ASRock Intros J5005-ITX Motherboard

[btarunr]

While most Intel "Gemini Lake" SoC desktop motherboards are based on the cheaper Celeron J4005, a rare few, such as the ASRock J5005-ITX, implement the pricier Pentium Silver J5005 chip. What sets the J5005 apart from the J4005 is its quad-core "Goldmont Plus" CPU, and faster UHD Graphics 605 iGPU with higher clocks; which make the chip around 1.5 times pricier. Designed for machines with internal PSUs, the board draws power from a 24-pin ATX connector. A simple 2-phase VRM powers the 10W TDP SoC, and an aluminium heatsink keeps it cool.

The SoC is flanked by two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots, supporting up to 8 GB of memory. Expansion slots include a PCI-Express x1, and an M.2 E-key slot meant for WLAN cards. Display outputs include HDMI 2.0, D-Sub, and DVI. Four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two by headers), gigabit Ethernet, and 8-channel HD audio, make for the rest of it. The board appears to be targeted at HTPC builders, as the UHD Graphics 605 appears sufficient for 4K UHD entertainment (10-bit HEVC encode/decode hardware acceleration). Given the $160 price of the SoC itself, we expect this board to be priced in the $200-250 range.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chaitanya]

Missing serial port on rear IO.

 

[Fx]

Missing serial port on rear IO.

I think it's good as is. What do you use serial for?

 

[Chaitanya]

I think it's good as is. What do you use serial for?

monitoring of industrial equipment mostly, I haved used similar motherboards in past for PCs used to monitor furnaces that my friend builds. Also I had a training simulator for signal engineers at railways, hardware for that used serial port to take feedback from circuits.

 

[Owen1982]

I know this is supposed to be a budget board but they could have done so much more (edit: Okay..not sooo much more). Where's the M.2 2280 with PCIe/NVMe? The SoC has 6 PCIe lanes:

x1 for SATA chip
x1 for GBe
x1 for M.2 WiFi
x1 for PCIe x1 slot
x1 Nothing?
x1 Nothing?

In fact, it's not even that cheap anymore at ~200 euro/dollar/pound. There are not many choices for J5005 boards, but I would definitely wait.

Meh!

 

[EarthDog]

Because PCIe/NVME use x4 PCIe 3.0 lanes would be my guess...

 

[Owen1982]

Because PCIe/NVME use x4 PCIe 3.0 lanes would be my guess...

Can also be x2. And PCIe 2.X. Reduced bandwidth but would still be ~1GB/s with lower latency than SATA.

I guess I'm just disappointed that they just slap on the latest SoC and keep all the old lame rubbish Realtek/ASMedia blah blah stuff on there. I will just wait for Supermicro or somebody else to release something.

Other news source reports it will cost 120 dollars so maybe not that expensive after all...

 

[EarthDog]

I don't see the point without full bandwidth really. Why would I neuter PCIe/NVME M.2 drives or have unnecessary headroom for SATA based M.2 drives? I suppose faster is faster...

...but this is a SoC...


ALso thinking out loud, I would love to see a chipset diagram for this.