AMD’s Llano is not a new product; it is one that has been out on the market for long enough that all of the major hype and press has already been written. We recently wrapped up our long term testing of an AMD A6-3650 combined with a Gigabyte A75 motherboard. We were rather impressed with the performance that we saw, even if the numbers did not match up to the overall feel. Now we are taking a look at the same CPU, but taking a step down the ladder to the A55 chipset. This time the victim is the A55M-DS2 motherboard. You are losing a few items with this shift like USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 and a PCIe slot, but we wonder if that will really impact performance. So let’s take a look at the design and the features that you can expect to get when you pick up one of these.
Features -In the current market motherboard (and indeed almost all components) performance is very close. The days of a large performance advantage between boards using the same chipset are long gone. That is unless someone makes a HUGE mistake (like runs traces completely wrong). Now, the thing that differentiates different products is the features. These are things like power management, extra slots, better audio CODECs etc. It is these items that R&D teams work so hard to drop into what are really identical pieces of hardware at their most basic level.Excellent -Humidity ProtectionHigh Temperature ProtectionDX11 SupportThese three are probably the best out of the listed feature set. Both offer good product life and can protect the board from the stress that comes from being shoved into a small case with not a lot of cooling. Meanwhile DX11 support at this price range is something unheard of.In the middle (sort of good) -Dual BIOSESD ProtectionEasyTune63-TB Drive supportThese items, while common in more expensive motherboards from Gigabyte are not typical on an entry level product. Still they are not going to be the reason you chose the A55M-DS2 over another product.Floor Mats -Auto GreenON/OFF Charge These last two are simply dressing. Granted we can see where On/Off charge might be interesting to some consumers as almost all cell phones can be charged via USB. By using On/Off Charge you can keep your devices going without the need to turn on your system.
