Although Phenoms are still at least three months away, motherboard manufacturers are already starting to produce AM2+ solutions which will be natively compatible with the new Phenom series. And since Biostar has always been an innovation specialist, it seems that they are the first to roll out an AM2+ MoBo, namely the TF560 A2+.


Actually if you look at the single chip solution included in the TF560 you will notice that the Nforce 560 series is a cut down version of its older brother, the Nforce 570. Aside from the complete lack of SLI support, Nvidia's new single chip supports lots of different power-related technologies that enable the usage of split power planes.

The single chip does away with high-tech cooling due to the fact that it consumes less power than two separate chips (as used by the 680i series). However the board still comes with Raid, SATA II and USB 2.0 ports (6 on the back and another 4 extra that can be connected through two brackets). One particularly interesting thing about this motherboard is the fact that the power on and reset switches can be found on the PCB itself so if you're sick of your chassis connectors, you can use the power functions directly from the Mobo.

Not much can be said about the board since currently you won't be able to find it on any stores. Biostar didn't release any data about the MSRP so pricing is also an enigma at the moment. Anyhow due to its limited usability and features, this model will probably come with a price of under $150. However the major issue still remains the fact that Phenoms are nowhere to be seen and the situation will stay that way until the fall. And I doubt that INTEL will just relax and watch how AMD tries to catch up with the Core 2 architecture.

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