14 DAY TRIAL // The recent launch of AMD's A-Series APUs has taken its toll on the prices of Brazos-powered mainboards, as quite a few models based on these accelerated processing units have started retailing for less than $100 US.
All of these solutions are paired together with the AMD E-350 APU that features dual x86 processing cores clocked at 1.6GHz as well as the Radeon HD 6310 integrated graphics core.
This is powered by 80 stream processors, 8 texturing units and 4 ROP units and also features the company's UVD 3 media decoding engine that enables the APU to playback 1080p Blu-ray content.
Taking a look at Newegg's listings of Brazos mainboards, one can easily spot at least three solutions that retail at the $99.99 price point coming from manufacturers such as ASRock, ECS or Foxconn.
Of the three, the Foxconn AHD1S-K and the ECS HDC-I2 are particularly interesting, since these motherboards feature an all-passive design, which, paired with their Full HD video decoding support, make them a great alternative for an HTPC system.
Both of these pack two full-length DIMM sockets for up to 8GB or system memory, two SATA 3Gbps ports and 5.1-channel audio, but the Foxconn board has the upper hand as it also includes an HDMI video output and a PCI Express x16 slot.
Users who require more advanced features can also go with the ASRock E350M1, which retails for $99.99 after a mail-in rebate and supports up to four SATA 6Gbps internal drives, one eSATA 6.0Gbps external HDD as well as 7.1-channel sound with optical S/PDIF out driven by a Realtek ALC892 codec.
USB 3.0 support can be had for an extra $15 with the E350M1's older brother, the ASRock E350M1/USB3.
In Europe, the cheapest mini-ITX AMD E-350 motherboard that is available at this time is the Sapphire PURE White Fusion Mini E350, which starts at €80.81. (via Fudzilla)