While ASRock showed off a Mini-PC utilizing this motherboard at CES this year, it wasn’t clear then if the motherboard would be available for purchase by itself. Well, today ASRock is announcing the standalone H110M-STX motherboard! While John may be dubious on the use case for Mini-STX, I think there’s modding potential for ultra small gaming builds by way of M.2 to PCIe slot adapters (which hopefully will work with this board).
And luckily for us, the H110M-STX has a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot that is connected directly to the Skylake CPU instead of the H110 chipset. Not only that, but it also has a second M.2 slot for use with WiFi/BT cards and an Intel Gigabit NIC rounds out the networking. Two SATA 3.0 connectors provide additional storage options, they are limited to 2.5″ drives though due to the integrated power delivery.
The two RAM slots are of the SODIMM form factor due to the small size of the board, though it can still take 16GB sticks for a maximum of 32GB of memory. Graphics connectivity is rather generous with a VGA, DP 1.2, and HDMI 1.4 connector. Only two video outputs can be used simultaneously though.
USB connectivity consists of 1x USB 3.0 and 1x USB 2.0 Type-A on the rear, 1x USB 3.0 Type-A and 1x USB 3.0 Type-C on the front, and a 2x USB 2.0 internal header.
Mini-STX uses standard socketed CPUs and the mounting holes for the heatsink are the same as regular LGA 115X motherboards. The H110M-STX is limited to 65W CPUs but that would still allow up to the i7-6700 (non-K).
As the form factor is mostly intended to be used by OEMs for building mini-PCs, the power is delivered via a DC jack on the rear to be used in combination with a 19V AC adapter. This adapter is not included with the board and will need to be sourced separately. ASRock recommends a 120W brick when used with 65W CPUs and 90W with 35W CPUs.
No word on price or availability. The ASRock product page does specifically note this model may not be available in all markets though.
Edit: MSRP will be $82.99.
Thoughts? Discuss them in the forum here.
