Asrock M8 BMW Designed Mini PC, Z87 OC Formula Waterproof Motherboard - Computex 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,701 words · ~8 min read
0:00
Linus Tech tips coverage of computex 2013 is powered by Western Digital our
0:04
trusted gaming gear partner is Corsair Vengeance and our trusted retail partner
0:08
is
0:11
nc.com guys it's still computex 2013 for
0:15
some reason I guess it's cuz it's not over yet and we are here in the ASRock
0:19
Booth where I am holding a motherboard that looks pretty much like any other
0:23
motherboard except for the very outrageous color scheme as well as some
0:28
you know water cooling barbs here on the vrm cooling solution and all that kind
0:32
of cool stuff you got four PCI Express 16x graphics card oh wait what's that
0:37
hold on a minute come over here come have a closer look what is this all
0:41
right now I have long said that every motherboard needs to have a matte black
0:45
PCB I now officially have to take that
0:49
back because the glossy black PCB on the
0:53
ASRock OC formula Z87 board enables it
0:57
to actually be waterproof roof they have
1:00
a live demo here with this system running this video demo right here of
1:05
the board receiving its conformal codings see check that out and they have
1:10
that demo running on a computer that has
1:13
water running over it this is absolutely freaking unbelievable and what you might
1:18
think to yourself is well why do I need a a liquid proof motherboard I can think
1:23
of a couple reason number one is Extreme overclocking so this board actually
1:27
comes with a little a little Nick she right there little Nick she signature so
1:33
he is a very famous overclocker he's got his designed by badge on this board when
1:38
you are extreme overclocking it is incredibly important to avoid
1:42
condensation condensation can destroy your motherboard if you're not using a
1:46
Z87 OC formula because wetness can become conductive very very quickly boom
1:51
zap it's dead so for extreme overclocking where condensation is an
1:54
issue then this is very beneficial now I can even think of applications that this
1:58
might be awesome that that aren't extreme overclocking such as liquid
2:01
cooling if you're worried about oh a pipe burst somewhere and you get some
2:05
water on your board don't worry about it with this board you can actually I mean
2:08
I don't I still don't really recommend it you know firing it right up because
2:11
the water might have gotten on something else but you won't have to worry about
2:15
your motherboard at all it's got a bunch of other cool features including check
2:19
this out a status OLED display gone are the days evidently of just like two
2:24
little sort of you know singled digit things next to each other now you can
2:29
monitor things like temperature as well as base clock and all that kind of cool
2:32
stuff right on the motherboard itself you've also got onboard switches dual
2:36
BIOS dual USB 3 ports over there at the front onboard overclocking switches as
2:41
well as voltage checkpoints right there at the back behind the 24 pin connector
2:44
and check this out this is a feature that's going to be very beneficial for
2:48
guys like Gamers guys who have a secondary gaming system that they want
2:52
to hook up to their monitor so for a long time companies like BenQ have been
2:56
releasing monitors that have multiple inputs such as DVI HDMI or dual HDMI so
3:01
you can easily run both your computer and your game console through your
3:05
monitor but what asrock's done is they've added an HDMI pass through that
3:10
allows you to use your computer to switch what is displayed on your monitor
3:15
making it a more seamless experience than reaching around to the back of your
3:18
computer and unplugging or plugging something in or even reaching up to your
3:22
monitor to change the source input so if running water over a motherboard while
3:27
it's operating wasn't ridiculous enough for you this right here is the Z87
3:31
extreme 11 AC it has Wireless AC it's got overclocking features it supports up
3:36
to four-way Crossfire so you can see that running right there and it actually
3:40
gets more ludicrous than that so check out this this is an SSD array a massive
3:47
number of ssds 22 ssds count them four
3:50
wide by five deep and then an extra two that are sitting back there at the back
3:55
and I have something to share with you guys these are all connected to the Z87
4:00
extreme 11 AC right over here so this is
4:04
using the six SATA 3 6 GB per second
4:07
connectors that are provided by Intel's chipset you actually can't really see
4:11
them all unless you get right in there at that angle so there are six coming
