backtop

Print E-mail del.icio.us 11 comment(s) - last by Zoomer.. on May 19 at 6:43 AM

The ECS RS485M-M Motherboard
ECS is the first out the gate with a working Xpress 1100 motherboard

ECS just announced the first motherboard based on ATI's RS485 chipset.  The ECS RS485M-M is also the first non-R580 motherboard based on an ATI chipset to support AM2. The Micro-ATX powerhouse is expected to give users looking to take advantage of AMD's new energy efficient AM2 processors without spending a lot of money on C51G graphics.  

ATI's RS485, or Xpress 1100, is nearly identical to RS482 also known as Xpress 200 and Xpress 1600.  Though we certainly do not understand or wish to understand the naming convention, the important feature of RS485 is that it is pin-compatible with ATI's upcoming RS690 chipset.  RS690 will be ATI's newest mainstream AMD chipset with integrated HDMI capabilities.

The ECS RS485M-M incorporates ATI's SB460 Southbridge, dual UDMA 133 ports, four SATA 3.0Gbps ports, and 5.1 channel Realtek ALC655 audio.  ECS has opted to for a single x16 PCIe slot, one x1 PCIe slot, and two legacy PCI slots.  Although AM2 processors are capable of supporting four banks of DDR2 memory, ECS has opted to only place a single dual channel pair on this motherboard. 

Unfortunately, the motherboard only supports 15-pin analog video output from the integrated graphics adaptor.  RS485 boasts the equivalent of a Radeon X300 IGP that can share up to 256MB of system memory.  The lack of any digital outputs sorely handicaps this motherboard, but there is one free PEG x16 slot.

Like all new ECS motherboards in the US and Europe, the RS485M-M is also RoHS compliant. 

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
udma
By Missing Ghost on 5/17/2006 6:28:20 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
dual UDMA 133 ports

Where is the second port then?




RE: udma
By NextGenGamer2005 on 5/17/2006 6:35:58 PM , Rating: 2
There is another mistake as well. The ATI SB460 southbridge supports two ATA-133 and four SATA-150 ports, but it does not support SATA-300 at all. ATI's newer SB600 southbridge supports four SATA-300 ports and just one ATA-133 port.

So I'm assuming that this board is actually using the SB600 southbridge and not the SB460, as reported.


RE: udma
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 5/17/2006 9:54:06 PM , Rating: 2
ECS assures me it is absolutely SB460 and not SB600. I suppose their PR about SATA 3.0GBps is incorrect and I have asked them to append their press release.


RE: udma
By Zoomer on 5/19/2006 6:43:39 AM , Rating: 2
Crap, that makes the SB460 superior to the SB600. :(


oy!
By Scabies on 5/17/2006 11:28:12 AM , Rating: 2
Is it just me, or is that thing rediculously small? Are monster towers with big plexi windows out? Cause... With (4)SATA2 (SATA 3.0Gbps) ports, you better believe I'm doing a raid with 4 drives. Wouldnt a case designed for this keep you from doing this, or are they changing religions to 2.5" (laptop sized) drives?

Not that I'm buying a whole new setup anytime soon.. speculation (besides, onboard video is shared memory, drawing from ram (at slower speeds))




RE: oy!
By Trisped on 5/17/2006 2:30:24 PM , Rating: 3
Some people want smaller cases and lower cost. If you are buying a MBoard with a built in Video card you are probably one of those people.


RE: oy!
By hans007 on 5/17/2006 2:47:46 PM , Rating: 2
4 drives can easily fit in most microatx towers anyway. plus if optical drives ever start moving to sata, and external sata brackes for esata, you could easily use up 4.


overlapping?
By slashbinslashbash on 5/17/2006 9:50:49 AM , Rating: 2
I don't see how using the x16 slot will keep the x1 slot from being used. Look at the photo. The x1 slot is above the x16 slot! You could even use a dual-slot x16 video card and not block the x1 slot. It would block a standard PCI slot, however.




RE: overlapping?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 5/17/2006 1:24:53 PM , Rating: 2
Good point, corrected.


By sotti on 5/17/2006 12:55:11 PM , Rating: 2
this is a ghetto mobo, well maybe not ghetto, but it's lowend.

The highed will have like 6 or 8 ports for SATA 2.

mATX is in for the lowend, nothing stopping you from putting it in a tower though.




By Samus on 5/18/2006 1:19:12 AM , Rating: 2
how often does anybody use more than 4 sata ports, 2 dimm slots and sli? not many. i'd guess 1% of the entire pc population.



"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il

DailyTech Poll
Which web browser do you use on your primary personal machine? 






44 Comments









botimage
Copyright 2009 DailyTech LLC. - RSS Feed | Advertise | About Us | Ethics | FAQ | Terms, Conditions & Privacy Information | Kristopher Kubicki