The point is it's backwards compatible, PCIe 4.0 can do more or the same with less lanes. So an x16 3.0 only needs an x8 4.0 or something along those lines.
No, you are fucking retarded. You'd need some way to actively convert 4.0 x4 to 3.0 x8 to be able to use "same" bandwidth. 4.0 x4 link with x8 card in there isn't going to be magically faster, it will just work at 3.0 x4. But all that is moot because the article is retarded and the x16 slot is actually electrically x16.
Not sure what the arguement is here, it's a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, so it'll run a PCIe 3.0 x8 RAID card at full speed.
The article is wrong. The official specs state its x16 and it'd be ridiculous not to be on a board like this I mean where would the other bandwidth go; there is literally ONE PCIe slot.
Not hardly. It's m.2 NVMe slot is x4. If you look at the specs (linked at the end of the article) it's a x16 slot, although with Picasso/Raven CPU it's only x8.
Where does it say it's x4 on the x16 slot? On ASRock's page it says it's full x16, but that when using certain CPUs that don't have full 4.0 x16, it may run at 3.0 and/or x8. But either way, you're going to get *AT LEAST* 3.0 x8.
> PCIE7: Gen4x16 link (Matisse)*
> *When use Picasso/Raven CPU, only PCIe3.0 x8, and use Pinnacle CPU, PCIe3.0 x16
ssd raid 1+ doesn't support trim anyway. no trimming will damage ssd. large ssd (500 GB) does safe "raid" internally anyway. so if you need more capacity, buying larger ssd it's better than manual raid0
Not TRIMming a SSD does *NOT* damage it in any way. If you are concerned about wear-leveling efficiency, just reserve a little extra unused space and you get the same effect.
The post does not list the x16 PCI-E slot specs it actually lists the 2 x OCULINK connector specs (i.e. listed under Storage) which are indeed optionally configurable in BIOS as PCI-E 4.0 x 4 (or 4 x SATA3). And these can also be broken out to via an adapter to normal PCI-E slots or M.2 of course. As well as the x16 slot that was not actually listed in the specs. Likely which will also likely support a few bifuracation options ([1*x8+2*x4] | [2*x8]) if you have a supporting CPU installed AND the bios was written to support it.
It's perfect for its intended market - and YAY FINALLY 10GBE ON MINI-ITX - but hopefully they will produce a consumer (HDMI, audio chip, dump the IPMI) version.
Sincerely doubt that is going to happen, but we might see a high end ITX board with 10GbE in the next couple of generations still. It just won't be a version of this as this design is rather server-specific and would require a major redesign anyhow.
It's more likely that due to the small customer base for Mini-ITX, they'll just have this one SKU serve any market that wants X570 small form factor (that is not suitable for APUs - see below). As the article implies, it's possible that even this only made it to market because it was already designed at a behest of a major customer.
This motherboard isn't suitable for use with APUs: The D-SUB is from the management controller, so there are no regular display connections.
For a Zen+ APU, a B450 Mini-ITX motherboard would be a far better fit, and those usually have HDMI. Once B550 comes along, we may see more options for consumers.
At this point I'd be happy with 2.5GbE at a much reduced cost for all needed parts . 4 ram slots is interesting even if only sodimm @ 2400mhz. Good quality audio , yes.
It’s perfect for me, I’ve looked for a minitx with 10gbe, 8+ sata and ecc for a long time, don’t care if intel or amd, but what I really really want is to actually be able to buy it anywhere in the UK, and I haven’t been able to find any board like this that’s actually for sale!
It is almost exactly what I've been looking for to build a new server. Now I need AMD to have an iGPU Ryzen with more than 4c/8t. 8 SATA, and using the M.2 doesn't block off one or more of them, and a 10GbE connection. Heck, two, for good measure. not that I would never need that in the expected lifetime of such a machine (longer than many would think, my current one is about 9 years old). OK, I'll fit your narrative - it would be nice if it had 2x m.2 slots so the OS could be on redundant drives. But since SSDs are so reliable, AND it will be fully backed up.....
