One Bay Trail-D And Two AM1 Motherboards
We're testing two AM1 motherboards and a single Bay Trail-D platform.
ASRock AM1H-ITX
ASRock's AM1H-ITX is, as its name suggests, a mini-ITX board. Measuring just under 7" square, it doesn't occupy much space. Yet it offers an impressive number of interesting features. For instance, the platform comes equipped with an ATX power connector, but it can by driven by a 19 V DC adapter (and it has the corresponding input to prove it).
You get a lot of connectivity, given the motherboard's footprint. There are two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports on the I/O panel (plus a USB 3.0 header on-board), four display outputs (VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI), GbE, and eight-channel audio with an optical output.
On the board itself, you'll find four SATA connectors, a SATA power connector, two DDR3 memory slots, a PCIe x16 expansion slot, mini-PCIe for a wireless card, and a trio of fan headers, one of which is for the APU. That's a comprehensive suite of features, to be sure.
Gigabyte AM1M-S2H
Measuring roughly 6.5" x 9", Gigabyte's AM1M-S2H is a slightly larger microATX motherboard. The extra length creates room for two PCIe x1 slots, in addition to a PCI Express x16 slot. Gigabyte's I/O panel features VGA and HDMI video outputs, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 connectors, GbE, and three analog audio outputs.
The board also hosts two SATA connectors, a pair of DDR3 memory slots, two fan headers, and three more USB 2.0 headers for additional peripheral connectivity.
ASRock Q1900B-ITX
Our Bay Trail-D representation also comes complements of ASRock in the Q1900B-ITX, armed with an integrated Celeron J1900 CPU. The rest of the board's attributes reflect a similar approach: it employs SO-DIMM slots and a single PCI Express x1 interface, with no support for full-sized graphics cards.
Moreover, the back panel hosts legacy parallel and serial ports, exposing the platform's embedded focus. You do get one USB 3.0 port, three USB 2.0 connectors, a VGA output, and HDMI connectivity. GbE and six-channel audio output are standard fare.
ASRock enables two fan headers, a USB 2.0 header, and a pair of SATA ports on the little board's surface. Passive cooling is made possible by the Celeron, which is another reason Intel's approach works so well in industrial environments.