FM2 ITX Motherboards!

Legion

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I'd go 150w, you get power spikes during spin up with optical drives.

Samsung Green is the lowest profile memory you can get your hands on, it's also perfect for Trinity as it's pretty easy to get it up to DDR 2133 with tight timings.

Trinity loves bandwidth and scales well with it, DDR 2133 with tight timings is the sweetspot.
DDR 2400 with slacker timings see's a drop off in performance.

Even if you don't want it for the extra performance you can squeeze from it, it's still very nice for power efficient builds.

I've been on a buying spree, I have 2 builds sat here waiting for boards to come in, what a farce!
 
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tutu

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I'm still trying to decide between the FC8 and FC5. Do you think the heatpipes would clear the ASRock ITX boards DIMMs on the FC8 or the FC5?
 
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Legion

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tutu said:
I'm still trying to decide between the FC8 and FC5. Do you think the heatpipes would clear the ASRock ITX boards DIMMs on the FC8 or the FC5?
Click to expand...
Those cases are not going to work with the Asrock ITX board, as you suspect the heatpipes will go straight through the dimm slots.

The FC5 and ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M would be an alternative for you if you really want fanless.

tutu said:
This is a fascinating article on memory and trinity:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_trinity_ddr3&num=2

Quite a big frame rate increase using 2133 Mhz (the article is for linux, but I don't see how that makes much difference)
Click to expand...

Decent article for Windows memory scaling with Trinity.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/46073-amd-a10-5800k-trinity-needs-faster-ram/
 

tutu

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Legion said:
Trinity loves bandwidth and scales well with it, DDR 2133 with tight timings is the sweetspot.
DDR 2400 with slacker timings see's a drop off in performance.
Click to expand...

Paying twice the cost for 2400 probably isn't worth a couple of fps - just wondering where you saw that 2400 had worse performance?
 

Legion

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tutu said:
Paying twice the cost for 2400 probably isn't worth a couple of fps - just wondering where you saw that 2400 had worse performance?
Click to expand...

It was some forum where where a guy in the states tested with various memory sticks, his 2400 kit however was naff with really slack timings.

This one however looks a bit better, ddr 2133 with tighter timings than the below article won't be far off the the ddr 2400 speed, if not slightly faster.
Tight timings have always given good gains with AMD kit.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/amd-trinity-graphics_8.html

I have a set of Samsung Green here that runs tight timings with ease on my 3770k.
Whether it will do it on Trinity or not I don't know yet.
Will do some testing later in the week when the rest of the kit for my 2 builds appears.
Everything I've seen so far has also been on Win 7, my 2 builds are Win8, immature drivers might also skew my results somewhat.
 
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tutu

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Thanks for the link! I'm guessing the max memory a A6 5400K would support is 1867? Or can I set it separately as it's unlocked? Not sure. I will probably go for 2133. Unless I can find some cheap, low profile 2400.
 

Legion

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This is more than enough for most people and good for the money.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-137-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

The thing is we're all gambling after 1866, this is the maximum officially supported speed.
You could get unlucky and get a chip with a stinker of an IMC that wont go past 1866.

Buying an expensive set of ddr 2400 in that case would be a huge waste, that's another reason I keep touting ddr 2133 as the sweetspot.
It's not much more than 1866 and nothing really lost if your chip can't handle that speed.
You can run it at 1866 with even tighter timings giving you similar performance.

/edit Quick update, had some time today to test briefly with an A10-5700 and my 'good' Samsung green kit, motherboard is an Asus F2A85 M-PRO with Windows 8 pro 64bit.
Chip is locked, ram went to 2133 with 9,10,10,28 2T without even trying.
Ran some benches but will save them for build logs.
Not tried 2400 yet, but well chuffed with that.
Hexus couldn't get their A10-5700 to run ram at 2133 no matter what they tried. (I suspect a crap motherboard/ immature bios tbh)

I've got my Asrock FM2A75M-ITX and 2, A10-5800k's to have a play with also.
Case to mod for the ITX build.
Now I just need some free time :/
 
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MAK360

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The 1866mhz is a good choice and is something i will aim for min in my build.

Hoping OCUK have these in soon Asus F2A85-M LE and MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 or the one from ASRock FM2A75M-ITX :)

I can't believe I missed the ASRock FM2A75M-ITX when it was available. I could buy the other components - but to be honest I don`t want to be waiting weeks/months for motherboards whilst stuck with the rest of components.

Edit: Around two weeks for FM2 MB`s I read on anther thread (getting there)
 

Legion

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Just a heads up on the Asrock board, I bought 5 last week for builds.
It has a load of IC's on the back of the board that will interfere with backplates from every cooler manufacturer.

I ended up cutting down an AM3 backplate I had lying around for my build (still in progress)
That was to support a Noctua NH-C14, even more headaches then as the way it orientates on this board, it blocks the pci-e slot and precludes the use of tall ram as the heatpipes stand over the ram slots.