Why the igpu on a server. That's what that d-sub is for. Ryzen is perfect for a relativly fast 2019 server, or advances linux box. You'll be surpised how much traffic even a 300 dollar 3700x can handle.
I don't find the usage of Intel NICs on AMD Platforms that unusual - Intel is a big player in networking, and their stuff is widely supported. I can think of Aqantia as an alternative, but I don't know how well they are supported on the server-side of things. Broadcom and Chelsio also have 10GbE chips (Chelsio even does some AMD OEM products), and I think Mellanox/nVidia, though I don't know if they do OEM work.
Going with Intel seems like a sane choice, regardless of the CPU brand.
Also, a rare sight, an X570 board without active cooling. Though if this is ASRock Rack, they likely assume that the chassis is taking care of enough airflow.
It really shows how useless that chipset fan is, in addition to the videos posted online showing smaller silent heatsinks running significantly cooler then the fan enabled models. .
1) If you used Aquantia, you'd only get a single port unless you included two controllers.
2) The customer *for whom this board was designed in the first place* required Intel, so having Aquantia (or some other brand) would be the truly bizarre choice.
Umm, this is a very specifically designed board, that’s for sure. The choice of the X570 chipset for this when it seems that it would have been FAR more cost effective to use the B450 and a separate usb and IO controller is just... odd. The X570 brings free bifurcation for the x16 channels for the first slot, and wiring the PCIe slot for x16 and keeping the x4 channel for the M.2 slot would have made much more sense. If someone did a deep dive on this, they’d likely find that the decision was made to keep the board to the absolute fewest possible layers.
The customer ASRock made this for required X570, so that's what they made. Presumably the customer has some use for PCIe Gen4.
I don't think cost-cutting was a priority on this design, especially since it doesn't suit the typical consumer Mini-ITX use case at all, since APUs would have no display outputs.
B450 doesn't have the I/O for a design like this. The CPU handles the x16 slot and m.2, true (though they would be limited to 3.0 on B450), but the two OCUlink ports need another x8 of PCIe which B450 does not provide, plus the connection for the ethernet controller.
I'd love a Ryzen B450 board with a BMC. Can build our own server then, the BMC is what made the boss say no last time and buy a way overpriced 6 core Intel server instead.
Looks like the kind of thing you might see used for one of OVH's cheap and cheerful half-rack-unit systems. Or maybe a new HP Microserver? Last one was a bit of a dud compared to the Gen8 which is chundering away beneath my desk.
Did you mean chuntering? Because a Microserver throwing up underneath your desk is a great mental image but seems odd :D
I really wish they'd have gone with Ryzen for the Gen10 instead of Carrizo. I had a G7 and loved it, would happily go for a newer one with a proper APU.
Nice, but way overpriced without any underlying technical reason. Most people would be better off with cheap MoBo + 10G NIC.
They are obviously targeting some specific segment that is prepared to pay this. Hopefully, competition will soon drop the prices to a reasonable levels.
It's a really good server motherboard, finally a mITX motherboard which almost checks everything, I'm not saying it's perfect, but every major check is checked. 10GbE, PCIe x16, M.2 port, 6+ SATA ports and now it checks with BMC management also.
The most interesting part is the use of OcLink. I've been a big fan of it to replace SATA ports. It's flexible to use both SATA and NVMe and a single port can split to 4x SATA ports or single x4 lanes NVMe drive or multiple <4x lanes NVMe drives. Saving precious space on the motherboard and making cable management easier.
OK, I'll bite: I see 1 ea. 8-pin and 2 ea. 4-pin power connectors. AsRock Rack lists these as 8pin DCIn, 4pin ATX and 4pin HDD power. Do these correspond at all to standard ATX PSU connectors, or would you need a specialty PSU? Could you use a standard ATX PSU with custom cables?
It looks like its designed for 12VDC-only PSUs but whether it is standard or not... damn good question. I think probably not.
There has been a lot of industry talk lately about implementing a new PSU design that offers only 12VDC and doing all other voltage conversions on the mobo. But this new standard uses a 10-pin primary connector, not an 8-pin connector:
Looks lovely. I really like the 4 RAM slots. I don’t need many USB ports nowadays and a USB3 hub takes care of that quite nicely. Only things missing for me are a USB-C port and 2x m.2 slots. There’s plenty of room on the bottom for multiple m.2 slots, I would be quite happy with that.
