Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The AMD A85X chipset is a single-chip solution. This chip supports eight SATA-600 ports with RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). Six of them that are located at the motherboard’s edge are rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. The seventh SATA-600 port is located at the corner of the motherboard.

Figure 4: SATA-600 ports

The eighth SATA-600 port supported by the chipset was installed on the motherboard’s rear panel as an eSATA-600 port.

The AMD A85X chipset supports two USB 1.1 ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, and four USB 3.0 ports. The Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 offers ten USB 2.0 ports, two soldered on the rear panel and eight available through four headers located on the motherboard; and six USB 3.0 ports, four located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard. The two additional USB 3.0 ports are controlled by an EtronTech EJ168A chip.

The Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4 doesn’t have FireWire ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the Realtek ALC892 codec, which is a mainstream-grade product, providing a 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good for the average user, but if you want to work professionally with audio editing or converting analog audio sources into digital format, you will need to pick a motherboard with at least 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio for its inputs.

The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. A header labeled “SPDIF_O” also provides SPDIF output for you to install a coaxial SPDIF output or to route digital audio to older video cards that require this physical connection in order to have digital audio output in their HDMI connectors.

The analog audio outputs are independent, so you won’t need to use the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks, even when installing an analog 7.1 speaker set.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL8111F chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared keyboard/mouse PS/2 connector, four USB 3.0 ports, VGA output, DVI-D output, optical SPDIF output, HMDI output, DisplayPort output, two USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA-600 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel