14 DAY TRIAL // One of the reasons people didn't order many AMD Trinity APUs before today, even though shipments started before the actual launch, was the lack of motherboards that support them.
This is no longer a problem, or at least won't be for much longer. With Sapphire, Biostar, Gigabyte and others releasing mainboard bearing the FM2 socket, online stores and street vendors should have more than enough supplies to go around.
Elitegroup Computer Systems is the one adding its name to the list of AMD Trinity promoters.
The company has completed the A85F2-A Golden socket FM2 motherboard, part of the AMD Gold Limited Edition series. It bears gold heatsinks, gold-plated CPU pins and other gold components.
Designed with the ATX form factor (standard motherboard size), it boasts 100% solid capacitors (high stability and good overclocking), ECS Hyper Alloy Choke (even higher stability), support for both Intel XMP and AMD AMP memory (64 GB on four dual-channel DDR3 slots) and two PCI Express x16 2.0 slots (x8/x8 when both are used).
This means that the performance of any system created with the A85F2-A Golden can be powerful indeed, even without overclocking.
And since we are on the subject, we may as well specify that ECS tossed in the EZ BIOS (multi-language graphical interface), and the ECS MIB X interface for gamers and overclockers.
That said, the A85F2-A Golden has seven SATA 6.0 Gbps ports (SATA III with RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, RAID 10 support), one eSATA connector, VIA VT 1819S 8-Ch High Definition audio CODEC (complies with 8CH HD audio specification) and several video outputs on the back panel (HDMI, Dual-link DVI, DisplayPort).
Furthermore, the ECS EZ charger technology will quickly replenish the energy of smart devices (phones, tablets, portable media players, etc.) even when the PC is turned off.
ECS did not provide a price for this item, and though we know that the accompanying software bundle is free (THX , Norton Internet Security, CyberLink PowerDVD, CyberLink PowerDirector 9, Muzee with trial version), all the gold isn't likely to let this qualify as a cheap platform for AMD's APUs.
On that note, those who feel lucky may want to register for this contest that will hand out a model for free.