Its a pretty big deal that it has four memory slots, even if they are SODIMM and 'slow'. No other modern mini-itx mobo has four memory slots. Though I'm not sure why the memory capacity is listed as only 64GB. It should be 128GB (using 32GB SODIMMs).... maybe 32GB SODIMMs don't exist :-)
Its also a big deal that it has a 10Gbe Intel NIC instead of the aquantia stuff.
Note that this is designed as a server motherboard, not a consumer motherboard. The 1Gbe NIC is for the integrated IPMI. That's why it has a D-Sub display connector on the back that does not require a GPU or APU to be plugged in.
It's packed chock full of server-related technology. Also, note how few VRMs are on the board. This board is NOT designed for overclocking (server mobos in general are not meant to overclock).
The orientation of the components and heat sinks are also designed for a server 2U rack mount's front-to-back forced-air cooling, and not for a normal case.
Looking forward to the micro atx version of this board like what they did for the x470, hoping they won't limit the second nvme for extra SATA. Is SATA for servers still a thing?
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shabby - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
In before someone says "almost a perfect board, but it's missing this that and the other"timecop1818 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Only 4x pcie on the 16x slot, most hw raid cards are 8x.efficacyman - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Most hw raid cards are 8x PCI 3.0, which is equivalent bandwidth to 4x PCI 4.0timecop1818 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
and zero pcie4 raid cards exist, your point is?CheapSushi - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The point is it's backwards compatible, PCIe 4.0 can do more or the same with less lanes. So an x16 3.0 only needs an x8 4.0 or something along those lines.timecop1818 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
No, you are fucking retarded. You'd need some way to actively convert 4.0 x4 to 3.0 x8 to be able to use "same" bandwidth. 4.0 x4 link with x8 card in there isn't going to be magically faster, it will just work at 3.0 x4. But all that is moot because the article is retarded and the x16 slot is actually electrically x16.deepblue08 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Ugghhhh...where's the admin?Spunjji - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
@timecop1818 - they were wrong, no need to throw out slurs.13Gigatons - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
I'm pretty sure they will release a 4.0 x4 Raid Card at some point?Samus - Sunday, February 2, 2020 - link
Not sure what the arguement is here, it's a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, so it'll run a PCIe 3.0 x8 RAID card at full speed.The article is wrong. The official specs state its x16 and it'd be ridiculous not to be on a board like this I mean where would the other bandwidth go; there is literally ONE PCIe slot.
yetanotherhuman - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Nah, a PCIe 3.0 device will run at PCIe 3.0 speeds, 4 lanes. PCI Express would have to be FORWARDS compatible to do what you're suggesting.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Nope. A PCIE 4.0x4 port will become a 3.0x4 port. It cant become a 3.0x8 port unless it was a 4.0x8 slot to begin with.Irata - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
There's Asus' Hyper M.2 and Gigabyte's Aorus Gen 4 AIC... maybe more but these two come to mind.Drizzt321 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Not hardly. It's m.2 NVMe slot is x4. If you look at the specs (linked at the end of the article) it's a x16 slot, although with Picasso/Raven CPU it's only x8.timecop1818 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
> one PCIe 4.0 x4 slot for graphics cardsThen the article is garbage. You are right, specs on site say its x16 slot
Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The official spec page says its PCIe 4.0 x16. Error/misprint in the article it would seem.https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.a...
