ASRock has made the world’s smallest AM5 Mini-ITX motherboard supporting the latest Ryzen processors. Devoid of any PCIe expansion slots, this board relies solely on integrated graphics for video output.
As its name implies, X600TM-ITX is a Mini-ITX motherboard featuring AMD’s AM5, measuring 17x17cm. This means that you can install any Ryzen 7000 or 8000 CPU, maybe even the delayed Ryzen 9000, as long as their TDP remains under 65W. This limitation is necessary due to the bare 4+1+1 power delivery system, which is fed through a 19V power adapter.
In addition to being devoid of any PCIe expansion slots, this board seems to also lack a chipset. Thus, the entire I/O and storage connectivity goes directly to the CPU. This explains the reduced I/O, which houses only one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C, one USB 3.2 Gen 2, two USB 3.2 Gen 1, a 1GbE LAN port, and a dual audio jack.
Thankfully, ASRock kept three video outputs covered by a combination of HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4. Note, however, that the brand offers different I/O configurations, including one with a VGA and no USB Type-C. For storage, X600TM-ITX offers two Gen 4 M.2 and two SATA 3 ports. There’s a third M.2 slot, but it’s an E-key dedicated to Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules. Lastly, this board supports up to two DDR5-6400 SO-DIMM modules for a total of 96GB of RAM.
This board would make for an excellent DIY NAS with extra functions like media encoding/streaming via a local network. Meanwhile, if you’re more of a gamer, you can always opt for a Ryzen 7 8700G with its eight Zen 4 cores and 12 RDNA 3 compute units. This APU is powerful enough to run many games at comfortable frame rates as long as you keep reasonable settings and resolutions. You can get around 40fps in Baldur’s Gate 3 at 1080p low and 130fps in Fortnite at 1080p low.
Unfortunately, ASRock hasn’t shared any pricing or availability yet for X600TM-ITX.
