ASRock Rack has its first motherboard for Ampere’s Altra and Altra Max processors

At COMPUTEX 2023, ASRock Rack, a subsidiary of ASRock, showcased their pioneering motherboard built specifically for the Ampere Altra series of processors, signaling their entrance into the ARM server business. Incidentally, they become the sixth company to extend support for the Ampere Altra processors, joining the ranks of Foxconn, Gigabyte, HPE, Supermicro, and Advantech, all of whom have already launched relevant products.

The model of the motherboard is ALTRAD8UD-1L2T, providing comprehensive support for the Ampere Altra series of ARM processors. At present, the series comprises two types of processors: the Altra, featuring 32/64/80 cores, and the more advanced Altra Max, boasting an impressive 96/128 cores. The motherboard incorporates eight DDR4 slots, supporting DDR4-3200, and has a staggering maximum memory capacity of up to 2TB.

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware

Regarding expandability, the motherboard comes equipped with four PCIe x16 slots, two M.2 2280 slots, four SlimSAS, and two OCuLink ports. In terms of networking, it is furnished with two 10GbE ports controlled by Intel X550, a GbE port controlled by Intel I210, and another GbE port managed by Realtek RTL8211F. Additionally, the port controlled by Realtek RTL8211F is designated for remote management, with the server BMC chip being Aspeed AST2500. The motherboard also features an SPI interface for connecting to a TPM module, a VGA interface, and multiple USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports.

Furthermore, the ALTRAD8UD-1L2T motherboard adopts a proprietary Deep microATX form factor, implying potential incompatibility with regular mATX cases. Nevertheless, given that the target demographic of the motherboard includes enterprise-level cloud service providers, ASRock may supply fitting cases, thereby rendering it unlikely to witness individual devices employing this motherboard, and obviating the necessity to consider installation compatibility.