ASRock AM1H-ITX

Board Layout:

Overall, this is a very nicely engineered AMD AM1 motherboard with this mini-ITX motherboard boasting a PCI Express x16 slot, DC-In and ATX power compatibility, four Serial ATA 3.0 ports, and plenty of connectivity options -- including VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D ports. While fitting within a mini-ITX layout, the AM1H-ITX isn't crowded and overall the layout appears quite good with sufficient spacing and not running into any areas of the motherboard that should be too cramped. Having four Serial ATA ports over two on other AM1 mini-ITX motherboards is great for HTPC / server purposes.

While there is a full-length PCI Express x16 slot, the actual bandwidth is limited to PCI-E x4 due to limitations of the AM1 platform and thus is a common limitation to all of the AM1 socketed motherboards.

Having the DC-In power connector to complement the 24-pin ATX power connection is great, though no power supply comes bundled with the motherboard.

Rear panel I/O ports include the DC power input, two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, one PS/2 combination keyboard/mouse port, VGA D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, and all the standard audio jacks.

This motherboard looks great, but let's see how it runs with Linux!