Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H AMD A88X
Motherboard Layout:
The components on the Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H motherboard are laid out nicely for fitting a micro-ATX PCB. All major components are optionally positioned for fitting well in small micro-ATX cases while making cable routing and component installation not too much of a challenge. On the upper left hand side of the motherboard are the four DDR3 DIMM slots that support up to DDR3-2133MHz natively or DDR3-2400MHz in the overclocked mode. For AMD Kaveri memory performance see the earlier DDR3-2400MHz Kaveri memory scaling tests (https://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=19745). Next to the DDR3 memory slots is the 24-pin ATX power connector while behind the APU socket area is an 8-pin EPS12V power connector.
The A88X chipset is covered by a small passive heatsink and near the chipset are a total of eight Serial ATA 3.0 ports, which is great to see out of a micro ATX motherboard having such large storage possibilities so it's great for an HTPC or living room gaming PC. Along the bottom edge of the motherboard are the USB headers, front panel header, and audio headers.
This motherboard has dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 connectors but the secondary PCI-E x16 slot is limited to PCI-E x4 bandwidth over having a limited number of PCI-E lanes with the AMD A88X chipset. Separating the PCI Express x16 slots is the PCI and PCI Express x1 slots, which is great in the case of using dual-slot graphics cards.
Around the APU socket area the motherboard is free from obstructions that could potentially conflict with after-market heatsinks. This motherboard works with FM2 and FM2+ AMD processors.
The back panel connectors on the Gigabyte A88X motherboard include PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, VGA D-Sub, DVI, HDMI, two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet, optical S/PDIF Out, and three analog audio jacks. Having DVI and HDMI on the motherboard is great given the very decent graphics performance capabilities out of AMD's A10-7850K Kaveri APU with GCN graphics. Some of the ASICs worth noting on this motherboard are the Realtek ALC887 HD Audio Codec and the iTE I/O controller.