In an fascinating launch from the skilled arm of the producer ASRock, ASRock Rack has quietly come out with a mini-ITX LGA-3647 motherboard designed for Intel’s Xeon Scalable platform. The EPC621D4I-2M has to make do with quad reminiscence channel help, however provides a full PCIe 3.Zero x16 with BMC in a really environment friendly bundle.
Going after excessive density servers is at all times a purpose of a few of these producers. The ‘construct it small and pack them in’ solely goes up to now, earlier than you come up in opposition to limits of energy supply and warmth dissipation. ASRock Rack thinks they’ve it cracked with this new motherboard.
It comes with 4 SATA ports through an SFF-8639 port, with one other coming through a single SATA-DOM port. NVMe comes by two M.2 slots on the rear, which helps each PCIe 3.Zero x4 and SATA drives. A single full-length PCIe 3.Zero x16 slot sits slightly below two of the 4 RAM slots which help DDR4-2133, DDR4-2400, and DDR4-2666 SO-DIMMs, with the LGA-3647 socket positioned within the middle of the board. Users on the lookout for BMC functionality will recognize the inclusion of an ASpeed AST2500 chip, whereas the seemingly 6-phase energy supply with fundamental aluminium heatsinks is pushed by the Renesas ISL69127 PWM controller.
ASRock Rack EPC621D4I-2M Block Diagram
On the rear panel is a fundamental set of inputs together with the 2 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports every managed by its personal particular person Marvel 88E1514-MNP2 networking controller (the highest port operates the boards BMC capabilities). A D-Sub VGA manages the BMC video output. Located to the precise of the twin 1 GbE LAN are two USB 3.0 Type-A ports.
With small type issue’s reputation gaining momentum within the client sector, it is utility onto Intel’s Xeon Scalable platform appears fascinating with ASRock Rack choosing 4 SO-DIMM slots as a result of mini-ITX type issue. There aren’t many ECC SO-DIMM RAM modules at the moment obtainable and with help for simply 5 SATA ports obtainable in complete, it asks extra questions on the EPC621D4I-2M’s utility than it solutions, with maybe one use of this being positioned inside a server blade. There’s additionally the query whether or not this six channel platform continues to be as efficient with 4 SO-DIMM reminiscence slots, which in fact relies on the workload.
Two M.2 on the rear
We’ve seen mini-ITX motherboards earlier than with compromises, comparable to fewer reminiscence channels and restricted PCIe use. ASRock as an organization has made a reputation for itself for doing them, and the corporate nonetheless produces these merchandise, as a result of for some customers, density sells. These customers have workloads that are not PCIe dependent, or reminiscence bandwidth dependent, and require density. As we transfer in direction of a ‘5G’ world, most corporations in that 5G area are taking a look at high-density compute deployments on the fringe of the community, and learn how to provision sufficient compute and sources at that distance. It would seem that ASRock is aiming for this market.
The official documentation lists that the board helps Skylake and Cascade Lake Xeon Scalable elements, as much as 205W TDP. The pricing and availability of the ASRock Rack EPC621D4I-2M aren’t but identified, however it’s anticipated that ASRock Rack will unveil the main points within the close to future.
