Biostar revealed a set of new motherboards that it will soon be releasing. The company’s Pro series AMD motherboards have been designed to be affordable options for AMD APU-based PCs.
Biostar’s A70MD PRO, A70MG PRO and A68MD PRO motherboards all feature AMD’s A70M chipset, which supports AMD A4, A6, A8 and A10 APUs, as well as AMD E2 and Athlon II X4 processors. Each board includes two DIMM slots that support DDR3-2600, four Sata III ports for storage, and a gigabit NIC.
All three of the new Pro series boards are built on the mATX form factor, and they all feature the same expansion options: one PCIe 3.0 x16, a single PCIe 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI slot. The boards also feature 10 USB ports each — four USB 3.0 and six USB 2.0 ports — but only two of each are mounted to the board. The rest can be accessed through headers on the board.
The three boards don’t appear to be very different. On paper, it appears they share most of the same features. They all include Nichicon audio capacitors, Iron Heart Protect reinforced metal backplates, and feature Tough Power Enhanced power design meant for high current resistance. The only real difference is with the A70MG PRO, which doesn’t include a DVI interface and lacks the 100% solid capacitors found on the other two models.
| Model | A70MD PRO | A70MG PRO | A68MD PRO |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD FM2/FM2+ Processor | AMD FM2/FM2+ Processor | AMD FM2/FM2+ Processor |
| Power | 5phase | 5phase | 5phase |
| Chipsets | A70M | A70M | A70M |
| Solid cap | 100% | CPU in/output | 100% |
| Memory | 2 x DDR3-2600(OC) | 2 x DDR3-2600(OC) | 2 x DDR3-2600(OC) |
| Expansion Slot | 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 | 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 | 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x16 |
| 1 x PCI-E 2.0 x1 | 1 x PCI-E 2.0 x1 | 1 x PCI-E 2.0 x1 | |
| 1 x PCI | 1 x PCI | 1 x PCI | |
| LAN | GbE (RTL8111G) | GbE (RTL8111G) | GbE (RTL8111G) |
| Storage | 4SATA3 | 4SATA3 | 4SATA3 |
| Video | VGA , DVI | VGA | VGA , DVI |
| USB 3.0 / 2.0 | 4USB 3.0(2+2) / 6USB 2.0 (4+2) | 4USB 3.0(2+2) / 6USB 2.0 (4+2) | 4USB 3.0(2+2) / 6USB 2.0 (4+2) |
| Feature | Watch Dog, BIO-Relife, BIO-Flasher, BIOSTAR Flash, e-HotLine, BIO-Watch, Smart Speed LAN, BIOS Screen | Watch Dog, BIO-Relife, BIO-Flasher, BIOSTAR Flash, e-HotLine, BIO-Watch, Smart Speed LAN, BIOS Screen | Watch Dog, BIO-Relife, BIO-Flasher, BIOSTAR Flash, e-HotLine, BIO-Watch, Smart Speed LAN, BIOS Screen |
Biostar did not release the prices of the Pro series motherboards, but the company was adamant about these products being a great value proposition. We’ve asked Biostar for more details, but we expect these boards to be very competitively priced. The boards will go on sale at Biostar’s eBay store in the near future.
[SOURCE:-tomshardware]