ASRock Rack Brings AMD EPYC CPUs to "Deep" Mini-ITX Form Factor

[AleksandarK]

ASRock Rack, a branch of ASRock focused on making server products, has today launched a new motherboard that can accommodate up to 64 core AMD EPYC CPU. Built on the new, proprietary form factor called "Deep Mini-ITX", the ROMED4ID-2T motherboard is just a bit bigger than the standard ITX board. The standard ITX boards are 170 x 170 mm, while this Deep Mini-ITX form extends the board by a bit. It measures 170 x 208.28 mm, or 6.7" x 8.2" for all of the American readers. ASRock specifies that the board supports AMD's second-generation EPYC "Rome" 7002 series processors. Of course, the socket for these CPUs is socket SP3 (LGA4094) with 4094 pins.

The motherboard comes with 4 DDR4 DIMM slots, of any type. Supported DIMM types are R-DIMM, LR-DIMM, and NV-DIMM. If you want the best capacity, LR-DIMM use enables you to use up to 256 GB of memory. When it comes to expansion, you can hook-up any PCIe 4.0 device to the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. There is also an M.2 2280 key present, so you can fit in one of those high-speed PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSDs. For connection to the outside world, the board uses an Intel X550-AT2 controller that controls two RJ45 10 GbE connectors. There are also two Slimline (PCIe 4.0 x8 or 8 SATA 6 Gb/s), and four Slimline (PCIe 4.0 x8) storage U.2 ports.


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[micropage7]

looks nice for such a small form factor, but need more I/O

 

[TheLostSwede]

@AleksandarK so no mention of the six slimline U.2 connectors that can do either four PCIe 4.0 x8 lanes or in the case of two of the six connectors, eight SATA 6Gbps each.

 

[AleksandarK]

@AleksandarK so no mention of the six slimline U.2 connectors that can do either four PCIe 4.0 x8 lanes or in the case of two of the six connectors, eight SATA 6Gbps each.

Thanks for pointing out. It has been fixed.

 

[Sykobee]

@AleksandarK so no mention of the six slimline U.2 connectors that can do either four PCIe 4.0 x8 lanes or in the case of two of the six connectors, eight SATA 6Gbps each.

I was going to ask about them, so thanks for the prescient answer.

 

[zlobby]

Saweeeet!

 

[bencrutz]

@AleksandarK so no mention of the six slimline U.2 connectors that can do either four PCIe 4.0 x8 lanes or in the case of two of the six connectors, eight SATA 6Gbps each.

have info on max TDP supported?

 

[TheLostSwede]

have info on max TDP supported?

No, I don't work for ASRock.

 

[ypsylon]

Amazing how they crammed all of that stuff into ITX PCB

That's what should be done with M.2s for a long, long time in PC space.

Why waste so much board real estate on those flat M.2 connectors? Just remove 2 X16 slots which are x8 electrically on any TRX40 board and slap 7-8 vertical M.2 (most boards have 3-4 flat + 2x 2x4 from two x8 slots). So much easier to provide airflow. So much less hassle than connecting some PLX equipped 4xM.2 cards. And you still retain two x16 for rendering GPUs. So simple.

But then they wouldn't cram so much RGB Gaming slogans because PCB will actually be more efficiently utilized.

 

[The Von Matrices]

I don't quite understand the market for this product. If you need an EPYC, then why would you use it on a board that can't use most of its features due to limited PCB space?

 

[Aquinus]

I don't quite understand the market for this product. If you need an EPYC, then why would you use it on a board that can't use most of its features due to limited PCB space?

If you're buying this, you probably don't need all the PCIe lanes that EPYC has to offer, but with that said, it does have the slimline U.2 ports which can provide 32 lanes of PCIe 4.0 if you don't use them for SATA. So sure, you can't use half of the PCIe on the chip, but for a Mini ITX board, you should be impressed that you have a full 16x slot along with 4 ports than can provide 8 lanes each. That's 48 PCIe lanes on a Mini ITX board.

So simple.

Then I'm sure you're an EE that can design it, if it's "so simple."

 

[The Von Matrices]

If you're buying this, you probably don't need all the PCIe lanes that EPYC has to offer, but with that said, it does have the slimline U.2 ports which can provide 32 lanes of PCIe 4.0 if you don't use them for SATA. So sure, you can't use half of the PCIe on the chip, but for a Mini ITX board, you should be impressed that you have a full 16x slot along with 4 ports than can provide 8 lanes each. That's 48 PCIe lanes on a Mini ITX board.

If you need that many PCIe lanes for devices, then you're going to need a big case to hold those devices. At that point, does the motherboard need to be mITX?

 

[rhqq]

Then I'm sure you're an EE that can design it, if it's "so simple."

If Asrock did it, so can any other company, so yeah... it is "so simple" - I dont need to be an EE to just admire nice near mITX design and wonder why nobody else did it before on a larger scale.

As for the board - I'd buy it immediately if there was a similar design for Threadrippers

 

[Aquinus]

If you need that many PCIe lanes for devices, then you're going to need a big case to hold those devices. At that point, does the motherboard need to be mITX?

I think that brings us back to your original statement.

why would you use it on a board that can't use most of its features due to limited PCB space?

I think the answer is pretty obvious. You need the cores, not the I/O.