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->(emphasis added)The board in the article linked is a perfect example: its I/O is unacceptable for consumer use, not to mention that its layout is entirely unrealistic for consumer boards for a few reasons:A socketed CPU would need dramatically more space than the CPU on that board. The CPU has a package size of 34x28mm - which is tiny. The socket itself for an AM4 or 115X platform is close to the area of the heatsink shown there. Then there's the keep-out zone around it, and the cooler mounting holes. I'd estimate the socket area for AM4 or 115X (in which you can't place other components as they'd interfere with the CPU cooler) to be 3-4x what you see on that board.That's a 31W TDP Atom CPU. As such, there's barely any VRM components on the board at all. Even a single high-quality power phase could handle that. I guess you could make a socketed ITX board that only supported ~35W chips, but that wouldn't be acceptable to the vast majority of people. As such, VRM (and VRM cooling) would need significantly more space than on that Supermicro board. Particularly if you want OC options - which most people seem to do. If it's an 115X board, you need it to safely provide ~200W to the CPU to sustain a 5GHz 8700K. That takes some space.That board is also designed for server usage, in other words, an environment with heavy forced-air cooling. Hence, it has zero VRM heatsinks (also due to the low power requirements, of course) and a tiny heatsink, even for a 31W CPU. For consumer usage, that CPU heatsink would likely be insufficient, and for anything more heavy-duty you'd need to make accomodations for cooling that doesn't involve 5000RPM fans running constantly.That CPU has integrated 10GbE. In other words, it doesn't need a controller or heatsink for that controller - it's all handlet by the CPU and its heatsink.In other words: of course this is an engineering problem. Your example to the contrary is an extremely specialized motherboard and CPU with a heap of advantages (in this regard) compared to consumer boards - none of which are transferable, regardless of the cost. You can't shrink the keep-out zone or area needed for proper VRM cooling even if you have loads of money. Nor can you shrink the CPU. Or magically integrate a 10GBe controller into a CPU or chipset that doesn't have one. And so on, and so forth. This is definitely an engineering problem. Does this board look like it has much room to spare? Or this? Or this? No.
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(emphasis added)
The board in the article linked is a perfect example: its I/O is unacceptable for consumer use, not to mention that its layout is entirely unrealistic for consumer boards for a few reasons:
In other words: of course this is an engineering problem. Your example to the contrary is an extremely specialized motherboard and CPU with a heap of advantages (in this regard) compared to consumer boards - none of which are transferable, regardless of the cost. You can't shrink the keep-out zone or area needed for proper VRM cooling even if you have loads of money. Nor can you shrink the CPU. Or magically integrate a 10GBe controller into a CPU or chipset that doesn't have one. And so on, and so forth. This is definitely an engineering problem. Does this board look like it has much room to spare? Or this? Or this? No.
