A little too grey? The dual channel memory DIMMs
Supporting upto 32GB, 16GB per slot, there is little justification for the average user to need more than the two DIMMs we see here. Able to support up to DDR3 2600MHz speeds with an overclock, my only shame is not being able to test that feature out! Slots are placed fairly close to the FM1 socket so ram clearance may be an issue if you are using performance ram with tall heatspreaders, however, in the main this is not likely to cause an issue. Using the traditional AMD heatsink retention bracket with fitted plastic push-pins, some may want to refrain from using some 3rd party coolers unless they are supplied with a backplate as the motherboard is not supplied with one. Just above the retention bracket, adjacent the memory DIMMs we can also see the CPU 4pin PWM fan header.
Regimented SATA ports.
On the bottom right part of the board we see two 3pin fan headers straddling the regimented 6 white SATA 3Gb/s ports, as to why manufacturers still do not opt for using right angled SATA ports in situations where there is no need for space consideration is beyond me, still, they do their job. In this area we also see two USB 2.0 headers, the front panel headers as well as the CMOS battery and the clear CMOS jumper.
The bottom left quadrant
In this area we see the various headers for the speaker, SPDIFO, case alarm and COM features leading towards the AMI APTIO chip which powers the ECS GUI UEFI BIOS. The following SMD is the Realtek ALC662 audio codec which leads towards the front panel audio header. Sitting at the far right of the image is the Realtek RTL8111E lan controller.
3+1 makes a party... right?
ECS have placed a 4pin 12V ATX connector where we could expect, feeding the APU via a 3 + 1 phase delivery. Overclocking is likely to be very limited, not to mention that there is no MOSFET cooling. By the HDMI/DVI video outputs we see an ASMedia ASM1445 controller which allows automatic selection of DVI or HDMI protocol.
The rear I/O seems a little light
The rear I/O affords dedicated PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse, VGA, DVI and HDMI video out, 4x USB 2.0, Gigabit lan and 3 audio jacks. It is a little disappointing to not see more USB 2.0 ports here as the A55 chipset affords 14 of them, including the 2 internal USB headers, the most USB ports this board can afford is 8, wasting a relatively significant potential. If like me, you have a USB mouse, a USB keyboard, a webcam, external USB hard drives, a printer as well as various other USB based devices, the native 4x USB 2.0 ports will very quickly be saturated.
