Kontron, a leading global provider of IoT/Embedded Computer Technology (ECT), will present an Mini-ITX motherboard based on Intel Core i3 processors as well as Intel N-series processors with latest UHD Gen12 graphics at embedded world 2023, thus expanding its product family of compact, power-saving motherboards "Designed and Made in Germany." The K3931-N Mini-ITX is available in four variants with different CPUs and is particularly suitable for use in the areas of casino gaming, digital signage, kiosk, POS/POI, ticketing as well as for applications in industrial and medical technology.

The Intel Core i3 and Intel N series processors set new standards for x86 processors in the power range from 6 W to 15 W. They use the same Efficient-cores and Intel UHD graphics as the 12th Gen Intel Core processors based on the Xe architecture. This makes it easier to port applications and solutions across Intel CPU performance and power ranges. Support for Intel AVX2 and Intel Deep Learning Boost - combined with up to 32 execution units - provides accelerated deep learning inference and media processing for diverse edge applications.

Aetina Corporation, a leading provider of AI solutions for the creations of different types of vertical AI, will showcase its new embedded computers, AI inference platforms, GPUs, AI accelerators, and edge devices management software at upcoming Embedded World 2023. Aetina provides different types of form factors based on GPUs or ASICs, such as MXMs, graphic cards, and edge computing systems. The MXMs that are powered by NVIDIA Ampere architecture-based GPU offer extra computing power to existing AI systems, ensuring low-latency data analytics tasks. The MXMs and systems that are built with ASICs, on the other hand, are ideal for the creation of any specific applications or AI systems that involve multi-inference processes.

As an Elite member of the NVIDIA Partner Network, Aetina offers a variety of edge computing systems and platforms powered by the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI and robotics platform. Aetina's newly released embedded computers are built with the Jetson Orin series SoMs—Jetson AGX Orin, Jetson Orin NX, and Jetson Orin Nano ; these small-sized systems and platforms, supporting different peripherals, can be easily integrated into larger AI-powered systems while also being able to function as a standalone AI computer.

Apex Storage, a new company in the storage world, has announced that its X21 add-in-card (AIC) has room for 21 (you read that right) PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSDs. The card supports up to 168 TBs with 8 TB M.2 NVMe SSDs and 336 TBs of storage with future 16 TB M.2 SSDs drives and can withstand speeds of up to 30.5 GB/s. Packed inside a single-slot, full-length, full-height AIC, the X21 card is built for a snug fit inside workstations and applications such as machine learning and hyper-converged infrastructure that enterprises need to develop inside servers and workstations across the site.

The X21 AIC has 100 PCIe lanes on the board, which indicates the presence of a PCIe switch, likely placed under the heatsink. To power all the storage, the PCIe slot itself needs to be more, and the card also has two 6-pin PCIe power connectors that provide 225 Watts of power in total. Interestingly, the heatsink is passively cooled, but Apex Storage suggests that there should be an active airflow with a minimum of 400 LFM to ensure the regular operation of the card. In the example application, the company laid out X21 with Samsung's 990 Pro SSDs; however, the card also supports Intel Optane drives. Read and Write IOPS are higher than 10 million. Additionally, the average read and write access latencies are 79 ms and 52 ms. Apex Storage didn't reveal the pricing and availability of the card; however, expect it to come with a premium.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, is thrilled to showcase the latest B760MZ-E PRO motherboard. The BIOSTAR B760MZ-E PRO motherboard is a versatile solution that meets diverse pro-user demands. Whether you are a professional creator seeking the hottest mid-range hardware on the market, a business professional requiring reliable and efficient computing power, or a casual user needing a seamless computing experience, the B760MZ-E PRO has you covered. Its cutting-edge technology, advanced DDR5 memory support, lightning-fast transfer speeds, and connectivity options make it the ultimate choice for those seeking a high-performance motherboard that can handle anything thrown its way.

