AMD has already launched its 'Trinity' APU for notebooks, but the desktop models are still not available. In the meantime, several manufacturers are working on new motherboards, as AMD's Trinity processor requires a new FM2 socket. ASRock showed two new motherboards based on the socket during Computex. The FM2A75Pro4-M and FM2A75M-DGS are both Micro-ATX form factor boards that use AMD's existing A75 chipset.
FM2A75 Pro4-M
The FM2A75 Pro4-M has a 6-phase power design and 8-pin 12V power connector. The mosfets on the board are directly cooled by a heatsink. The motherboard is equipped with four DDR3 memory slots, two PCI-Express x16 connectors, one PCi-Express x1 slot and a traditional PCI connector. The absence of switch chips means that the sixteen lanes for graphics cards cannot be split up. In practice this means that the top slot will always be x16, while the second has is connected to the A75 chipset with four lanes.
The FM2A75 uses a solid-cap capacitors, has a frontpanel USB 3.0 connector and five internal SATA 6 Gbps connector. The I/O panel on this new addition features 7.1 audio (analog and digital), USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, a PS/2 combi connector, Gigabit LAN, and video outputs in the form of VGA, DVI and HDMI, powered by the integrated Radeon video chip. The soundcard offers support for THX TruStudio Pro technology.
ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M (Source: Techpowerup)
FM2A75M-DGS
The second board, the FM2A75M-DGS, isn't as luxurious. ASRock has left out the mosfet cooling, only two DDR3 slots are present and the second PCI-Express x16 slot has also been removed. This model largely uses older electrolytic capacitors. The frontpanel USB 3.0 header is still there, albeit positioned a little unfortunate. The six SATA 6 Gbps connectors on the other hand, have been placed on an easily accessible location.
The I/O panel also shows that ASRock will market this board in the entry-level segment. Only analog 5.1 audio is available, in addition to fewer USB ports. While DVI and VGA ports return on the board, HDMI is missing. The board also has two PS/2 connectors, for legacy peripheral support. An upside is that the network connector is of the Gigabit type.
ASRock FM2A75M-DGS (Source: Techpowerup)
