GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H Review: What Can $35 Get You?
by Ian Cutress on August 15, 2014 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- Gigabyte
- Kabini
- AM1
GIGABYTE AM1M-S2H Conclusion
Low cost, low power motherboards are difficult to conclude. With high end motherboards containing controllers and where we discuss performance, it is easy to rule out $20 of controller improvements for a better overclocking range. But when the whole motherboard is $35, and the motherboard/CPU/DRAM combo for $120 or so, it all comes down to the market.
If we imagine a digital signage seller, in the prototype stage they will buy a set of units in order to design the system. Because the motherboards are cheap, if they accidentally get the wrong one, then buying another is relatively trivial. The same goes for replacement parts: rather than take the time to RMA, it becomes cheaper just to bin and replace where necessary.
The biggest issue for this type of environment for the AM1M-S2H is the position of the SATA ports. Because they are both right in the middle of the motherboard, SATA cables for the hard-drive and ODD have to reach over components to get there. The only way to mitigate this would be to boot from USB, which is not uncommon for digital signage, but what would make that setup better is an onboard USB port akin to some server designs.
In actual fact, I wonder if having an onboard microSD card reader might be more pertinent for this type of platform. Rather than using a bulky SATA device, or relying on a USB that sticks out, how about an onboard microSD card reader that you can install an OS and boot from for the signage. Although the barrier to this, as always, is cost of implementation.
For users looking to build a daily system, without an add-in card you will have to decide between two HDDs or a HDD/ODD combination. The full-length PCIe slot helps if you want to add in more screens or a full-size GPU, although the CPU performance might be the main barrier to doing anything more than web browsing and word processing. One might argue that for GPU compute work, such as some video conversion or rendering, if it can be offloaded onto the GPU effectively with little CPU involvement then it might be worth a shot.
As a motherboard, it worked in our testing and the results are in-line with what we would expect for $35, if not slightly more impressive than we presumed. There are some style changes that I would put forward, especially the SATA port positioning. Unfortunately users have to put up with the older style software. It might help GIGABYTE in the future to develop some base fan control software for any platform to replace EasyTune 6, which might get bundled with the next generation of AM1 (if there is going to be another).
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DanNeely - Friday, August 15, 2014 - link
Is this board full length mATX? It doesn't look like there's quite enough room below the 3rd PCIe slot to fit the 4th and still have room for the edge of board headers.DanNeely - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
Confirmed. Gigabyte lists it as 22x17cm. A full height mATX board would be 24.6cm tall.HigherState - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
I think it would be very interesting to see what using a R7 260X with Mantle enabled would do for gaming. I know thats not exactly what this platform is all about, but this is kinda what Mantle is suited for, I think. From what I could tell from a quick google search, it helps. Would like to see some up-to-date numbers, not ones from 4 months ago where Mantle and Kabini drivers were still being fleshed out.hojnikb - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
Or you could just get the cheapest 1150 mobo and celeron for a little bit more. it will be faster and much much more upgrade friendly.zodiacfml - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
too bulky and complex for any signage use. this is plain cheap mobo for emerging markets or business such as internet shops in some countries.hojnikb - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
damn, those green caps really spoil the looks of this thig.Per Hansson - Saturday, August 23, 2014 - link
Those are Japanese Sanyo capacitors (now Suncon)Please stop complaining about a $35 board using high quality Japanese caps!
jardows2 - Saturday, August 16, 2014 - link
What does $35 get me on this board? Too much in my opinion. I can see this platform working well as a media player +, in a very small (think thin mITX) platform, but all the motherboard offerings I have seen are too bulky. What I want is:2x USB 2.0 rear connectors for KB and mouse
2x USB 3.0 rear connectors for external hard drive
HDMI video/audio (don't need standard audio jacks for this)
Gigabit Ethernet.
SO-DIMM slots for RAM
mSATA slot
1 SATA connector for possible optical drive
1 mini-PCIE for wireless.
Unfortunately, I am in no position to purchase 10,000+ of these to have an OEM make such a board for me. Hopefully there are enough people requesting this type of board for someone to make it a reality.
Arnulf - Sunday, August 17, 2014 - link
WTF happened to the DE-15 connector, is blue too expensive compared to black or did we somehow land in 1993 ?yannigr2 - Sunday, August 17, 2014 - link
@Anandtech Your spam filter is NOT working properly. And there is NO way to get help.My apologies for this post that is a result after 1+ month trying to find a way to fix my account other than just making a new one.