CES 2018 | ASRock shows off new HEDT motherboards in micro-ATX form factors

ASRock is launching new motherboard models at this year's CES. Interestingly, these are micro-ATX form factor motherboards with support for AMD's X399 and Intel's X299 chipsets — that means support High End Desktop (HEDT) CPUs of the likes of AMD Threadripper and Intel 'Skylake-X'. 

ASRock X399M Taichi

Generally, boards that support the AMD Threadripper CPU belong to the ATX form factor considering the mammoth size of the CPU die. The X399M Taichi is the first motherboard that supports AMD Threadripper in the micro-ATX form factor. This is a commendable feat given the size of the Threadripper TR4 socket and the cooling requirements. The board features a 11 power phase Dr. MOS design, 1 U.2 connector, 3 PCIe x16 slots, and 3 Ultra M.2 connectors that can reach speeds up to 32 Gbps. Another unique aspect of this motherboard is that it comes with four DIMM slots around the TR4 socket for quad-channel DDR4 RAM instead of eight slots that are generally seen in conventional X399 boards. Other details of the X399M were not revealed by ASRock but it could very well share a lot of features with its bigger X399 Taichi cousin.

ASRock X299M Extreme4

ASRock is not leaving Intel HEDT enthusiasts behind and has announced the availability of the X299M Extreme4 micro-ATX motherboard based on the Intel X299 chipset. The motherboard supports all Intel LGA 2066 socket CPUs belonging to the Intel Core-X family such as the Core i9-7980XE. ASRock is fitting this board with a 11 phase power design, massive VRM heatsink, dual Intel Gigabit LAN, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A+C, and an Ultra M.2 slot that supports Type 22110 NVMe SSD. Similar to the X399M Taichi, the X299 Extreme4 comprises of 4 DDR4 DIMM slots that can support up to 128 GB memory.

ASRock Z370 DeskMini GTX 

The Z370 DeskMini GTX small factor PC is an upgrade to the previously announced DeskMini GTX. The new DeskMini GTX features a Z370M-STX MXM motherboard featuring the Intel Z370 chipset and comes with support for the latest Intel 8th generation 'Coffee Lake' hexa-core CPUs. The new DeskMini GTX can take DDR4-3200 MHz+ RAM for enhanced multitasking. ASRock has not revealed the GPU bundled with the new DeskMini GTX, although, we can assume that the Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) will enable it to easily support the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080. 

ASRock has not revealed pricing or availability information for the above products. We expect to learn more about them during the next few days at CES.

Source(s)