[HN Gopher] ASRock Brings 56-Core Xeon W3400 to Deep MicroATX
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       ASRock Brings 56-Core Xeon W3400 to Deep MicroATX
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 48 points
       Date   : 2023-06-15 08:24 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
        
       | pm2222 wrote:
       | I am more interested in a mini pc with amd 7940hx.
        
         | CyberDildonics wrote:
         | This article is about MicroATX and a 56-Core Xeon
        
       | qwertox wrote:
       | I'm unhappy with the spacing between the PCIe slots, since many
       | graphics cards are dual slot cards, which means that only the
       | lower slot could be used without obstructing the other ones. Then
       | there's the issue with ventilation, if, for example, you choose
       | to use the remaining slots for 4x or 2x nvme adapter cards (4
       | times or 2 times 4-lane nvme cards). That huge limitation only
       | for the smaller form factor really hurts.
        
       | noncoml wrote:
       | Price?
        
         | kjs3 wrote:
         | The motherboard looks to be around US$800. The processors look
         | to be (list) around US$1k for a 16/32 and run up to US$12k for
         | a 96/192.
        
       | hknapp wrote:
       | ASRock is the only company that consistently pushes the limits in
       | smaller form factors
        
         | rewmie wrote:
         | I'm not sure that's right. Does ASRock have any product in the
         | miniPC market? All I see are brands like Beelink and
         | Minisforum, and they shove Ryzen5/7/9 and Core i5/i7/i9 in
         | boxes similar to raspberry pis.
        
           | hknapp wrote:
           | I was talking more of mini itx and micro atx form factors.
           | E.g.:
           | 
           | https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X.
           | ..
           | 
           | https://pcpartpicker.com/product/k8KhP6/asrock-
           | motherboard-x...
           | 
           | But they do have a smaller platform:
           | 
           | https://www.asrock.com/microsite/DeskMini/#About
        
             | rewmie wrote:
             | Mini itx is over two decades old.
             | 
             | micro atx is even older.
             | 
             | Did ASRock had anything to do with any of the standards?
             | 
             | Meanwhile, any product being sold by the likes of Beelink
             | and Minisforum is far smaller than any of those standard.
             | The board alone is about a quarter of that area.
             | 
             | Why do you claim that ASRock pushes any form of boundaries
             | in small form factor PCs?
        
               | FootballMuse wrote:
               | If you are thinking SFF in terms of smaller than itx,
               | then no, not really.
               | 
               | If you think creating a new form factor that others want
               | to standardize means pushing boundries, then no.
               | 
               | Beelink and Minisforum don't sell motherboards. They sell
               | barebone PCS with soldered on CPUs. And certainly not
               | anything in the HEDT space. So they are in a completely
               | different category IMO.
               | 
               | But utilizing the existing standards of itx/mini-atx (or
               | nearly so), ASRock is far and away a leader in this
               | genre. They are packing so many features into these form
               | factors that few, if any, are able or willing to
               | replicate.
        
         | bitbckt wrote:
         | Their creativity in these board designs is fun to watch. They
         | have managed to pack so much into that board area, given a
         | little stretch outside the standards. It's a shame Mini-ATX
         | never really caught on.
         | 
         | It must be an interesting culture over there to allow these
         | sorts of designs to get to the retail market outside of their
         | chassis, in comparison to, e.g., SuperMicro WIO designs that
         | don't really fit anything but SM chassis.
        
         | imiric wrote:
         | I love them specifically for their server motherboards. Very
         | innovative designs with a variety of chipset support and form
         | factors. Well built, reliable, featureful, and relatively
         | inexpensive. They're eating into Supermicro's dominance in the
         | market.
        
       | titzer wrote:
       | This is a really cool board! But, it's bizarre that it has a VGA
       | connector and no HDMI.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | I've yet to see servers with anything other than VGA. PS/2
         | keyboard connectors are going away (this one doesn't have one),
         | but there'e too many crash carts built around vga to change for
         | the moment.
        
         | bitbckt wrote:
         | That's for the IPMI.
        
