ASRock FM2A85X-ITX Motherboard
On-Board Peripherals
Contents
The AMD A85X chipset is a single-chip solution. This chip supports eight SATA-600 ports with RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). On the ASRock FM2A85X-ITX, one of them was placed on the rear panel as an eSATA-600 port, leaving seven SATA-600 ports available.
Figure 4: SATA-600 ports
The AMD A85X chipset supports two USB 1.1 ports, 10 USB 2.0 ports, and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASRock FM2A85X-ITX offers eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard; and four USB 3.0 ports, two located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard.
The ASRock FM2A85X-ITX doesn’t have FireWire ports.
This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the Realtek ALC892 codec, which is a mainstream-grade product, providing a 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. These specifications are good for the average user, but if you want to work professionally with audio editing or converting analog audio sources into digital format, you will need to pick a motherboard with at least 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio for its inputs.
The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. A header labeled “HDMI_SPDIF1” also provides SPDIF output for you to install a coaxial SPDIF output or to route digital audio to older video cards that require this physical connection in order to have digital audio output in their HDMI connectors.
The analog audio outputs allow you to install a 5.1 analog speaker set without using the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks, but if you install an analog 7.1 speaker set, you will need to use one of them for the center surround speakers.
The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.
In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared keyboard/mouse PS/2 connector, four USB 2.0 ports, VGA output, DVI-D output, HMDI output, one eSATA-600 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, an optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.
Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel