Motherboard AMD A8 5545m embedded mITX

[bichael]

Hi all

Obviously something of a niche product but thought I would share my experience with this low power motherboard+cpu, a Supox A5545NX7 which I got for around $60US equivalent.
http://www.epox.cn/product_view.php?id=508&bid=
It looks suspiciously similar to the Biostar A68N-5545.
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=856
It has a 19W A8 5545m apu and I'm running 4GB of 1333 DDR3 plus a 1TB sshd with windows 10.
For a low cost board it has a pretty good array of connections like USB3, SATA3 and gigabit ethernet. PCI-E is gen2 x8 which I guess should be more than sufficient as cpu will likely limit any gpu before the bandwidth.
I haven't managed to OC the cpu which I was a bit disappointed with (there's something in the BIOS which suggests it might but doesn't seem to do anything) but I have been able to lock it at 2.4GHz on all cores.
For general home theatre pc type use it's been working pretty smoothly. Occasionally (and particularly during installs and updates) it seems to get really slow though I'm not sure to what extent that's the cpu or I'm just accustomed to ssd's now.
Currently (temporarily) it's paired with a gtx1060 and while I need to try a few more games it definitely seems capable of some gaming, though with a bit of tweaking to try and cut down on the stutters.
Youtube, netflix etc. has been fine with either the integrated gpu or the 1060.

Overall and for the price I'm happy with it, it offers something in between a really low power SOC type board and a more regular board. For it's eventual intended use as a second PC in the bedroom it should do nicely.

 

[confusis]

Interesting board! Usually the embedded boards have PCI rather than PCIe slots (ughh). I'd suggest most of the slowness is down to the ancient CPU (that CPU launched 5 years ago )

 

[bichael]

Yeah, it's an interesting approach using an old mobile cpu to make a low cost / low power board but I would say it's fairly successful. After living with it for a while it does make a very useable system, with only really installations seeming particularly slow, and obviously gets bogged down if try and do lots at the same time. Now paired with my R9 290 and gaming is surprisingly doable, even forza horizon 3 is playable once locked to 30fps and with some settings turned down, something older / easier on the cpu like dirt 3 runs 60fps high settings no problem.

Does just bug me slightly that while I'm getting good performance out of the cpu (97th percentile on userbenchmark) there is clearly someone who has managed to overclock it somehow as there are a few results around 10% or so beyond myne... (I do take way too much satisfaction in getting a component to 99 or 100% on userbenchmark).
www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7925380

 

[confusis]

Will Radeon Crimson or any other tool provide overclocking options? It's always fun finding ways around manufacturer restrictions on motherboards