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AM1M-S2H Software And Firmware

Three AMD AM1 Motherboards For The Kabini APU, Reviewed
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The AM1M-S2H includes Gigabyte’s EasyTune6 software, though tuning isn’t so easy on a multiplier-locked processor. DRAM ratios are selectable, but only go to DDR3-1600. And a few voltage levels can be increased, but without the higher data rates that would necessitate an increase.

There is a knob you can use to tweak the APU's GPU clock, and that setting is found in the board's firmware. But don't expect much from it; the Radeon graphics engine is fed by a single 64-bit channel of DDR3-1600 memory, at best.

As with the Asus board we just looked at, Gigabyte’s offering supports Intel’s XMP technology for DRAM. You’re still stuck with a DDR3-1600 limit, but some modules can push CAS 7 at this data rate with a little voltage applied.

DRAM timings can also be configured manually, if you really want to take the time to extract maximum performance from your low-energy CPU.

Even though you can’t overclock the CPU, Gigabyte still lets you dial in some “Loadline Calibration” to stabilize voltage. Consider this feature unnecessary until AMD can be convinced that we need a more flexible Kabini-based APU.

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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.