Taiwan-based motherboard maker ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) recently announced an ATX form factor motherboard based on the AMD A85X chipset. The most exciting feature is that this motherboard uses the AMD FM2 CPU socket, and it is ready to accept desktop Trinity processors!
The A85F2-A Deluxe motherboard comes equipped with two PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots for CrossfireX mutli-GPU setups, three PCI-E 2.0 x1 slots, and two legacy PCI slots. With four DDR3 DIMM slots, the board can support up to 64GB of memory. It further supports memory up to 2300MHz (officially). It also features seven 6Gb/s SATA ports with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support.
External expansion (rear IO) includes six USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit LAN, and an eSATA connector. The A85F2-A Deluxe also features HDMI, DVI, and VGA video outputs as well as 8 channel analog audio.
On the software side of things, the motherboard has GUI uEFI BIOS, ECS MIB X, and support for multiple languages. The FM2 socket based motherboard also comes bundled with Norton AntiVirus, Muzee, Cyberlink Media Suite, and ECS iEZ (which is the driver and BIOS update (and fan control) utility.
The board has undergone numerous in-house tests (though be sure to also check out independent reviews), and has been rated ECS Nonstop Certified. The company also includes gold plated contacts and solid capacitors with the motherboard. It has also been rated for ESD protection on the VGA, USB, LAN, and HDMI ports.
The Trinity processor is the best part about the motherboard, however as it enables several new technologies including up to four displays, AMD Turbo Core 3, Open CL 1.1, and hardware video decoding with AMD’s UVD engine.
In addition to the A85F2-A Deluxe, ECS will also be releasing four other FM2 socket based motherboards including the A75F2-A2, A75F2-M2, A55F2-A2, and A55F2-M3. Unfortunately, there is no word yet on pricing or availability. Expect to see more details on these boards soon (possibly at Computex 2012?).
more spam? … hey mod gods,
more spam? … hey mod gods, take a quick sweep thru the comments please.
Heh, actually spam cleaning
Heh, actually spam cleaning is done by us editors… mostly Jeremy and Ryan.
I got it though.
*thumbs up*
you should add a
*thumbs up*
you should add a little flag button so we can point it out and you don’t have to go hunting.
not a bad idea. People who
not a bad idea. People who are logged in might have the flag button, I’m not sure if that’s everyone with accounts or just editors.
Look for a “report to Mollom”
Look for a “report to Mollom” button … but I’m not positive it is there for registered users
didnt they just delay the
didnt they just delay the trinity cpus? what good is a mb withouta cpu?
Well, it will be ready once
Well, it will be ready once the chips finally come out :).
Perhaps it’s because I’m not
Perhaps it’s because I’m not a gamer, but I don’t understand why anyone would design an ATX-size motherboard with lots of slots including 2 slots for big graphics cards for a Trinity processor??
Unless I’ve totally lost track, Trinity is meant to be a budget all-in-one cp for laptops and similar.
I’m looking to see what replaces the Llano M450 motherboards because I need to do a firewall/VPN/telephony build and for several reasons would prefer to go with an AMD chip rather than Intel’s Atom. But I’m not sure Trinity is the right one for me either, since a firewall etc. can easily get by with less graphics than is on that chip, but would benefit from more cpu.
Well Trinity is coming in
Well Trinity is coming in laptop and desktop variants. ATX size motherboards generally come out first, we should be seeing smaller mobos come out soon though.
Trinity does support CrossfireX though I’m not sure why they needed two x16 slots, always good to have options though 🙂
I only mentioned the ATX size
I only mentioned the ATX size because these days that form factor seems to be generally reserved for slots-n-watts workstations, rather than the cost-sensitive (watts and dollars) segment that Trinity is (I thought!) aimed at. The combination struck me as a strange mis-match, so I wondered what I was failing to understand about it.
Trinity plus two graphics
Trinity plus two graphics cards does seem a little silly. But I believe there will be non-GPU CPUs for socket FM2 also.
if AMD release different
if AMD release different socket every year, i think is too bad for customer.
Yup, that sucks. Lets hope
Yup, that sucks. Lets hope FM2 will stay around as much time as AM2 and AM3 did.
Some APUs (the higher end ones) provide enough horsepower for a regular pc user, in fact, testings of the A10 (mobile) at tomshardware suggest that it matches a low end Core i5 in cpu power. That is enough for a common user, if you ask me, PLUS this desktop A10s are supposed to be excellent overclockers.
Cant wait to get mine