Turning it 180 degree's, it then wont fit the case heh.

I had the cooler lying around so no big deal.

Going to be a headache finding decent air coolers to fit this board under 130mm (needs to be for case it's going into)
A BeQuiet Shadowrock Top Down is almost as good as the Noctua but could have the same issues on this board, I doubt any 140mm top down is going to work in my particular build.
I may just use a Scythe Big Shuriken 2 with a BeQuiet Silentwings 120mm fan on it, works great for overclocking IGP@ 1150 and a 4.2ghz CPU overclock in a silent build I did on an Asus F2A8M-PRO.
The Asus board is pure class, such a shame they haven't got an ITX board ready just yet.

I must also point at that at this time the Asrock board won't clock ram (over 1600) that doesn't have an XMP profile for the speed you want. (i.e selecting 1866 requires that ram to have an 1866 XMP profile)

I have some really good sets of Samsung green that do 2600 on Z77 and 2400 with tight timings on an Asus F2A85M-PRO.

On this board they won't go over 1600 no matter what you try, I've been given a few beta bios's by Asrock to try, but the board just won't post with any memory that doesn't have an XMP profile for the speeds higher than 1600.
I've ordered some Gskill Ares 2133 with tight timings so we'll see how that goes when it arrives on Tuesday.

They've truly dropped the ball here with this, I hope to god they get some proper manual ram overclocking working and implemented fast.
The best gaming gains are fast memory and upping the GPU on Trinity, overclocking the CPU only really matters in non GPU bound games.

Lastly the board has no active cooling, I'd strongly recommend you get some Enzotech mosfet sinks if you plan to clock this board.

This is a budget board (UK price gouging has inflated it beyond it's real market price), it does have potential though, if they get ram overclocking working properly it will be a killer little board.
I'll just use it until Asus get their fingers out and get a Deluxe board with proper socket orientation out.

Roll on Asus Deluxe lol.
 
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MAK360

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Some good info on the FM2A75M-ITX (@Legion).

Which ITX or MATX M-Boards would you guys pick from list below for HTPC:

MSI FM2-A75MA-E35
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/FM2-A75MA-E35.html
MSI FM2-A75IA-E53
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/FM2-A75IA-E53.html
F2A85-M/CSM (Asus)
http://commercial.asus.com/product/detail/f2a85-m-csm-motherboard
Gigabyte F2A75M-HD2 AMD FM2 A75 DDR3 mATX
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4393&dl=1
Asus F2A85-M LE AMD FMX A85X DDR3 mATX
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_Socket_FM2/F2A85M_LE/
Pure Platinum A75T (Sapphire)
http://www.techpowerup.com/167345/Sapphire-Unveils-Pure-Platinum-A75T-Mini-ITX-Motherboard.html
FM2A75M-DGS (ASRock)
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/FM2A75M-DGS/
Biostar TA75MH2 Ver. 6.x
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=614
 
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Legion

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Depends what sized case you'd be happy with really, you get more features and more for your money with m-ATX than m-ITX.

My HTPC is m-ATX for the simple reason it has an SSD, a Bluray drive, 3x 3tb drives, dual Blackgold BGT 3600 Freesat pci-e tuner cards and a wireless pci-e network card.

This is a very good and well featured m-ATX board for a good price.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-099-AK&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=2399

The Asus F2A85-M won't be far off that price, I'd suggest you didn't get the LE version which is the bottom of the pile Asus A85 m-ATX board, it's a bit too stripped down for an A85 board, you'd get more bang for buck with a better featured A75 board, such as I linked above.

I went for the top spec Asus F2A85-M PRO personally, but not everyone has the budget or see's value in the higher end boards like I do.
I also game on it, it's class, I dropped an A10-5700 into it, it flies with ddr3 2133 with some nice tight timings.
Idle wattage is also very nice with the Asus EPU chip running.
If only Asus had an m-ITX board ready for my Mini-Gamer build.
 
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MAK360

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Am leaning on the MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 (I would prefer A85 ITX). Theres not much difference between the A85 and A75 - Apart from Raid 5 and a few extra USB/SATA ports, SD etc.

My initial build plan was to go ITX but the lack of options made me take into account the MATX Boards.
 

Legion

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There won't be any A85 m-ITX boards, unless Asus decide they can make some profit out of one.

I've had bad experiences with MSI boards in the past, I know that's not the case these days but I still wouldn't buy one for my own use.

For you it's going to boil down to what case size you can live with.
 

Emlyn_Dewar

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I'm hoping there'll be a reasonable spec/layout Zotac FM2 ITX board out soon.
Have been impressed with the quality of the 890GX-ITX, and would like an FM2 alternative to be released.
 

tutu

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I've gone for the ASRock Pro4 FM2 board, as it's the only one that has a CIR header plus HDMI and fits in my case.

I would have preferred ITX so that I could re-use it somewhere else in the future. The ASRock ITX is not compatible with the Streacom FC5/8 due to DIMM slots being in the way.
 
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