Built on Intel's B760 single-chip architecture, The BIOSTAR B760MZ-E PRO motherboard supports the latest 12th/ 13th Generation Intel Core Processors, providing robust and stable performance for demanding applications. Its 4-DIMM DDR5 memory support and PCIe M.2 4.0 (64 Gb/s) lightning-fast transfer speeds offer unrivaled computing and file transfer efficiency. Ideal for content designers, business professionals, and casual users seeking the best-performance motherboard of this range.

It's almost cherry-blossom season in Japan, and MINISFORUM released a special edition mini PC to mark it. The UM773 SE has a pastel pink body color along with a cherry-blossom print. Under the hood, it rocks an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor (6 nm, Zen 3+, "Rembrandt Refresh" silicon), with an 8-core/16-thread CPU, and a 12-CU RDNA2 iGPU (Radeon 680M). You get two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots to drop in your own memory, and an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD slot with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, to use your own SSD, and a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gbps.

Networking connectivity on the MINISFORUM UM773 SE include 2.5 GbE, WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2. USB connectivity includes USB4, for a type-C port that supports DisplayPort passthrough from the iGPU. There are a couple of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C ports, a couple of such type-A ports, and a couple of USB 2.0 type-A. A couple of HDMI ports, and HD audio make for the rest of it. The box measures 127 mm x 128 mm x 47 mm (WxDxH). The UM773 SE is sold either as a barebones that lacks memory and SSDs; or as prebuilts with 1x 16 GB, 2x 8 GB, and 2x 16 GB memory; each with a 512 GB NVMe SSD.

Update Mar 10th: MINISFORUM confirmed the US price of the UM773 SE to be $429 for the barebones, $579 for the prebuilt with 16 GB memory and 512 GB SSD, $639 for the one with 32 GB memory and 512 GB SSD, and $679 for the top model with 32 GB memory and 1 TB SSD storage.

Axelera AI, the provider of world's most powerful and advanced solutions for AI at the Edge today announces a strategic partnership with Advantech. Combining Advantech's expertise in the embedded and industrial PCs and Axelera AI's disruptive edge AI technology, together they will bring the inference power of a data center to edge devices, enabling customers to process data in real-time, reducing latency while increasing efficiency.

At Embedded World Axelera AI will show its new products, available in a range of industry-standard form factors varying from M.2 modules to vision ready systems. The products combine powerful processing performance with Metis AIPU technology and the easy-to-use Voyager SDK software stack, just at a fraction of the cost and power consumption of today's available solutions.

Back in October of last year, pictures from an ASUS event in China appeared online, showing off a pair of mATX motherboards that had most of its peripheral and power connectors on the reverse side of the motherboard. Now it appears that ASUS has decided to launch such a product, in the shape of the unforgettably named TUF Gaming B760M-BTF WiFi D4. The BTF part in the model name stands Back To (the) Future, although ASUS is most likely not allowed to use that term due to copyright restrictions, so it had to make do with BTF. Regardless of naming, the interesting part here is that all of the power connectors, the four SATA ports, the USB-C and USB 3.0 headers, as well as multiple other headers and one of three M.2 slots, are on the reverse side of the motherboard. This is all done to allow for cleaner cable management.

Other noteworthy features on the board include a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x4 and one x1 slot, three USB-C ports, of which one is capable of 20 Gbps speeds and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet. As this is a mid-range board, we presume ASUS wants to test the waters so to speak, to make sure there's a market for such a product. However, one major hurdle is the small fact that there aren't any suitable chassis in the market and the product page even mentions that "This motherboard is compatible with specific case models", without going into any details. Presumably, ASUS will offer a suitable chassis, or have some partner(s) lined up that will provide a suitable chassis. Gigabyte announced something similar in May last year, but decided to team up with system integrators, something ASUS might be planning on as well.