         | accrual wrote:
         | Surely VGA is simpler to implement than VGA and doesn't carry
         | the burden of HDMI licensing requirements. It's common to see
         | VGA and PS/2 connectors on server boards. A little bit
         | fuzziness on the console output isn't going to stop a sysadmin
         | from getting work done. :)
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | Clamchop wrote:
           | It's just that displays have been omitting vga inputs for a
           | while now.
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | For a crash cart, you can pick up a vga capable display at
             | your local thrift store for $20. The specs barely matter,
             | it just needs to work enough to get the network management
             | back online.
        
             | parshimers wrote:
             | At least on the crash carts I've used, the displays were
             | always VGA. Not sure if that's still the case. I'm not sure
             | why.
        
               | accrual wrote:
               | If I was building a crash cart today (without knowing the
               | environment) I'd have at least VGA, DVI, HDMI, and
               | DisplayPort as options. It wouldn't be too difficult to
               | get a monitor or setup (adapters) to support them all,
               | especially if one just needs to buy a couple for the
               | datacenter or whatever.
        
       | accrual wrote:
       | A CPU socket so dense there is a moire pattern in the image.
        
       | khaki54 wrote:
       | Looks interesting, not sure what "deep" MicroATX is other than
       | being out of spec for MicroATX by about 19 sq. inches. I like the
       | high core count of the Xeon processors but 15x price premium over
       | top of the line desktop/or enthusiast CPUs is hard to justify for
       | anything outside large corporation or research activity.
       | 
       | Old hotness: Building a computer in a huge EATX case with lots of
       | room to work, multi-gpu SLI, and massive airflow for overclocking
       | that fits (12) 3.5" HDD.
       | 
       | New hotness: Building a computer in custom mini/microatx form
       | factor w/ watercooling and massive amount of cores and memory
       | running nearly silent
        
         | bee_rider wrote:
         | I did a mini ATX build, it is a good way to get some of the old
         | fashioned PC building flavor: Working with terribly un-
         | ergonomic cases, and worrying about compatibility issues.
        
         | rejectfinite wrote:
         | Big case + noctua fans is silent too. 0 pump noise. 0 mess with
         | water cooling.
        
         | nickstinemates wrote:
         | > running nearly silent
         | 
         | That's the play.
        
           | accrual wrote:
           | One benefit of tinnitus is that I appreciate white noise, so
           | a silent PC is no longer my goal. I still want well-made fans
           | (Noctua, Be Quiet) but the sound of air wooshing through my
           | PC is welcome!
        
           | TrainedMonkey wrote:
           | My play was always to build big cases with water-cooling +
           | low speed fan radiator sandwich for near silence.
           | 
           | Next gen play is to accomplish near silence in a much form
           | factor because super towers take a lot of space and moving
           | them sucks.
        
             | rch wrote:
             | Have you investigated single phase dielectric liquid
             | immersion?
        
               | TrainedMonkey wrote:
               | Yeah, back when I was into overclocking I looked at
               | exotic methods such as chillers, thermo electric, and
               | liquid submersion. The latter one was interesting way of
               | building fully passive systems due to heat diffusion +
               | lightning effects that looks amazing... the downside is
               | weight and having your PC in the aquarium. With chillers
               | / thermo electric, sizing is a problem because modern
               | overclocked CPUs require monstrous amount of power, which
               | means hugely overbuilt and noisy chillers. Thermo
               | electric requires a lot of power + dedicated water
               | cooling setup... was not really worth it for me.
        
             | codetrotter wrote:
             | Tbh the three main things that suck about desktop computers
             | for me are:
             | 
             | - lots of cables everywhere
             | 
             | - when you bring it with you on travels it feels like it's
             | gonna fall apart internally
             | 
             | - external monitor is difficult to safely bring as well.
             | (This one is a problem with the laptop as well because I
             | still use an external monitor there.)
        
               | imtringued wrote:
               | External monitor depends on the stand. If the stand is
               | adjustable it most likely can't be disassembled in a way
               | that saves space. I have a normal 19 inch monitor that
               | fits in a backpack because the stand can be disassembled
               | into two components.
        
               | rejectfinite wrote:
               | Powerful desktop + cheaper laptop to remote into it or
               | just use. Some cloud service or server for sync. easy.
               | Why are you trying to do something desktop is not
               | designed for?
        
