ASRock Rack ALTRAD8UD-1L2T Overview
Although the motherboard resembles a mATX 9.6? x 9.6? size board, it’s marginally larger. ASRock Rack designates this as a deep mATX at 9.6? x 10.5?. This additional 0.9? can fit in many chassis, but it could pose a challenge if a chassis strictly upholds the 9.6? depth parameter. The reason for the enlarged size is straightforward – it bears a lot of features.
The highlight of the unit is the socket for the Ampere Altra (up to 80 cores) and Altra Max (up to 128 cores) processors. Flanking the socket are eight DDR4 RDIMM slots. While the Arm Neoverse N1 cores may not be the fastest, this platform is ideal for a local development platform. One key advantage of the Altra/Altra Max platform is its use of DDR4. Currently, DDR4 is still cheaper than DDR5. This makes it beneficial for those looking to build a cost-effective development platform, especially given the substantial second-hand DDR4 options available. The takeaway here is to opt for DDR4 RDIMMs over UDIMMs.
From a ventilation viewpoint, the design prioritizes a front to back airflow path. This design is evident even in how the connectors are arranged.
One striking feature that users will easily spot are the four PCIe slots. They’re all PCIe Gen4 x16 slots. However, when utilizing Ampere Altra processors, Slots 7 (at the top) and 6 (second from the top) only support x8.
While this device lacks support for PCIe Gen5, many users will find that PCIe Gen4 is more than satisfactory for this CPU cycle. Another major limitation is that due to some of the board components located behind Slot 4, full-length PCIe slots are not supported.
A ASPEED AST2500 BMC provides the management.
ASRock Rack utilizes MegaRAC SP-X as its principal IPMI/ Redfish management solution.
Adjacent to the PCIe slots, you’ll discover two M.2 slots. M.2 SSDs are appreciated for their reliability, especially since these slots are located underneath where most PCIe cards would typically extend over.
On the motherboard’s front edge, you’ll find five 6-pin fan headers, which is a favorable placement.
Located above these, we have a pair of 12V power inputs as well as two SlimSAS x8 connectors. Every single one of these connectors bears eight lanes of PCIe Gen4. These lanes are useful for items such as front-panel NVMe SSDs.
There are two additional SlimSAS x8 connectors positioned in the top corner and an extra power connector. Despite the extensive mATX size of the motherboard, it does not have sufficient space for a 24-pin ATX power connector.
On the contrasting side, you’ll find two Oculink connectors, each being PCIe Gen4 x4.
The large heatsink is an Intel X550 10Gbase-T NIC. In addition to the onboard 10GbE, there are two Intel i210-at NICs for 1GbE situated above the USB 3 ports.
Completing the hardware, there is a VGA connector given that this is a server motherboard.
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