Meaker10 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Look at the traces on the back of the board, certainly 16x.CharonPDX - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Where does it say it's x4 on the x16 slot? On ASRock's page it says it's full x16, but that when using certain CPUs that don't have full 4.0 x16, it may run at 3.0 and/or x8. But either way, you're going to get *AT LEAST* 3.0 x8.> PCIE7: Gen4x16 link (Matisse)*
> *When use Picasso/Raven CPU, only PCIe3.0 x8, and use Pinnacle CPU, PCIe3.0 x16
zamroni - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
ssd raid 1+ doesn't support trim anyway. no trimming will damage ssd.large ssd (500 GB) does safe "raid" internally anyway. so if you need more capacity, buying larger ssd it's better than manual raid0
MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Not TRIMming a SSD does *NOT* damage it in any way. If you are concerned about wear-leveling efficiency, just reserve a little extra unused space and you get the same effect.-Matt
RockenRod - Thursday, September 3, 2020 - link
The post does not list the x16 PCI-E slot specs it actually lists the 2 x OCULINK connector specs (i.e. listed under Storage) which are indeed optionally configurable in BIOS as PCI-E 4.0 x 4 (or 4 x SATA3). And these can also be broken out to via an adapter to normal PCI-E slots or M.2 of course. As well as the x16 slot that was not actually listed in the specs. Likely which will also likely support a few bifuracation options ([1*x8+2*x4] | [2*x8]) if you have a supporting CPU installed AND the bios was written to support it.mooninite - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
It's perfect for its intended market - and YAY FINALLY 10GBE ON MINI-ITX - but hopefully they will produce a consumer (HDMI, audio chip, dump the IPMI) version.Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Sincerely doubt that is going to happen, but we might see a high end ITX board with 10GbE in the next couple of generations still. It just won't be a version of this as this design is rather server-specific and would require a major redesign anyhow.Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
It's more likely that due to the small customer base for Mini-ITX, they'll just have this one SKU serve any market that wants X570 small form factor (that is not suitable for APUs - see below). As the article implies, it's possible that even this only made it to market because it was already designed at a behest of a major customer.This motherboard isn't suitable for use with APUs: The D-SUB is from the management controller, so there are no regular display connections.
For a Zen+ APU, a B450 Mini-ITX motherboard would be a far better fit, and those usually have HDMI. Once B550 comes along, we may see more options for consumers.
MASSAMKULABOX - Saturday, February 1, 2020 - link
At this point I'd be happy with 2.5GbE at a much reduced cost for all needed parts . 4 ram slots is interesting even if only sodimm @ 2400mhz. Good quality audio , yes.abufrejoval - Saturday, February 8, 2020 - link
Just put a GPU into the PCIe x16 slot and you'll have as many DP/HDMI ports with internal sound as you want (USB sound, if you're desperate).And no, the IPMI is one of the most attractive features after the dual 10Gbase-T (perhaps even Nbase-T?)
esoel_ - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
It’s perfect for me, I’ve looked for a minitx with 10gbe, 8+ sata and ecc for a long time, don’t care if intel or amd, but what I really really want is to actually be able to buy it anywhere in the UK, and I haven’t been able to find any board like this that’s actually for sale!RockenRod - Thursday, September 3, 2020 - link
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asrock-x570d4i-2t-...rrinker - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
It is almost exactly what I've been looking for to build a new server. Now I need AMD to have an iGPU Ryzen with more than 4c/8t. 8 SATA, and using the M.2 doesn't block off one or more of them, and a 10GbE connection. Heck, two, for good measure. not that I would never need that in the expected lifetime of such a machine (longer than many would think, my current one is about 9 years old).OK, I'll fit your narrative - it would be nice if it had 2x m.2 slots so the OS could be on redundant drives. But since SSDs are so reliable, AND it will be fully backed up.....
Foeketijn - Saturday, February 1, 2020 - link
Why the igpu on a server. That's what that d-sub is for. Ryzen is perfect for a relativly fast 2019 server, or advances linux box. You'll be surpised how much traffic even a 300 dollar 3700x can handle.MenhirMike - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
I don't find the usage of Intel NICs on AMD Platforms that unusual - Intel is a big player in networking, and their stuff is widely supported. I can think of Aqantia as an alternative, but I don't know how well they are supported on the server-side of things. Broadcom and Chelsio also have 10GbE chips (Chelsio even does some AMD OEM products), and I think Mellanox/nVidia, though I don't know if they do OEM work.Going with Intel seems like a sane choice, regardless of the CPU brand.
MenhirMike - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Also, a rare sight, an X570 board without active cooling. Though if this is ASRock Rack, they likely assume that the chassis is taking care of enough airflow.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
And look at how tiny the heatsink is!It really shows how useless that chipset fan is, in addition to the videos posted online showing smaller silent heatsinks running significantly cooler then the fan enabled models. .
Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Yeah, I agree.1) If you used Aquantia, you'd only get a single port unless you included two controllers.
2) The customer *for whom this board was designed in the first place* required Intel, so having Aquantia (or some other brand) would be the truly bizarre choice.
lightningz71 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Umm, this is a very specifically designed board, that’s for sure. The choice of the X570 chipset for this when it seems that it would have been FAR more cost effective to use the B450 and a separate usb and IO controller is just... odd. The X570 brings free bifurcation for the x16 channels for the first slot, and wiring the PCIe slot for x16 and keeping the x4 channel for the M.2 slot would have made much more sense. If someone did a deep dive on this, they’d likely find that the decision was made to keep the board to the absolute fewest possible layers.Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The PCIe slot is wired for PCIe Gen4 x16. There is a typo in this news post, but ASRock's product page lists it as x16, and Gen4 for Matisse.https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.a...
The customer ASRock made this for required X570, so that's what they made. Presumably the customer has some use for PCIe Gen4.
I don't think cost-cutting was a priority on this design, especially since it doesn't suit the typical consumer Mini-ITX use case at all, since APUs would have no display outputs.
Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
B450 doesn't have the I/O for a design like this. The CPU handles the x16 slot and m.2, true (though they would be limited to 3.0 on B450), but the two OCUlink ports need another x8 of PCIe which B450 does not provide, plus the connection for the ethernet controller.AdrianB1 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
D-sub, the SATA connector choice and the small number of USB ports strongly suggests this was not designed with regular users in mind.Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The OEM being Asrock Rack strongly suggests this was not designed with regular users in mind.Alistair - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
I'd love a Ryzen B450 board with a BMC. Can build our own server then, the BMC is what made the boss say no last time and buy a way overpriced 6 core Intel server instead.Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
There are at least a couple with X470, e.g."ASRock Rack X470D4U AMD Ryzen Server Motherboards"
https://www.servethehome.com/asrock-rack-x470d4u-a...
a review by servethehome.com, 2019-05-29
cosmotic - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Article says PCIE4 4x, specs on ASRock say 16xMakaveli - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
This is a rather interesting board with some design choices clearly not made for the average consumer.5080 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Passive cooled X570. That alone makes it a very interesting choice if you're in the market for a quiet mITX board.Dave321 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
ITX with 4 ram slots is new to me.firewrath9 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
X299 ITX boards had 4 slots, they was also a 2011-3 board with 4 ram slots.GreenReaper - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Looks like the kind of thing you might see used for one of OVH's cheap and cheerful half-rack-unit systems. Or maybe a new HP Microserver? Last one was a bit of a dud compared to the Gen8 which is chundering away beneath my desk.Spunjji - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Did you mean chuntering? Because a Microserver throwing up underneath your desk is a great mental image but seems odd :DI really wish they'd have gone with Ryzen for the Gen10 instead of Carrizo. I had a G7 and loved it, would happily go for a newer one with a proper APU.
GreenReaper - Sunday, February 2, 2020 - link
Well, it does occasionally lose up gobs of fluff from its air filtering system, but yes, chuntering.DrifterX7 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Looks like a good candidate for an ESXi home lab setup.Brane2 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Nice, but way overpriced without any underlying technical reason.Most people would be better off with cheap MoBo + 10G NIC.
They are obviously targeting some specific segment that is prepared to pay this.
Hopefully, competition will soon drop the prices to a reasonable levels.
yetanotherhuman - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
This is actually really, really nice. And no fan on the X570!!!katsetus - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Once you start adding up the PCIe links, you can understand why they had to use X570:x16 to GPU
x4 to NVMe
x4 to 10G
x8 to SATA
By my count there is still another x4 free, though I guess the Aspeed chip goes there.
jtd871 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
There are also the 1GbE and 3 USBs.MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
The 1Gbe link is for dedicated IPMI (remote management).-Matt
Xajel - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
It's a really good server motherboard, finally a mITX motherboard which almost checks everything, I'm not saying it's perfect, but every major check is checked. 10GbE, PCIe x16, M.2 port, 6+ SATA ports and now it checks with BMC management also.The most interesting part is the use of OcLink. I've been a big fan of it to replace SATA ports. It's flexible to use both SATA and NVMe and a single port can split to 4x SATA ports or single x4 lanes NVMe drive or multiple <4x lanes NVMe drives. Saving precious space on the motherboard and making cable management easier.