German company GRAUGEAR, an aftermarket/OEM cooling solutions company, released an interesting M.2 SSD cooler for PlayStation 5, which taps into the airflow of the console's main intake fan. The G-PS5HS01-Cov cooler from GRAUGEAR is meant for bare M.2 NVMe SSDs. It consists of an aluminium monoblock heatsink with a single flat 7 mm copper heatpipe running underneath, making contact with hot components on the drive's topside, through silicone-based thermal pads. This heatpipe sneaks up to the intake fan vent of the PS5, with a copper-channel stack in its end, which dissipates some of the drive's heat to the airflow. The company claims that this design offers 50% better cooling compared to drives with heatsinks that maximize the space above the M.2 slot of the PS5, and can lower controller temperatures by 15-20°C, since it is essentially an active cooling solution. The cooler weighs 70 g. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

Magewell has unveiled a new model in its Eco Capture family of ultra-compact, power-efficient, M.2 video capture cards. The new single-channel Eco Capture AIO M.2 provides both HDMI and SDI interfaces with embedded audio support for flexible input connectivity. Magewell will highlight the Eco Capture AIO M.2 and other new innovations in booth C5031 at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas from April 16 to 19.

Magewell's Eco Capture cards offer systems integrators and OEM developers a high-performance video capture solution with low power consumption in a space-efficient form factor. The cost-effective, low-latency devices feature a high-speed PCIe 2.0 bus interface with an M.2 connector and measure just 22x80mm (0.87x3.15 in), making them ideal for incorporation into small, portable or embedded systems where full-sized PCIe slots are not available.

With the releases of the latest generation of Intel and AMD platforms, the era of PCIe 5.0 SSD has officially arrived. Team Group today has launched the T-FORCE CARDEA Z540 M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD. Developed with outstanding technological expertise, it is the SSD gamers of all kinds have been waiting for. Now it's ready to lead the consumer SSD market into the new era of Gen 5. The Z540 PCIe 5.0 SSD uses the latest PCIe Gen 5 x 4 interface and supports the latest NVMe 2.0 protocol, allowing it to reach read and write speeds of up to 12,000 MB/s and 10,000 MB/s respectively, nearly double the theoretical speed limit of PCIe 4.0. Possessing cutting-edge specifications, Z540 SSD brings gamers an unprecedented, next-generation gaming experience.

The T-FORCE CARDEA Z540 M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD is equipped with an exclusive ultra-thin graphene heatspreader that combines multiple patented technologies. It's made of 100% recyclable graphene material and utilizes the advantages of hexagonal honeycomb lattice structures to rapidly and evenly disperse heat horizontally, providing Z540 SSD with top-notch cooling. The Z540's ultra-thin graphene heatspreader is less than 1 mm thick and is compatible with various PCIe 5.0 motherboard heatsinks. Based on T-FORCE LAB's internal testing, the operating temperature of Z540 SSD combining motherboard heatsink and graphene heatspreader is 3-5°C lower than the temperature with only motherboard heatsinks. Moreover, CARDEA Z540 uses the latest intelligent thermal regulation technology with built-in temperature sensing to automatically adjust performance and prevent overheating. T-FORCE LAB has created numerous temperature solutions for the Z540 SSD to not only enhance and protect data integrity of the SSD but also maintain good operating temperatures at high speeds, extending the lifespan of the SSD.

A brand-new Razer Blade 15—continuing its storied legacy of pushing the boundaries of thin and light 15" gaming laptops—is now available. This ultra-portable gaming machine is powered by the latest 13th generation Intel Core i7 13800H processor and NVIDIA's newest GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs, up to the RTX 4070. Enhanced vapor chamber cooling and thinner 0.05 mm exhaust fins provide the exceptional thermal control needed to pack this level of performance in a laptop that is 25% smaller than the Blade 16.

