Asus Reveals Two AMD AM1 Motherboards Ready for April

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By Kevin Parrish
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Asus is releasing two AM1 motherboards in April.

Hot on the heels of AMD announcing the new AM1 platform, Asus on Wednesday announced the upcoming arrival of its AM1M-A and AM1I-A motherboards. Both are packed with a number of Asus exclusive features including 5X Protection and the company's own flavor of the UEFI BIOS. Both also make great "value" choices for desktops and home theater PCs.

The details surrounding these two motherboards are next to nothing for the moment. However the company reveals that its 5X Protection feature safeguards components from short-circuits, electrical surges and other potential risks. This solution includes high-quality, solid-state capacitors, electrostatic-discharge (ESD) guards, overcurrent protection that prevents short circuits from damaging DRAM, and the ASUS DIGI+ voltage-regulator module.

"USB 3.0 Boost with UASP Mode accelerates the already-fast speed of USB 3.0, intelligently optimizing transfer commands so that more data can be sent and received in shorter times than is possible with other motherboards," reads the company's press release.

Both motherboards also sport the company's UEFI BIOS that allows users to create shortcuts and favorites for quick access to the options they use most. The boards also come loaded with the AI Suite 3 software, which provides an exclusive dashboard-style control panel for tweaking the motherboards for the best balance between efficiency, stability and performance.

On Tuesday AMD announced that a number of motherboard manufacturers, including Asus, will offer a range of next-generation desktop motherboards based on socket FS1b. These boards will support the latest in USB 3.0 and SATA 3 (6 Gb/s) specs for Athlon and Sempron-series APUs for the AM1 platform.

“The AM1 platform gives us a great opportunity to deliver a flexible infrastructure environment, and provides a multitude of options for consumers and system builders looking for upgradeability packed into an extremely affordable solution," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD.

According to AMD, the availability of “Kabini” desktops and components are slated to be on-shelf in select regions beginning early April, with global availability expected on April 9.

Kevin Parrish
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6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • brarboy
    ASUS motherboards are one of the best in term of performance and quality they provide. There is nothing to look beyond them.I love ASUS ;)
    Reply
  • the1kingbob
    Love to see some benchmarks for this new platform!
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    Tomshardware, PLEASE benchmark one of these with the 1.6 GHz quadcore and a 270x. It be very interesting to see if this CPU would be a viable choice for super budget users, especially with Mantle...
    Reply
  • AnEwG
    It seems as if they have given up on the dedicated platforms.
    Reply
  • Shankovich
    Looking forward to this platform. I'd love to have a small cheap programming/ arduino support station in my basement that could also do more than a Rpi would.
    Reply
  • ta152h
    I have the A6-5200, and have been using it for roughly four months now, so I can tell you roughly what to expect.I am using Windows 8.1. I wouldn't recommend a slower OS like Windows 7, and you can't really use a faster OS like Windows XP, because it doesn't support the video. I got 8.1 because the retail professional version was 1/3 of the price of Windows 7. It's big failing is it doesn't have a 'turbo-boost' feature. Pretty much the only time it feels slow is when it can use only one processor; I rarely see all four pegged.You can't play games with it, unless they are quite old, or very much of the casual variety. Forget anything else, even with Windows 8. It's fine for playing videos on Netflix, even at HD. The previous version I had, the Bobcat E450 was too slow to do that. For everyday browsing, unless you are playing a Java game, it's indistinguishable from the Trinity I use at work. Make sure you get good memory. It's only single channel, and it maxes at DDR3 1600. It's something of a bottleneck, so if the next best memory is a few dollars more, it's worth it. All in all, I've been screaming to the clouds for AMD to do this for the past year (I'm heavily invested in the company), for the obvious reason is it's a very attractive product for the market. I'm very pleased with it overall, and my major complaints are the lack of a boost, and the maker of the motherboard (ECS). It's a very nice product for a large number of people.
    Reply