               | nickstinemates wrote:
               | This is why I have always been a fan of my work flow
               | being based around thin clients.
               | 
               | You should be able to access your data, projects,
               | anything from anywhere. Then the desktop vs. laptop is a
               | matter of comfort/circumstance.
               | 
               | My toolkit for this now involved tailscale for network,
               | nfs/smb shares for data access, and vscode/neovim for
               | programming.
               | 
               | It's incredibly powerful
        
               | neilv wrote:
               | > _when you bring it with you on travels it feels like
               | it's gonna fall apart internally_
               | 
               | If I had a take a critical desktop-sized PC traveling,
               | I'd consider building it in a rackmount 4U chassis,
               | adding additional bracing (e.g., to keep big GPUs from
               | wrenching on the PCIe and board, and for general chassis
               | flex), and bolt it into a shock-reducing rackmount flight
               | case when not at home.
               | 
               | But I'm trying to stick to just lugging around a vintage
               | ThinkPad, and keeping anything larger in self-hosted
               | servers or at cloud providers.
        
               | imtringued wrote:
               | Or you just get a micro ATX motherboard and a case that
               | mounts it horizontally.
        
       | redroyal wrote:
       | What is this deep Micro ATX and ITX form factor? I can't find any
       | cases for it, they've made a proprietary standard we need to take
       | a dremel to a regular case to make fit. Anyway why not Genoa?
       | Who's buying Intel today?
        
         | bitbckt wrote:
         | I've built machines around these "deep" form factor boards in
         | both Fractal Node 804 and Coolermaster NR200 cases. They fit
         | fine, no surgery required.
         | 
         | As to the latter question, until/unless AMD updates TR Pro,
         | this is the only HEDT option in the DDR5/PCI-e 5.0 era. Whether
         | that matters to you and your needs is another question
         | entirely.
        
           | matja wrote:
           | ASRockRack make a deep MicroATX Genoa and EATX/EEB boards
           | too, which can take up to the 128 core Bergamo EPYC, or the
           | high-frequency "F"-SKUs : https://www.asrockrack.com/general/
           | productdetail.asp?Model=G...
        
             | bitbckt wrote:
             | Yup. I personally find those to be a waste of PCI-e lanes
             | in the smaller form factors, but my purposes are based
             | around I/O more than thread count. To that end, I'm on a
             | Milan frequency-optimized SKU in my current workstation,
             | and an ATX board with access to all of the lanes the CPU
             | offers.
             | 
             | That said, with PCI-e 5.0, a little board like this has a
             | LOT of bandwidth.
        
           | redroyal wrote:
           | Yes but there is no mounting screw for the last screw on the
           | 804 and you have to ditch the SSD tray on the NR200. You
           | can't say something is like a standard, it either is
           | compliant or not, since everyone else designs based on
           | assumptions from the specification
           | 
           | HEDT is also a make believe standard to run a pricing ladder
           | against desktop processors for those who can't afford
           | workstation parts
        
             | toast0 wrote:
             | > You can't say something is like a standard, it either is
             | compliant or not,
             | 
             | Ok, deep mATX isn't mATX compliant. It's been said. But
             | still, it _is_ like mATX, but longer. I tend to prefer
             | bigger cases, but mATX boards fit in them, and deep mATX
             | would too.
        
             | Dylan16807 wrote:
             | > HEDT is also a make believe standard to run a pricing
             | ladder against desktop processors for those who can't
             | afford workstation parts
             | 
             | There are no current gen AMD workstation parts either.
        
             | bitbckt wrote:
             | What a strange hill to die on. Just don't buy the boards?
        
               | redroyal wrote:
               | Well it's a variant of bait and switch and the impression
               | that they fitted the design into a standard small form
               | factor is false. Anyone who buys this is in for a world
               | of hurt
        
               | bitbckt wrote:
               | Having been that very person several times, I guess my
               | anecdata is different from yours.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | Avlin67 wrote:
       | this is dope with a quadro watercooled and high performance
       | watercooling
        
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       (page generated 2023-06-16 23:02 UTC)