MSI A75MA-G55 Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The AMD A75 chipset is a single-chip solution and is also known as an FCH (Fusion Controller Hub). This chip supports six SATA-600 ports with RAID (0, 1, and 10). Four of these ports are installed on the motherboard edge and rotated 90°, so the installation of a video card in any of the PCI Express x16 slots won’t block them. However, the other two ports are installed perpendicular to the motherboard, and the installation of a video card in the second PCI Express x16 slot will block them.

Figure 4: SATA-600 ports

There is no support for a floppy disk drive controller or an ATA-133 port.

This motherboard has eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard. It also has four USB 3.0 ports, two available on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a front panel connector, all controlled by the chipset. The MSI A75MA-G55 comes with an I/O bracket with two USB 3.0 ports in order for you to use the two ports available on the motherboard front panel connector if your case doesn’t have USB 3.0 ports or if they don’t use this kind of connector.

There are no FireWire (IEEE1394) ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1 audio format, using a Realtek ALC887 codec. This codec has the same specifications as the Realtek ALC892, except that the ALC892 has two extra channels for audio streaming. The main specifications of this codec include 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 specs are good for the mainstream user, but if you are looking into working professionally with audio editing, you should look for a motherboard that provides an SNR of at least 97 dB for the analog inputs.

The portrayed motherboard comes with independent analog audio outputs, meaning that you won’t need to use the line in or mic in jacks when connecting an eight-channel analog speaker set. The MSI A75MA-G55 doesn’t have an on-board SPDIF output, but you can get digital audio through its HDMI connector, or install the SPDIF connectors using the “JSP1” header. (You need to buy an I/O bracket containing the SPDIF outputs for that.)

This motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E controller.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with a shared keyboard/mouse PS/2 connector, four USB 2.0 ports, HDMI connector, VGA connector, DVI-D connector, one Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports (blue connectors), and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel