ASRock Intros W790 WS R2.0 Motherboard

[btarunr]

ASRock today introduced the W790 WS R2.0 motherboard for workstations powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon W-3400 and W-2400 series processors in the Socket LGA4677 package. Although its model name suggests that it is a revision of the W790 WS, the new W790 WS R2.0 appears to be a lite version of the original, which removes several I/O features. To begin with, the fancy I/O shroud makes way for bare connectors, where you can see several of the connectors stripped away. While the CPU VRM appears unchanged, the VRM heatsinks used on the R2.0 are of a simpler design. The design effort behind both these changes appears to be to make the board friendly to certain kinds of rackmount chassis.

Besides the design changes, the ASRock W790 WS R2.0 loses out on Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E, and only has a single 10 GbE interface instead of dual-10 GbE on the original W790 WS. These aside, the W790 WS R2.0 is still a very capable workstation motherboard for the platform it's based on. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, two 8-pin EPS, and a 6-pin PCIe power; and uses a 22-phase CPU VRM. The board features four PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slots (x16/NC/x16/NC or x16/NC/x8/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8), and one PCI-Express 4.0 x16 (electrical x4). The CPU socket is wired to eight memory slots, supporting quad-channel DDR5 memory, with support for DDR5 RDIMM-3DS, a total memory capacity of 2 TB, and a maximum overclocked memory speed of DDR5-6800.



Storage connectivity on the ASRock W790 WS R2.0 includes four M.2 Gen 5 slots, each with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, one U.2 port with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, and eight SATA 6 Gbps ports. USB connectivity includes a 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 type-C, two 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-A, seven 5 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 1, and three USB 2.0. Networking interfaces include a 10 GbE interface driven by an Aquantia AQC113CS controller, and a 2.5 GbE driven by an Intel I226LM that supports vPro. 6-channel HD audio makes for the rest of it. The company didn't reveal pricing, although we expect this board to be priced significantly lower than the original W790 WS.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Chaitanya]

The design effort behind both these changes appears to be to make the board friendly to certain kinds of rackmount chassis.

And yet the heatsink on VRM doesnt look particularly oriented for rackmount airflow.

 

[kimbentsen]

It's OK. Nobody needs WIFI 6E, as long as WIFI 7 is included.

 

[FinlandApollo]

And yet the heatsink on VRM doesnt look particularly oriented for rackmount airflow.

And yet, the RAM orientation is also not for rackmount airflow either.

 

[Chaitanya]

And yet, the RAM orientation is also not for rackmount airflow either.

yep given their own ASRock Rack has a board that offers proper rack mounted solution in Deep mATX form factor. Also for full sized SSI-EEB boards one of Asrock's competitors is also offering board with CPU area rotated in 90 Degrees for rack airflow.

ASUS Pro WS W790 Series workstation motherboards and Intel Xeon W-3400 CPUs make a potent combination - Edge Up

The Pro WS W790 Series workstation motherboards offer a blend of exceptional performance, unwavering reliability, and easy remote management.

edgeup.asus.com

 

[Octavean]

I for one find it refreshing to see a motherboard with more then two PCI-Express slots,....

 

[Sabishii Hito]

I for one find it refreshing to see a motherboard with more then two PCI-Express slots,....

Intel and AMD seem to refuse to put more than 24 PCIe lanes on their mainstream platforms, so you have to go with HEDT or Workstation if you want any decent number.

 

[CheapMeat]

Main thing that sucks is anything resembling HEDT seems to be 2 to 3 times as expensive as it seemed years ago (even accounting for some inflation). There were so many absolutely insane X79, X99 and even X299 workstation boards with IPMI, all 7 full length slots, tons of I/O on the rear AND edge, even awesome premium dual CPU boards. The top end boards seemed like a lot of value in retrospect. And funny enough, even now in 2024, some of those boards are often (it varies a lot) for the MSRP they did originally and sometimes even more USED. For example the price of the ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS. That's how much people would rather pay for a USED top end HEDT workstation level board instead of buying flat out newer Intel and AMD boards + CPUs. The Intel CPUs are especially crazy priced and so few people even can remember what they heck they're even called anymore at this point (whole Xeon W3/W2 lines now). Some people definitely find value with at least Gen 1 and Gen 2 Threadripper and used they feel fairly good value. But it seems like HEDT pretty must priced enthusiasts out. It really is for high budget studios/offices/corporations that can write them off as business expenses.

