32GB Max)

The pinouts of DDR2 are different than DDR3. And the actual physical 'slot' for the memory is different. This means that the board won't even recognize that you have any memory on the motherboard at all, even if you could force it in some how.

DDR3 memory is actually rather inexpensive now, and upgrading to DDR3 will increase your speed and performance.

Question 4

what apu for this mb?

Accepted Answer

I got the A8, but any Trinity or older APU works.  Be sure to update the BIOS first before popping in a Trinity, unless you have purchased a revision w/ BIOS support for Trinity.

Question 5

Have searched for over an hour even on MSI site - The owners manual nor anyone else has bothered to tell you what number the CMOS battery is.  You would think that would be in the owners manual?

Accepted Answer

I would assume the CMOS battery is the small battery that is clearly visible on the mobo? If that is the case then the number will be stamped into the battery. But in reading my owners manual, I did not see any specifications on it.  I hope this helps.

Question 6

At the top it says you need to overclock to use 2133 ram, but in the specs page it says OC just for 2400 ram? I have never overclocked before so im hesitant on buying 2133 ram.

Accepted Answer

Don't worry so much about overclocking ram to a higher data rate (the 2133 number) Often times you sacrifice the important specification of the CL latency and other timings. If you're concerned about speed, check Toms Hardware and other sites to see what memory pairs well with a motherboard. It's not about brute power when it comes to RAM, but about parts that work well together.

Question 7

The product page states "BIOS support New Richland/ Trinity APU".  I take this to mean that the mobo will have the necessary BIOS revision to work with a Richland APU out of the box.  I purchased this board and an A10 Richland two days ago.  I am worried about compatibility issues.  I won't have another CPU to do a BIOS update with.  Can anyone confirm that the board is shipping with Richland compatible BIOS?

Accepted Answer

Franco,
         I had the same concerns when I purchased this MSI M/board in June, since Richland had just come out .  2 things to verify that M/board is compatible with Richland: there should be a sticker on the front of the MSI box stating Richland/ Trinity ready, if not you can call MSI tech support with the serial # off the face of the M/board and they can tell you if it has been updated to Richland compatibility, if not you would have to send it back to them to update the bios.  I seriously doubt it would come to this , especially if you just purchased this MB, since it's been about 6 months that Richland has been out and by now all the MSI boards should be updated. Hope this helps you; this is a great combo!

Question 8

So is this motherboard compatible with a graphics card that has PCI Express 3.0 interface?

Accepted Answer

I just bought this motherboard for my second build. I was a bit unsure about its video card slot. But when I put in the gx 620 on this motherboard. It booted up fine.  It seems like one of the two had  a 2.1 interface. Now I'm sure it would work ,but you may could not use it's full set of features. Now by my understanding 2.0 and 3.0 are just the speeds at which it can operate. I've been in this for about five years and in all the time I've put in to it, I've never seen a graphics card not work because of different interfaces.

Question 9

I'm looking at getting the A8-6600K Richland 3.9GHz FM2 with Radeon 8570D GPU APU processor, and 8GB of CAS9 DDR3 1600 memory, will this MB handle it? I'm concerned that the specs say it only supports "Supports AMD Radeon HD 7670 / 7570 / 7470 graphics cards". I rarely game, so a discrete graphics card is of little benefit to me.

Accepted Answer

Yes the motherborad should handle the proceser and ram. In the build I bought I used a A10-6800k with no problem. You should be able to play light to moderate games. I never tried to overclock it as I see your intrested in the unlocked CPU. Ive had it for over a year no discrete graphics card and normal clock speeds and its still running good.

Question 10

is this motherboard good for rendering?

Accepted Answer

It isn't necessarily the motherboard that makes rendering fast or efficient. What will make any kind of Rendering Fast and Efficient is a Powerful Graphics Card and Computer Processor (CPU)

This motherboard supports AMD A-Series APU (CPU's). These are medium power processors that also have graphics processors (GPU's) built into them. Since an APU has to do both tasks, it doesnt do either as efficiently as other setups.

Now to answer your question, I would NOT recommend this motherboard. If you want to do powerful rendering, use either a AM3+ Socket Motherboard, with an AMD Processor, or a LGA 1155 Socket Motherboard, with an Intel Processor. And in either case get a discrete graphics card.
This will allow you to render anything you might need.

Questions & Answers