MSI K9A2GM-FIH:

This board hasn't really met our expectations, mainly because it comes without any solid capacitors. A complete non-solid design does save a few bucks, but on the other hand it increases the power consumption. MSI has reacted and they offer the same board with the suffix -S as full solid capacitor design, but we were not able to find it in Europe while writing this article.

Disappointed with the standard caps, the board does at least support 125W TDP CPUs but not the 140W ones. The board is full µATX providing all mounting holes for proper installation. The VRM is an analog three+one phases design, quite unusual for 125W TDP CPUs. One PCIe x16 and two PCI are quite standard, but MSI managed to put an additional PCIe x1 slot behind the Northbridge. MSI does need to reduce the height of the Northbridge cooler, to fit larger PCIe x1 cards, but the temperature stayed at safe limits while testing.

Gb LAN is provided by the usual Realtek PCIe chip RTL8111C and audio also as usual with a Realtek ALC888. This board also features a Firewire port on the backplane but not eSATA port. MSI doesn't use all six SATA II ports, so only four are available. The audio connector is next to the second PCI slot and your audio-cable does not cross the Northbridge cooler.

The back-panel is also quite standard, one VGA and one HDMI port connects your monitor, but MSI decided not to include any HDMI to DVI adapter in the box. Also, MSI leaves plenty of space on the back, so only four USB 2.0 ports are available, each dual-port with either Fireport or LAN connector on top. Sadly, MSI does only provide 7.1 analog audio connectors; no digital connector is available. 

The board is available in Europe for around €56,-.