OcLink to SATA splitter cables are cheap actually...
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2...
katsetus - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
That's not an Oculink cable. Although you are correct, it's not expensive, they are something like 30 to 40 dollars.Xajel - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Sorry my bad, was searching on my phone...Here's a Supermicro branded one, for 29.99.. even thought it's OoS.
jtd871 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
OK, I'll bite: I see 1 ea. 8-pin and 2 ea. 4-pin power connectors. AsRock Rack lists these as 8pin DCIn, 4pin ATX and 4pin HDD power. Do these correspond at all to standard ATX PSU connectors, or would you need a specialty PSU? Could you use a standard ATX PSU with custom cables?MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
It looks like its designed for 12VDC-only PSUs but whether it is standard or not... damn good question. I think probably not.There has been a lot of industry talk lately about implementing a new PSU design that offers only 12VDC and doing all other voltage conversions on the mobo. But this new standard uses a 10-pin primary connector, not an 8-pin connector:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/atx12vo-12v-only...
-Matt
Golgatha777 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
So, let's bring this passively cooled X570 board to the desktop space, please and thank you.Jorsher - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
I'll be using this in a U-NAS 810-A enclosure for my next FreeNAS build.Perfect board, and hopefully cheaper than the $450 Supermicro board I used with this enclosure in the past.
Slash3 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Should be about $425, which makes it both the cheapest X570 with 10GbE as well as the least expensive passively cooled X570 board.Tomatotech - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Looks lovely. I really like the 4 RAM slots. I don’t need many USB ports nowadays and a USB3 hub takes care of that quite nicely. Only things missing for me are a USB-C port and 2x m.2 slots. There’s plenty of room on the bottom for multiple m.2 slots, I would be quite happy with that.Tomatotech - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Replying to myself: Probably won’t be able to afford this board though.Slash3 - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
I do believe I spy a 5-pin Thunderbolt header by the power connector. Sneaky.MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Its a pretty big deal that it has four memory slots, even if they are SODIMM and 'slow'. No other modern mini-itx mobo has four memory slots. Though I'm not sure why the memory capacity is listed as only 64GB. It should be 128GB (using 32GB SODIMMs).... maybe 32GB SODIMMs don't exist :-)Its also a big deal that it has a 10Gbe Intel NIC instead of the aquantia stuff.
-Matt
MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
As a side note, I have stuck 4 x 32GB DDR4 DIMMs into AM4 mobos and they detect 128GB of ram just fine. I haven't tried 64GB DIMMs (don't have any).So if there is such a thing as a 32GB SODIMM, one ought to be able to stuff 128GB into this mini-itx board too.
-Matt
MattZN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
Note that this is designed as a server motherboard, not a consumer motherboard. The 1Gbe NIC is for the integrated IPMI. That's why it has a D-Sub display connector on the back that does not require a GPU or APU to be plugged in.It's packed chock full of server-related technology. Also, note how few VRMs are on the board. This board is NOT designed for overclocking (server mobos in general are not meant to overclock).
The orientation of the components and heat sinks are also designed for a server 2U rack mount's front-to-back forced-air cooling, and not for a normal case.
-Matt
umano - Monday, February 3, 2020 - link
Looking forward to the micro atx version of this board like what they did for the x470, hoping they won't limit the second nvme for extra SATA. Is SATA for servers still a thing?peevee - Tuesday, February 4, 2020 - link
4 DRAM slots on a mini-ITX is quite commendable.Obviously, it is a server board though, 2 10GbE and VGA-only?
thomasg - Tuesday, February 4, 2020 - link
That's a beautifully laid out board.I which there were more like it.
I genuinely can't see any improvement they could have made in the constraints of Mini-ITX.
Impressive!
Whoever the customer is, they knew what they wanted, and had it done right.