14 DAY TRIAL // The technical details of every new piece of hardware ultimately determine whether the product is a low-end, mid-range or high-end one. However, what some might fail to realize is that today's low-end (entry-level) products, like a new ECS motherboard, are stronger than they seem.
Hardware tends to get better and better with each generation, by 10-25% on average, in terms of processing speed, compatibility and energy efficiency.
So we could probably easily say that an entry-level / low-end motherboard of today is the rough equivalent of the mid-range board of a couple of years ago.
The ECS A55F2P-M2 is one of the latest examples of this, being advertised as an entry-level socket FM2+ motherboard, but covering all the bases for a decent PC.
Indeed, the only part that one might find lacking is in the storage support, since only four SATA 3.0 Gbps ports exist, with not SATA 6.0 Gbps to speak of.
It's actually pretty strange, since the ECS A55F2P-M2 is a micro-ATX board that actually has a PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot.
So, in theory, if ECS bothered to install support for current-generation graphics cards, storage should not have been a problem. At least it's possible to set up multiple drives in RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 10 configurations.
Since we're on the subject, the ECS A55F2P-M2 boasts a PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot in addition to the PCIe 3.0 x16, plus a legacy PCI slot for regular audio, network or I/O cards.
A pair of USB 3.0 ports are available as well, plus 6-channel HD audio, Gigabit Ethernet and two display outputs: DVI and D-Sub (VGA).
All the hardware is driven by the A55 Express Chipset, which comes with an FM2+ socket where an AMD A-Series Kaveri, Richland or Trinity APU can be set.
A combination of 24-pin ATX and 4-pin CPU power connectors supply everything with energy, while the APU gets its power from a 3+2 phase VRM (voltage regulation module). As for memory, the CPU socket is wired to a pair of DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of RAM (random access memory).
Finally, as odd as it sounds, the newcomer has an ECS MIB III “friendly interface for overclocking,” which makes us wonder, again, why ECS didn't go that extra meter and include SATA III. Alas, many are the mysteries of life.
All in all, the ECS A55F2P-M2 entry-level motherboard should cost around $50 / €50.