News ASUS B85M-VIEW PAKER

For me the most interesting motherboard shown at COMPUTEX 2015

Besides the 90 degree angle PCIe x16 socket at the top, am I seeing another PCIe x16 socket at the bottom? Looks like a mini-DTX size board to me.
Edit: A link added.
Edit: Here is the "Parts-In-One" display this board was made for:
View Paker MD-E280DMG
http://www.viewpaker.com/product_detaila.asp?id=194
Reviews with more photos (in Chinese):
http://pio.zol.com.cn/520/5207661_all.html
http://pio.zol.com.cn/521/5219077.html
http://pio.zol.com.cn/521/5216720.html
 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Feb 22, 2015
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Nice find! I was wondering if a design like this would ever happen.

If those mounting holes are standard Mini-ITX spacing then this is not Mini-DTX, it's a custom form factor. Mini-DTX has the extra space on the bottom of the board and this has it at the top.
 

veryrarium

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Jun 6, 2015
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Yeah sorry I wasn't precise, I simply meant the miniDTX "size" (width and depth) and not miniDTX as the form factor, obviously the top few cetimeters of this board is over the edge of any ATX family form factors.

ETA: Just checked wikipedia and realized the depth of the miniDTX is the same as miniITX, so I'm off even for the size comparison alone. :oops:
 
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veryrarium

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The first article that I read that hinted at the fact that ASUS made such a motherboard (in Japanese):
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/event/20150604_705325.html
The footnote at the 11th photo (the one showing ID-COOLING's vertical steam-machine type case) says "ASUS has a plan to bring to the market a motherboard that has a horizontal PCI Express connector" etcetc...
I then read this article (in Japanese) that showed more photos of the ID-COOLING case:
http://www.gdm.or.jp/crew/2015/0605/118222
where I see the rear side of it, and realized they placed the GPU card over the top edge of the motherboard, which is strange even if they had used a flex riser cable, so I thought there was a high chance that the mobo that's inside this case was indeed the ASUS mobo with a horizontal PCIe connector at the top. (Also, I felt the case's exterior design took too much from ASUS's GR8 AIO PC, making me think this might be an ID-COOLING/ASUS collaboration.)
So I started searching if there has been any photo showing the components inside, and finally arrived at this (in Chinese):
http://www.expreview.com/40928.html
where I took the photo in the OP from.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Thanks! Also, you'll want to edit the OP with a link.

I wonder if it can run x8 / x8 for ultra-small SLI? :D
 

Phuncz

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Interesting. Now which board manufacturer is willing to do a combo deal with a case manufacturer for some dual-card mayhem ?
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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BTW, what Japanese hardware news sites should I watch for SFF stuff? I've come across Hermitage Akihabara and PC Watch before but I wasn't sure if there were others.
 

rawr

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Mar 1, 2015
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I'm not too sure how I should feel about this. At first I was like "awesome! Two slots!"

But then I realized that there is nothing that this could currently fit in. And two graphics cards would make the overall case much larger than I would want it anyway.
 

EdZ

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May 11, 2015
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Even just for one card this makes a 'flat' case a lot easier without needing to muck about with flex risers.
 

Phuncz

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Indeed and it would allow two cards to work on mITX without needing PCIe Bifurcation. In the end the CPU and chipset support it but the boards are too small to fit two dual-slot cards. This would solve that issue. If the port on the original location would be rotated 180°, it would allow both GPU's to cool from the same side ("bottom").
 

veryrarium

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Jun 6, 2015
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BTW, what Japanese hardware news sites should I watch for SFF stuff? I've come across Hermitage Akihabara and PC Watch before but I wasn't sure if there were others.
I don't think you should watch any of Japanese tech sites for SFF stuff or PC in general unless you are fluent in Japanese and can't find a way to kill your time or you are looking for something local, as most of what you find here is no different from English based media coverage and we totally lack proper (non-customer) review sites. Having said that, if I really have to pick some Japanese news sites for PC/gadgets/mobile/IoT/gaming hardwares other than the two you mentioned, here are a few: ascii, ITMedia, My Navi PC, and 4Gamer.
 
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veryrarium

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So I had a splendid idea of googling the board name (!) and found out ASUS already made the manual/BIOS etc back in January:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx...R&id=20150130182754274&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
and someone digged it and tweeted the board layout two months ago:
https://twitter.com/momomo_us/status/586132077981990914
Based on the manual and the single GPU config for the ID-COOLING case it appears that the horizontal slot remains 3.0 x16 while bottom slot works as 2.0 x4 when both PCIe slots are occupied, and the board size is Width x Depth = 8.0 x 8.3 in. (203 x 211mm.)
Interestingly, there was another board called B85M-SI01 shown at COMPUTEX:

This one on the other hand appears to have the same width (or should I call it height, I don't know the proper ATX terminology tbh so I usually stick to viewing motherboards laid horizontally in a rackmount case from the front) as Mini-ITX, just slightly deeper, something like W x D = 170 x 190, and an interesting 24pin location.
Obviously ASUS B85M View Paker is the one that's inside the ID-COOLING case as shown here:

Based on the PCB/component colors, printed fonts, and "Designed in Taiwan" print I'm guessing it's from ECS, who has a history of making a Thin mini-ITX with an MXM connector.

ETA: I think I got the size wrong again... the DDR3 mem sockets look a bit oversized for the "width" (or the "height" when mounted in a tower case) of B85M-SI01 to be 170mm. Maybe it's more like 160 x 180mm.
 
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jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
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Nice find, so now there's two boards like this. I hope Asus comes out with a Skylake version of the board.

For ATX type boards the width is from the rear IO to the opposite edge and height is from the PCIe slot to the opposite edge.
 

veryrarium

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Found an article on a sibling motherboard in my prev. post, and yes it is by ECS. Here is H81M-SI01. The article say the board size is 17 x 16 cm. I'm afraid all these boards will be available only as part of their upcoming barebones.

 

jeshikat

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If only they'd do a high-end chipset on a board like these, like Z170.
 

Phuncz

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While we're dreaming, I'd like it to have two x8 ports (one on both ends) and multiple PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 and U.2 ports.
 
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iFreilicht

FlexATX Authority
Feb 28, 2015
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I think it's just fine like it is already. If this form factor was standardised we'd see a LOT more cases like the ID-Cooling one which is, frankly, nothing but awesome! No Flex Riser galore, no additional points of failure. Just all the components you'd usually have, with the cooling fans for CPU and GPU pointed in the same direction.
I'm loving it!

BTW, where would you put that additional card? The only thing worthwhile seems to be a low-profile card there, but that's about it. If it can be full-height, why not just have regular mDTX?
 

Phuncz

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BTW, where would you put that additional card? The only thing worthwhile seems to be a low-profile card there, but that's about it. If it can be full-height, why not just have regular mDTX?
On the other end, having the GPU's sandwich the motherboard.