The AMD A55 Chipset: A Re-appreciation

[Dirk Broer]

In the past I've shoved aside the A55 chipset based mobo's for a cruncher's choice due to it's lack of features as compared to the A75, A85 or A88 Chipsets.

A recent purchase of a A10-5700, together with a A55 based MSI FM2-A55M-P33 -a combo which since almost made it into the top-60 Leiden Classical systems- has lead me to have a re-appreciation of the chipset I once shoved so brutally aside.

Though I still wouldn't recommend the A55 for your main system, I do think that when you want to run as much systems for as little money as possible, the A55 has something to offer.
Oké, it may lack -in its most basic form- USB 3.0 support and SATA 600 support, but when you just add an old HDD or 'slow' SDD, stick in 8 or 16GB of leftover DDR3 RAM and take a 65 Watt A10 APU, the system can't be beat in terms of price/performance.

I feel very much tempted to fill my recently acquired pile of μATX casings with A55(B) based FM2+ boards, when pricing is indeed below $50 a board and I can lay my hands on cheap 65 Watt A10 APUs.

[NeoGen]

I agree on the price/performance ratio, although I personally would not recommend it either.

But indeed, pure crunching machines do not require USB 3.0 or even very fast SATA connections as they should access the hard drive as least as possible. Higher capacity RAM chips with high speed and low latency help a lot more for crunching.
But I see my crunching machines as potential general use machines at some point in time so I like them to have the features available in case they are ever needed.