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Gigabyte AM1M-S2H

Three AMD AM1 Motherboards For The Kabini APU, Reviewed
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Before the advent of mini-ITX, several large manufacturers built space-saving systems on a previous three-slot standard called FlexATX. Proving it can party like it’s 1999, Gigabyte jumped on-board with a motherboard that’s microATX in name only, the AM1M-S2H.

The company calls it microATX for the same reason that makers of DTX cases call them mini-ITX: they're sticking to the most familiar name possible. This isn’t a problem for either example, since smaller boards fit nicely into larger cases. In other words, the AM1M-S2H gives builders with microATX enclosures a little extra room to spare. It could even breathe new life into the old FlexATX cases previously favored by Gateway and IBM (assuming your case has a replaceable I/O shield, of course).

Another benefit of the AM1M-S2H’s sub-microATX design is that if you really need a legacy printer port on the back of your microATX case, the missing slot is a great place to put the breakout plate. The associated header is found along the board’s bottom edge.

AM1M-S2H buyers gets two extra PCIe x1 slots compared to the Asus sample in today’s round-up, two fewer USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel, and one more internal USB 2.0 front-panel header for a total of six front-panel ports.

AM1M-S2H buyers also get two SATA cables to interface with the APU’s pair of SATA 6Gb/s ports.

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    bpbarrette , 2 July 2014 13:48
    I'd love to see how these setups do running Windows Media Center. A test using a 6 tuner setup would be great to see how it holds up. I know I had to switch from an E450 based HTPC to an i5 one because the E450 couldn't handle the stress of 6 tuners, and it also couldn't handle using a 360 as an extender. I don't know why the extender stuff was so troublesome for the E450, but it was.