14 DAY TRIAL // Hardware-Infos has landed some pictures of two upcoming AM3 socket ATX motherboards from ECS. The mainboards are based on the 890GX+SB800 chipset, which AMD is currently set to release around April. The two products are the IC890GXM-A and the high-end A890GXM-A Black Series.
The IC890GXM-A is the more modest of the two. It features a simple CPU VRM and claims to support six-core AMD desktop processors and DDR3 memory at 1600 MHz. The motherboard is built with one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, a PCI Express x16 (Electrical x4), two PCI Express x1 and two PCI slots. Furthermore, the ATX board has a single Gigabit Ethernet controller, DVI and D-Sub outputs, as well as an 8-channel audio, eSATA 6Gb/s and USB 2.0 ports.
The second and more noteworthy mainboard is the aforementioned A890GXM-A Black Series. It is quite more performance packed than its younger sibling, with two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (Electrical x8 when both are used) and support for ATI CrossFireX. The device also has a PCI-Express x16 (electrical x4), a PCI-Express x1 and a regular PCI slot. Connectivity is achieved through two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and I/O options are represented by eSATA, USB 2.0 ports, DVI and D-Sub, as well as an 8-channel HD Audio codec.
What is more noticeable is the fact that this product is marked with “Six Core CPU Support.” This implies that, like the IC890GXM-A, the A890GXM-A Black Series will be ready to support the upcoming Thuban processors. In addition, the product makes use of an elaborate heatsink that covers the CPU VRM area and the northbridge. As for storage and memory, IDE is not implemented, but the southbridge handles six SATA 6Gb/s ports (five internal and one external). As for RAM, the board is designed with four DDR3 DIMM slots, which are dual channel-ready and can even push the memory frequency beyond 1800 when overclocking.
No information exists on the price and availability of the products, although they might debut around the same time as the AMD 890GX chipset itself.
