News Asrock unveils Z170M-PIO2 uDTX motherboard

I love how Asrock actually like to innovate in the motherboard space, much like with their X99 ITX board.

This looks to me like a seriously interesting option for ITX as it fits with the principles of many existing case, although at the cost of not actually being supported by them. If Asus and Gigabyte hop on this train I can totally see a new trend of thin ITX cases based around the concept. Switching around the orientation is rather cool, means the cards are actually facing the right way too.

 

Now do the same with the ATX power connector and we're laughing.

EDIT: I re-read that and it sounded a bit negative, so thought I'd add that I also respect ASRock and their way of thinking

 

+2

 

This is a nice idea but let's take it further.
Drop every IO other than a good selection of USB and Ethernet.
Loose the sata.
Hide a few m.2s about the place.
Come up with something better than an a 24pin ATX.

 

I like the look of this. What is there in the way of compatible low-profile cases out there? As the article says, I'd love to see a super-slim VESA-mountable case so I could hide this behind my monitor, but I'd imagine that you'd need an external PSU to make it work.

 

I would have liked to see the CPU power socket next to the main ATX socket rather than in the middle of the board. Same with the USB3 socket.

Both of those would make cable layout much easier.

 

Kickstarter opportunity for a nice case imo.

 

How is this different from a motherboard with a 90 degree PCIe riser in a 1u rackmount case? I mean, sure the layout of the components is different, but I'm failing to see how this is really so groundbreaking.

 

Oh yeah, for real. Would love something like this that I could hide behind my screen, free up a ton of desk real estate and still have a full-power SFF PC.

 

The rub is that while there are plenty of PIO boards from various vendors, none are available for consumers to purchase directly. Instead of kickstarting a case (which for a very small run already compared to even the few ITX Kickstarters like the Ncase M1 and Dan A4, would not be cheap) you would need to Kickstart a 'barebones' machine, which is s tougher prospect for the target market, who likely would want the flexibility to choose their own components, and to upgrade the motherboard at some point.