I’ve taken a liking to the mini-ITX offerings from ASRock over the last year. I’ve personally used the H67M-ITX in my system and found it to be a good board for a great price. A first glance at the A75M-ITX shows that ASRock is going to use that same tactic with its new Llano mini-ITX motherboard.
The A75M-ITX has plenty of good features starting with the AMD Hudson D3 chipset which offers support for the new FM1 socket Accelerated Processing Units (APU) from AMD. The board has 2 full size DIMM slots for a maximum of 16GB of DDR3 RAM at speeds of up to 2400MHz (overclocked).
Onboard video is provided by the APU, so it will vary depending on your choice of processor, but all are either Radeon HD 64xx or 65xx series. A maximum of 512MB of system memory will be available to the graphics engine. You have a choice of VGA/D-Sub or HDMI to connect your displays.
Other connectivity options include 4 SATAIII 6Gbps drive connectors and an eSATAIII port on the rear panel. The A75M-ITX has support for 4 USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports are also available.
Network connectivity is handled by a Realtek RTL8111E controller offering Gigabit LAN with a single RJ-45 connection. Audio is also handled by Realtek with an ALC892 Codec that offers 7.1-channel HD audio and support for THX TrueStudio. Both internal and external SPDIF outputs are provided.
Available now for a penny under $95, the A75M-ITX appears to be an excellent choice for an AMD-based mini-ITX gaming rig with its sub-$100 price point. It offers most of the features that are needed with the possible exception of WiFi.
The A75M-ITX’s single biggest advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your point of view) is that it’s the first FM1 mini-ITX board available and is currently enjoy a lack of competition. I previewed the upcoming F1A75-I from ASUS and it should be available shortly, but until then, the A75M-ITX is the sole offering for the ITX gaming crowd.