Asus F1A75-M Pro Llano Motherboard Review

A Closer LookThe F1A75-M Pro uses the Micro-ATX form factor and the usual positioning is laid out as expected. The colour scheme is certainly a pleasant view with the blue on black design and the heatsinks really show off the great looks of this board.

The CPU socket area has changed slightly as we’ve seen on the 990FX boards that we’ve looked at like the Sabertooth 990FX from Asus back in May. The brackets for the CPU cooler has been cut down giving more breathing space to the sides. There is also little cooling around the phase area so that bigger coolers such as the Noctua NH-D14 can be used if need be.

Another thing that has changed is the socket itself. The FM1 socket has been shown many times on the net up till now and here’s a full close-up view of it.

In regards to the cooling, that’s what really makes this board stand out, featuring a sparkly blue design and flare styling. There is a wave type passive heatsink around the CPU socket to assist in cooling the VRM area.

There is also a passive heatsink that once again features a wave design over the A75 chipset. This particular heatsink is situated down by the SATA connectors and includes the Asus branded logo on top.

In its usual location, we find four DDR3 memory slots, which following the blue/black styling to show which slots work in dual-channel mode. This board accepts up to an astonishing 64GB of DDR3 of speeds ranging from 1066MHz up to 1866MHz, though having 64GB will require 16GB or above modules so be prepared to get your wallet out.

Now this is where the board gets interesting. From first glance it shows that the board has two PCI-Express x16 slots which are CrossFire ready, a PCI-Express x1 slot and a legacy PCI slot. Whilst this is true, there is also extra functionality in terms of graphics through the use of a Hybrid CrossFireX solution that utilises the graphics side of the APU technology with a dedicated graphics card to offer the very best performance.

Towards the bottom corner of the board we find six SATA ports. All six SATA ports utilise the latest SATA III speeds and are powered using the AMD A75 (Hudson D3) chipset and supports RAID 0, 1, 10 and JBOD but sadly no RAID 5 as we would normally expect to be on a board today.

Also towards the bottom of the board is where we find a variety of front panel connectors. This includes a stonking four USB 2.0 headers and a USB 3.0 header for the very latest in connectivity options.

There is also a CLRTC jumper and TPM connector, though most users will not likely use the functionality of the TPM connector.

Following the rest of the boards colour scheme, we find a blue ATX 24-pin power connector in its usual spot.

Also beautiful in blue is the 8-pin power connector towards the socket area of the board as expected.

Just next to the 24-pin ATX power connector are a few unique features that Asus have implemented to their boards. This includes a memOK button to find the best compatability with your memory, an EPU switch and also a TPU switch. These two functions can be enabled via their respective switches or via the BIOS.

Fan headers are plentiful for a board of this size with a CPU fan header in its usual place at the top of the board.

There is also a fan header by the ATX 24-pin connector for a chassis fan.

Lastly towards the rear I/O is where we find another two fan headers tucked away side by side.

The rear I/O has a nice variety of connectors including a PS2 mouse/keyboard combo port, a total of 4 USB 3.0 ports, Optical SPDIF, HDMI, VGA and DVI display connectors, two USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit LAN and 8-channel analog audio making this perfect for a selection of different display and audio configurations.