ASRock has joined the AM1 Platform fray with three of its own FS1B socketed motherboards: the AM1B-M, AM1B-ITX, and AM1H-ITX. The new motherboards come in Mini ITX and Micro ATX form factors that support all of Kabini’s I/O options including USB 3.0, SATA III, and PCI-E 2.0 connections.
The two mini ITX motherboards (the AM1B-ITX and AM1H-ITX) feature a FS1B SoC socket, two DDR3 DIMM slots, four SATA III 6Gbps ports, and a single PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot running at PCI-E 2.0 x4. ASRock is using two SATA III ports from the Kabini SoC and two SATA III ports from an ASMedia ASM1061 chipset. Both boards utilize the Realtek RTL8111GR NIC to provide gigabit Ethernet.
The AM1H-ITX board builds upon the features of the AM1B-ITX by adding a mini PCI-E connector. While the AM1B-ITX uses a 5.1 channel Realtek ALC662 chipset, the AM1H-ITX uses a 7.1 channel ALC892 chipset that supports both analog and optical S/PDIF outputs.
Beyond the mini ITX boards, ASRock is launching the micro ATX AM1B-M. This board features the FS1B Kabini SoC socket, two DDR3 DIMM slots (16GB @ 1600MHz), two SATA III 6Gbps ports, a PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot (running at x4), and a PCI-E x1 slot. The board further offers Gigabit Ethernet and 5.1 channel audio. Noticeably absent is the additional ASMedia chipset that adds two SATA III ports.
Additionally, the three boards have internal headers for extra USB ports and TPM security chips (the exact configuration of which depends on the specific board). The table below breaks down the basic differences between the boards.
ASRock AM1B-M | ASRock AM1B-ITX | ASRock AM1H-ITX | |
---|---|---|---|
Memory | 2 x DDR3 (16GB @ 1600MHz) | 2 x DDR3 (16GB @ 1600MHz) | 2 x DDR3 (16GB @ 1600MHz) |
Expansion Slots |
1 x PCI-E 2.0 x16 (@ x 4) 1 x PC-E 2.0 x1 (@ x 1) |
1 x PCI-E 2.0 x16 (@ x 4) |
1 x PCI-E 2.0 x16 1 x mPCI-E |
Storage | 2 x SATA III |
2 x SATA III from Kabini SoC 2 x SATA III from ASMedia ASM1061 |
2 x SATA III from Kabini SoC 2 x SATA III from ASMedia ASM1061 |
Networking | Realtek RTL8111GR | ||
Audio | Realtek ALC662 | Realtek ALC662 | Realtek ALC892 |
Rear IO |
|
|
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As with the other AMD hardware partners, ASRock has not released pricing or availability information. You can expect the micro ATX to be the cheapest of the bunch, with the two mini ITX boards commanding a slight premium for their reduced size and bolstered I/O options. The boards with four SATA III ports would make for great home server options by not requiring a PCI-E card to connect more than two SATA drives. The boards will support Athlon and Sempron branded AMD Kabini SoCs, and the combination of a board and SoC will cost approximately $60 according to AMD.
While the AM1 Platform is restricted to single channel memory (a Kabini memory controller limitation) versus Bay Trail's dual channel memory support, the AM1 Platform offers SATA 6Gbps and a GCN-based graphics part. Bay Trail may have a leg up in memory bandwidth and TDPs, socketed Kabini offers more storage bandwidth and graphics performance. I'm interested to see how the two platform stack up, and what the new boards are able to do.
Also read: AMD Releases the AM1 Platform: Socketed Kabini APU
I see that parallel port and
I see that parallel port and the first thought is “LOL”. Then I am thinking that if my Epson Stylus Color 600 didn’t had a problematic printhead that parallel port would have been a must have, because I really like that old printer, much more than these “ready to fail, I love to eat all your ink” new ones.
$60.00 great, now someone
$60.00 great, now someone build a case that can hold at least 6 of these boards. and space for an gigabit ethernet switch(8 ports), and its time to make a render farm, and hope AMD comes up with an 8 core part in the future. Move over raspberry pi computing cluster, and I hope AMD gets a custom ARMv8 ISA based multicore APU with HSA and AMD graphcs that fits this board, maybe 12+ cores per die. As far as rendering farms go, the more cores the faster the raytracing, and rendering, especially if the GPU has GPGPU abilities.
Second try, posting system is so very broken!
Keep dreaming. I wouldn’t use
Keep dreaming. I wouldn’t use Kabinis for a render farm, not that I’ve ever designed or implemented one. The case, you can design and make yourself, or do you expect to be spoon-fed everything?
When are you going to post
When are you going to post the review of the Bay Trail J1800 socketed mobo? This intrigues me. The fact it’s only like 15w. Beats my AMD E-350 HP Pavillion for sure.
I can’t say, you’ll have to
I can't say, you'll have to bug Ryan about that one :-).