 

[ypsylon]

It's basically the same board, but even more barebone stripped down functionality. Still only for 2400 series, because you have no electrical capacity to use 112 lanes Xeons. It basically makes this board worthless at this moment in time. AsRock basically regressed already highly uninteresting product, unlike WRX80 Creator 1.0 vs 2.0 which actually solved technical issues and improved the platform. :facepalm:

It's mad to release something like this given the fact that TRX50 is available at better price point, quantity, power envelope and performance by far. Only few 2400 Xeons are in the wild and available for 'average Joe'. Even if it's Intel platform its comical it has no TB4 capacity while TRX50 from AsRock has.

 

[Octavean]

Intel and AMD seem to refuse to put more than 24 PCIe lanes on their mainstream platforms, so you have to go with HEDT or Workstation if you want any decent number.

Yeah, those were the days. My last few Intel motherboards were X79 and X99 based (Intel Core i7-3930k and Core i7-5820K respectively). After that I switched to AMD RyZen 9 3950X / ASRock X570 Taichi and now RyZen 9 7950X / ASRock B650E PG Riptide WiFi.

The Core i7-3930k and Core i7-5820K are still decent processors IMO but unfortunately they aren't officially supported in Windows 11 due to Microsoft skulduggery……

 

[chrcoluk]

I for one find it refreshing to see a motherboard with more then two PCI-Express slots,....

My first reaction to the post was finally a proper mother board. Now they just need to make one of these for desktop CPUs.

 

[efikkan]

I'm glad there is coming more "basic" workstation motherboards, there is a real need for competition in this segment. Getting rid of all the gimmicks lowers the entry for the platform, and if they just made the board lot's of IO, they would have cut costs even further, and made it a wonderful choice for prosumers/professionals. Some suggestions;
- Get rid of all the M.2 slots. Yes, I'm serious. These tie up a total of 16 precious PCIe lanes, and using these with high performance SSDs will have challenges with cooling. Much better to provide an extra PCIe 16x slot instead, which would allow users to use enterprise M.2 SSDs of 22110 or U.2 SSDs with adapters. These M.2 slots are mostly gimmicks like they've done it.
- The U.2 slot (tied to the PCH) is questionable, it has very limited use when hooked up like this.
- Get rid of the 10G Aquantia NIC. (those who need 10G will go for the much better Intel X550 or X710)
- Use a more basic VRM heatsink with longer fins; will improve cooling thanks to airflow and probably no be more expensive.

Intel and AMD seem to refuse to put more than 24 PCIe lanes on their mainstream platforms, so you have to go with HEDT or Workstation if you want any decent number.

Intel's move to ditch the LGA20xx series in favor of slightly increasing the IO on the mainstream platforms, and raising the entry to "HEDT", basically merging the workstations platforms, has left a huge gap.

I've said it for years this was a big mistake, as many "prosumers" and professionals have use for both good IO and fast cores rather than extreme core count. The good old X79/X99/X299 were wonderful platforms (except for split with i7s/Xeons). What they basically should have done for the next iteration is to ditch the absurd PL1/PL2 thing on mainstream, move the >100W CPUs to a tier between the mainstream and the 8-channel high-end workstations, having a ~2500pin LGA 250W TDP, 4-channel memory, ~64 PCIe lanes etc., and standard CPU cooler compatibility. Then motherboard geared towards enthusiasts and workstation users respectively. Doing so would allow for motherboards starting at ~$600, where is where "WS" motherboards from Asus and Supermicro for LGA1700 is priced anyways.