4:14
straight out of the board and there are another
4:18
16 SAS 3 connectors running off of an
4:23
LSI SAS 3 chip that is built into this
4:26
motherboard if you have a serious need for storage don't think that you're
4:30
limited to just ssds if you want to run
4:34
22 SATA 3 or six sata3 with 16 SAS 3
4:40
devices off of your board at the same time for whatever reason this is the
4:45
only board that is even remotely capable of doing
4:49
that but if you don't feel like building your own computer and pouring water all
4:52
over it then check out the M8 Series right here this is a new thing from
4:55
ASRock it's a DIY barebones unit that is going to allow you you to get that same
5:01
ridiculously ludicrously fast gaming experience that we've seen with some
5:06
sort of you know some Boutique Builders doing with something like the iby power
5:09
Revolt for example except that it's something that you can acquire yourself
5:13
and you have the flexibility of choosing your own components and building it
5:17
yourself as well now you might have noticed that this is not exactly your
5:21
standard runof-the-mill barebones unit it uses an aluminum
5:26
chassis that was actually designed by BMW's design group much like the level
5:31
10 m Mouse that's right here and the level 10m headset that are sitting right
5:35
next to it so wouldn't these make a stunning combination the construction as
5:39
I said before is aluminum and ventilation is handled by two 60 mm fans
5:43
up here in the top is quite rugged feeling as well I can actually pick the
5:46
thing up by one of the handles and I don't have to worry too much about it breaking making it extremely portable
5:51
and they've added some unique features as well so here on the front you've got USB 3 super speed and a slot load
5:56
optical drive as well as this is kind of neat check this out so you can monitor
6:00
things like your CPU clock speed as well as your time and then you can interface
6:04
with it with a simple push button interface as well as a rotating rubber
6:08
knob with an LED backlight now let's go ahead and see how the magic Works inside
6:12
so I'm going to turn it around the wrong way first as if I don't know how this works check this out magnets which are
6:17
basically magic as far as I can tell so there's a window on the back how do you
6:21
get away with putting a window on the back of a computer case well I'll tell
6:24
you how by having extremely clean Cable Management so the case comes cable
6:28
managed for you pretty much you don't have to worry about that and you can
6:31
actually see the reinforcement that's on the motherboard tray here I mean it's
6:35
one of Steve Jobs's design philosophies that a great device should look great
6:41
not only on the outside but also on the inside so having clean Cable Management
6:45
really does show that attention to detail that not all things achieve the
6:49
side window also has kind of a unique octagon based concentric octagon design
6:55
that you'll either like or you'll dislike personally I really like it
6:58
moving on to the ins side we see very short cable runs which again is a
7:02
desirable feature and we also see check this out that is a full-size graphics
7:06
card you could fairly easily run pretty much any graphics card you wanted in
7:10
here with the exception of sort of ludicrous stuff like a Radeon 7990 but
7:14
you could easily get a GTX 780 in here it uses an sfx power supply but don't
7:19
worry that won't matter to you because it comes with that it also uses an ITX
7:22
motherboard that has onboard Wi-Fi as well as support for up to 2 8 gig dims
7:27
of DDR3 and support for for pretty much
7:30
any Intel CPU you'd want as long as it's has well so that's an LGA 1150 socket so
7:35
you're going to want to put the latest 4670k or 4770k CPU into the unit so I
7:41
can never remember this so I'm going to get my lovely assistant to come and tell me this what do you actually have to add
7:45
to this system in order to make it functional okay users who buy this M8
7:50
series motherboard can have the freedom of choosing their own CPU and graphics
7:54
card or if they need more storage then they can add more storage into the
7:58
motherboard so three things yeah three things so why couldn't I remember that
8:02
uh maybe because its appearances is too stunning yeah I'm certainly stunned
8:07
right now so guys don't miss any of our computex 2013 coverage remember our trip
8:11
to the show this year is powered by Western Digital as well as Corsair
8:14
Vengeance gaming peripherals and nci.com as always guys don't forget to make sure
8:19
you're subscrib to L's Tech tip so you don't miss any of our video content