Hardware AMD Zacate mini-ITX Motherboards Preview

Guys, you might want to check the specs on the Asus board. In the 3rd photo, below the PCI-E slot, says "SATA6G". It looks like those are all SATA 6Gbps ports.

The MSI's photos are a bit small, but it seems those are SATA 6Gbps too (MSI has been using white ports for SATA 6Gbps ports, like in the 890FXA-GD70).

 

Yes they are all SATA 6G - I read the wrong documents from AMD about its southbridge and assumed they were 3Gbps. I've amended the article, thanks!

 

The only thing I don't like about this news is that I don't have the cash together yet to build my long-planned NAS box. Before this it was nigh-impossible to find an integrated micro-ATX or Mini-ITX board with more than two SATA ports that wasn't outrageously expensive. 4 is all I plan to need, although the possibility of expansion later certainly doesn't hurt. After the confusing mess Intel is making of Sandy Bridge, I'll happily stick with AMD.

 

Can't wait for reviews of the Asus or Gigabyte boards!
ATM I use an Asus AT3IONT-I (1,6 GHz atom 330 + NV Ion) for my HTPC setup, and while it's good enough for media play-back, more and more things I do shift from my main desktop to my HTPC, and tbh, the atom cpu can be buggering unrespnsive at times (I blame the out-dated In Order Execution), though over-clocking it to 2,1 GHz seemed to help, making it "feel" more responsive and upping the Win7 cpu index from 3,3 to 3,7. Still, if I can believe some of the previews I've seen of the E-350 Zacate, at normal clocks it has a cpu index of 3,8. I'd love to see how this baby can overclock!
Oh, before I forget: about a month after I bought the atom/ion combo board, I added an inexspensive HD5450 discrete GPU to the mix: couldn't really get Ion's hardware acceleration to really do... well, anything. With all recomended decoders/software/settings I scoured the web for, a simple VC-1 file still had 50 to 60ish % cpu usage. For the Atom, that's enough to make it unable to do anything else at the same time. with my trusty HD5450, the same file plays back with a 15-30ish cpu usage.
The above paragraph was prelude to my final hope: Hybrid Crossfire! I'd love the idea of doubling the amount of shaders to make my HTPC more multi-purpose (an MP-HTPC? ).

 

Nice boards, but are there any news on ECC memory support in Fusion APUs?

 

Nice - finally a really capable ITX solution without the frankenstein-esque need for S775 CPU or an additional graphics card (Ion doesn't count - atom isn't *really* capable).

But, dare, I say.... will it run Crysis?

I'll get my coat.

 

Doubtful. Can't recall seeing what the server-class Bulldozers are supposed to be working with, but that's probably your only bet for using ECC.

 

Any news on the release date? I'm especially interested in the Asus, which is looking to form the basis for my new HTPC build.

 

What about a RAID controller ?
Actually Gigabyte download section provides such driver for Win7 but no RAID mentionned in specs !
For a NAS build with 4 or 5 x 3TB , RAID5 seems mandatory

What about UEFI bios ?
For a HTPC , instant boot might be great.

 

UEFI on PC doesn't provide instant boot, just a flashy BIOS menu. Unfortunately no motherboard company will ever write in a video playback app on an "Asus ExpressGate" style dual-boot OS because it will cost them money for video decoding licenses.

There's no RAID controller on the Hudson M1 either, it's just six SATA 6Gbps ports, although there's nothing stopping you can from doing software RAID 5 (which is usually better these days in Linux/BSD OS).

 

Just bought the Asus... Will find out soon what it will do... Have also set up DG45FC last year. Both machines are set up as "utility" HTPC. Nothing hard core, mostly interested n low wattage performance. Both boards are being powered by 12V DC PSU's. Toying with the idea of trying my GTX 460 with and independent power supply. I am to understand that this has more or less been tried, and was found lacking. More results when the package arrives...