Update: We now have pictures of the motherboard powering this monster here.
Last year, ASRock launched their Mini-STX barebones and standalone motherboard products, but today they’ll be showing off a turbocharged derivative of the Mini-STX platform at CES 2017: the DeskMini RX and DeskMini GTX.
Simply put, these new barebones systems take the Mini-STX form factor that launched at CES last year, and crank it up to 11. They support Intel’s just-released i7 7700K Kaby Lake processor, the Z270 chipset (meaning you may very well be able to overclock that processor), a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port, three M.2 SSD ports (!), an M.2 WiFi slot, an RGB LED connector, and Intel Optane support.
Oh, and by the way, there’s also a MXM Type B slot on the back, supporting up to 120W discrete GPUs! And did we mention that all of this in under 3 liters of volume?
Regarding graphics support, the DeskMini RX can take the RX 480, RX 470, and RX 460, while the DeskMini GTX can take the GTX 1060, presumably with support for the upcoming GTX 1050 Ti and GTX 1050 MXM cards once those are available.
Finally, with respect to purchasing, ASRock plans to sell this product as a barebones kits, replete with the case, a 220W 19V AC adapter, an MXM card, and an MXM cooler, all included.
That ASRock is including the MXM card itself with the system is a huge relief, as while MXM sounds nice in theory (you can upgrade your laptop!), the lack of availability has meant that that whatever few MXM cards are available on the market are almost assuredly way overpriced. That very well could still be a problem for these systems in the future though, unless ASRock or other vendors commit to providing standalone MXM cards of future graphics generations for retail purchase, such that these units can be practically upgraded.
Even so, with future upgradeability concerns aside, this is an impressive unit with considerable performance density, and we will be sure to check out the new DeskMini RX/GTX at ASRock’s booth. It is currently expect to launch in Q2 of this year.
Stay tuned for more SFF Network coverage of CES 2017!
Thoughts? Discuss them in the forum here.
