Gigabyte Ships Two AM1 Based Motherboards at Around $50

Gigabyte has revealed not one, but two socket AM1 motherboards, both which are remarkably similar to each other, and both narrow Micro-ATX boards.

The motherboards, known as the AM1M-S2H and the AM1M-S2P, both feature the AMD FM1 socket, which has support for AMD's A-Series APUs as well as E-Series APUs. They will also have support for some of the upcoming Athlon and Sempron CPUs.

Both of the motherboards have two DDR3 memory slots, a single PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, as well as two SATA ports. The AM1M-S2H has two PCIe 1x slots, while the AM1M-S2P has a single PCIe x1 slot along with a single legacy PCI slot.

Rear I/O connectivity is also different on both boards. Both feature a pair of PS/2 ports, a VGA port, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet and stereo audio. The AM1M-S2H has a single HDMI port, while the AM1M-S2P carries an LPT parallel port as well as a serial port.

Availability is expected soon, with pricing expected to sit around the $50 mark.

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • firefoxx04
    FM1 socket? AM1 Socket? What are you talking about?
    Reply
  • Ian Mahaney
    For those us confused what AM1 is, a quick google reveals:http://www.techpowerup.com/197081/amd-fs1b-soc-socket-to-be-branded-am1.html
    Reply
  • killerclick
    There is no reason for these motherboards to be bigger than MiniITX. These AM1 CPUs are meant for small form factors, notebooks, netbooks and tablets and they integrate the chipset onto the die.
    Reply
  • Sangeet Khatri
    @killerclick I would not mind the extra PCI slots and anyways there are nowadays really small mATX cases like the Bitfenix Phenom M and some HTPC cases from Silverstone also support mATX boards.And the presence of the extra PCIe slots is always welcomed. I can imagine a PC built on a Cooler Master N200 with this board and having a Wireless card and it would make perfect sense.
    Reply
  • outlw6669
    Nice. Now we just need some AM1 Kabini chips to put in them!
    Reply
  • killerclick
    I can imagine a PC built on a Cooler Master N200 with this board and having a Wireless card and it would make perfect sense.
    Many MiniITX boards have integrated wireless or have a PCIe x1 that can accommodate a wireless card.But yes, if you consider the Bitfenix Phenom or CM N200 to be small cases, then it would indeed make more sense to use a mATX board.
    Reply
  • Novuake
    Thought you were talking about Socket A boards from way back when. Geez... That would be legacy personified.
    Reply
  • the1kingbob
    Still confused, I understand AM1 is a rebranded FS1b socket but I didn't think it was compatible with FM1 stuff as the author stated. Could someone clarify....
    Reply
  • sykozis
    These boards are NOT compatible with FM1 processors. These boards don't have a chipset. The chipset for AM1 processors is integrated into the processor itself. They're full blown SoC (system-on-chip) designs.
    Reply
  • Branden
    when you said legacy i thought we were going to see a firewire or PATA port - not a parallel port, jeez that's going back.an integrated 56k modem would've made more sense, i'd bet there's more people still on dial-up than there are using 1994 printers.
    Reply