ASRock’s X570D4I-2T: A Mini-ITX AMD X570 Motherboard with Intel’s 10 GbE Controller
by Anton Shilov on January 30, 2020 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- ASRock
- Mini ITX
- 10GBase-T
- ASRock Rack
- X550-AT2
- 10GbE
- X570
ASRock Rack has revealed a rather interesting Mini-ITX motherboard for AMD’s Ryzen 2000 and 3000-series processors with Intel’s X550 10 GbE controller. The X570D4I-2T platform can be used both for high-performance desktops and for small form-factor servers/NAS with robust storage capabilities.
The ASRock Rack X570D4I-2T motherboard is based on AMD’s X570 chipset and supports all the latest AMD Ryzen 2000/3000-series processors with up to 16 cores and a 105 W TDP. The platform has four DDR4 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 64 GB of DDR4-2400 memory with or without ECC, one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for graphics cards (when used with an appropriate CPU), one M.2-2280 slot supporting PCIe 4.0 x4 or SATA SSDs, and two OCulink connectors that bring support for eight SATA 6 Gbps ports (controlled by the X570). Since the Mini-ITX motherboard can be used for servers, it also carries the ASpeed AST2500 BMC.
On the I/O side of matters, the ASRock Rack X570D4I-2T has two 10 GbE ports (controlled by the Intel X550-AT2), a GbE port for remote management, two USB 3.1 Gen 1/2 (depends on redriver) Type-A connectors, one USB 3.1 Gen 1 header for front panels, and a D-Sub display output.
The choice of the 10 GbE controllers may seem a bit odd since we are talking about an AMD-based motherboard, but it looks like ASRock Rack originally developed the X570D4I-2T for a particular customer that required an Intel NIC, but wanted to take advantage of AMD’s latest desktop platform. In fact, the latter does have a unique set of features not available elsewhere: a support for a 16-core (reasonably priced) CPU, eight SATA ports, and 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Using the X570D4I-2T, it is possible to build an extremely advanced desktop PC with discrete graphics card and vast storage capabilities, or a small form-factor server/NAS featuring 128 TB of SATA storage and terabytes of ultra-fast NVMe storage that can be accessed using 10 GbE ports.
| Brief Specifications of ASRock's X570D4I-2T | ||||
| X570D4I-2T | ||||
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 2000 and 3000-series CPUs with up to 105 W TDP | |||
| PCH | AMD X570 | |||
| BMC | ASpeed AST2500 | |||
| Memory | 4 × SO-DIMM slots, up to 64 GB of DDR4-2400 | |||
| Storage | M.2 | 1 × M.2-2280 SSD with SATA or PCIe 4.0 x4 interface | ||
| SATA | 8 × SATA HDDs or SSDs | |||
| Wi-Fi | - | |||
| WWAN | - | |||
| Ethernet | 2 × 10 GbE connectors (Intel X550-AT2) 1 × GbE (Realtek RTL8211E) |
|||
| Display Outputs | 1 × D-Sub | |||
| Audio | - | |||
| USB | Internal | 1 × USB 3.0 | ||
| External | 2 × USB 3.1 Gen 1/2 Type-A | |||
| Additional I/O | - | |||
| Power | 8-pin (DC-IN) + 4-pin (ATX) + 4-pin (HDD PWR) | |||
| Temperatures | Operating | 10°C ~ 35°C | ||
| Storing | -40ºC – 70°C | |||
| OS | Windows, Linux Compatible with other operating systems |
|||
The ASRock Rack X570D4I-2T motherboard is now listed at the company’s website, so expect it to be available shortly. Considering all the peculiarities of the platform, it is hard to tell whether this one will be available widely in retail (if at all), but at least it can be ordered directly from the company.
Related Reading:
- The ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate Motherboard Review: Aquantia 10GbE on Ryzen
- MSI at CES 2018: Updated GT75VR Gaming Laptop Receives Killer (Wireless-AC 1550) Upgrade
- LR-Link Launches Intel X550-Based 10 GbE NICs: Starting at $155
Source: ASRock Rack (via Hermitage Akihabara)
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MenhirMike - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
I don't find the usage of Intel NICs on AMD Platforms that unusual - Intel is a big player in networking, and their stuff is widely supported. I can think of Aqantia as an alternative, but I don't know how well they are supported on the server-side of things. Broadcom and Chelsio also have 10GbE chips (Chelsio even does some AMD OEM products), and I think Mellanox/nVidia, though I don't know if they do OEM work.Going with Intel seems like a sane choice, regardless of the CPU brand.
MenhirMike - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Also, a rare sight, an X570 board without active cooling. Though if this is ASRock Rack, they likely assume that the chassis is taking care of enough airflow.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 31, 2020 - link
And look at how tiny the heatsink is!It really shows how useless that chipset fan is, in addition to the videos posted online showing smaller silent heatsinks running significantly cooler then the fan enabled models. .
Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Yeah, I agree.1) If you used Aquantia, you'd only get a single port unless you included two controllers.
2) The customer *for whom this board was designed in the first place* required Intel, so having Aquantia (or some other brand) would be the truly bizarre choice.
lightningz71 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
Umm, this is a very specifically designed board, that’s for sure. The choice of the X570 chipset for this when it seems that it would have been FAR more cost effective to use the B450 and a separate usb and IO controller is just... odd. The X570 brings free bifurcation for the x16 channels for the first slot, and wiring the PCIe slot for x16 and keeping the x4 channel for the M.2 slot would have made much more sense. If someone did a deep dive on this, they’d likely find that the decision was made to keep the board to the absolute fewest possible layers.Hul8 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The PCIe slot is wired for PCIe Gen4 x16. There is a typo in this news post, but ASRock's product page lists it as x16, and Gen4 for Matisse.https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.a...
The customer ASRock made this for required X570, so that's what they made. Presumably the customer has some use for PCIe Gen4.
I don't think cost-cutting was a priority on this design, especially since it doesn't suit the typical consumer Mini-ITX use case at all, since APUs would have no display outputs.
Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
B450 doesn't have the I/O for a design like this. The CPU handles the x16 slot and m.2, true (though they would be limited to 3.0 on B450), but the two OCUlink ports need another x8 of PCIe which B450 does not provide, plus the connection for the ethernet controller.AdrianB1 - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
D-sub, the SATA connector choice and the small number of USB ports strongly suggests this was not designed with regular users in mind.Valantar - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
The OEM being Asrock Rack strongly suggests this was not designed with regular users in mind.Alistair - Thursday, January 30, 2020 - link
I'd love a Ryzen B450 board with a BMC. Can build our own server then, the BMC is what made the boss say no last time and buy a way overpriced 6 core Intel server instead.