VR-Zone

The ASRock related news aren't over quite yet, as alongside its high-end boards, the company has also unveiled three new entry level Atom mini-ITX motherboards, all with Intel's new D2x00-series of Atom processors. One of the new models sports the 1.86GHz Atom D2500, while the other two comes with the 2.13GHz Atom D2700.

Starting at the bottom we have the AD2500B-ITX which is a rather plain, almost dull looking board with a large passive heatsink covering the CPU and a really tiny one covering the NM10 chipset. The board has, rather unusually a pair of SO-DIMM slots, although as the new Atoms can accept up to 4GB of RAM, albeit in single channel mode, the two slots are at least somewhat useful.

There's also a pair of SATA 3Gbps ports, a single PCI slot and a pair of headers for four USB 2.0 ports. The rear I/O consists of a range or ports that feel more like 1991 than 2011 with two PS/2 ports, a serial port, a parallel port, a D-sub connector, four USB 2.0 ports, a 10/100Mbit Ethernet port and 5.1-channel audio via three jacks. Overall not the most impressive board we've seen recently.

Moving up we have the AD2700B-ITX which swaps in the Atom D2700 over the D2500, but it's not the only change. Although the board layout remains identical to the AD2500B-ITX, the AD2700B-ITX was upgraded with both Gigabit Ethernet and a pair of USB 3.0 ports making it an interesting board for a home server.

The third and final board is the most interesting of the three and it's called the AD2700-ITX, a confusing similar name, but an entirely different board in many ways. Although you'd be forgiven for thinking it's yet more of the same if you take a quick glance at the top down view of the board, ASRock has overhauled the rear I/O entirely.

Here we're looking at a single PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and a D-sub, DVI and HDMI port. The general board layout is otherwise mostly the same, although there's a pin-header for a parallel port and a serial port not present on the first two models, but that's the only difference we can spot. We checked the manual quickly as we wanted to find out about the display connectivity and the good news is that both the DVI and HDMI port can be used simultaneously. The manual also suggested that there might be a version with the Atom D2500 of this board, although without USB 3.0 and with slower 10/100Mbit Ethernet.

One funny thing in ASRock's specifications is with regards to the GPU which ASRock lists as “Built-in Intel PowerVR SGX545” which isn't entirely true as the GPU is by Imagination Technologies and Intel calls it the GMA 3650 or GMA 3600 depending on which processors we're talking about. If nothing else, ASRock has at least triple confirmed things for us. Once again we don't have any word on availability and pricing, but we'd expect these boards to be out shortly.

Source: ASRock