The Blade 15 places portability at the forefront. As the thinnest Blade in the 2023 line, it weighs less than four and a half pounds and delivers up to over six hours of battery life from its 80 Wh battery. The 16:9 QHD 240 Hz display provides smooth, sharp visuals with a 2.5 ms response time and 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. The Blade 15 is easily upgradeable, accommodating up to 4 TB of storage using an extra M.2 slot and up to 64 GB DDR5-5200 MHz memory, allowing users to keep pace with even the most demanding games and tasks.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, proudly announces the launch of the EVOL X16 PRO gaming laptop. The new COLORFUL EVOL X16 PRO mainstream model is equipped an 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700H processor and up to a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 laptop graphics. The gaming laptop sports a 16-inch QHD 240 Hz IPS display with support for NVIDIA G-SYNC technology for smooth and stutter-free gaming visuals.

The EVOL X16 PRO also comes equipped with 16 GB of DDR5-4800 MHz memory, expandable up to 64 GB. For storage, the mainstream model comes with 512 GB of fast NVMe SSD storage with an empty M.2 slot for storage expansion. The laptop also features a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port for high-speed data transmission and multi-device connectivity. For networking, the EVOL X16 PRO comes with a 2.5 GbE LAN port for gamers that prefer reliable and fast wired connection. For wireless networking, the gaming laptop also comes equipped with the latest Wi-Fi 6E + Bluetooth solution.

Sabrent introduces our new USB Type-C Flat Docking Station (DS-UFNC) for normal use and cloning. The USB Type-C Flat Docking Station (DS-UFNC) is designed to make your life easier with a dual-drive, tool-free installation. It supports an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD and a 2.5"/3.5" SATA SSD/HDD in single- or dual-drive mode for data transfer and offline cloning with clear LED indicators. The M.2 drive is kept cool during operation to prevent throttling with an integrated M.2 heatsink and includes a thermal pad. No matter your storage, this docking station has you covered.

The included power adapter improves reliability during operation with 3.5" HDDs and high-power SSDs. Transfers are possible over a 10 Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2) backward-compatible interface. Type-C/Type-A to Type-C USB cables are included to work with a wide range of devices, and the docking station is designed for Windows and macOS machines. SSDs are fully supported with TRIM and UASP for the best performance and reliability. Easy, convenient, and backed by Sabrent.

ASRock introduced the Blazing Quad M.2 riser card. Roughly the size of a tall, single-slot graphics card, this contraption converts a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slot to four M.2 Gen 5 slots, each with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, with room for up to 110 mm drive length. The four slots are located underneath a cooling solution that consists of an aluminium heatsink that's ventilated by a pair of fans. The card draws power from a 6-pin PCIe power connector for a total of 150 W power-delivery capability. While there's no bridge chip on this card, making it essentially a riser that disaggregates an x16 slot to four x4 M.2 slots, a microcontroller handles the cooling. Each of the four M.2 slots has a link/activity LED at the rear I/O. The card measures 243 mm x 126 mm, and is exactly one slot thick. It should prove useful on Xeon W + W790 platforms that have up to 112 PCIe lanes from the processor, although the card supports just about any machine with a PCIe x16 slot with lane disaggregation. You get the PCIe standard that the x16 slot supports.

Leading global motherboard manufacturer, ASRock, proudly announces its new ASRock W790 WS motherboard for workstations for Intel Xeon W-3400/W-2400 series processors (LGA4677). The ASRock W790 WS features up to 2 TB DDR5 ECC RDIMM support, PCI-Express 5.0 expansion slots, USB4/Thunderbolt 4 and Dual 10 Gbps Ethernet. A flagship-class 14-layer PCB and 20+2 phase CPU VRM ensures ultimate performance and superb reliability, even when subjected to the most demanding sustained workloads.

Supports New 4th Generation Xeon Processor
The W790 WS chipset is optimized for new Intel Xeon W-2400 series (LGA4677) processors and is compatible with W-3400 series processors with up to 56 cores also. The ASRock W790 WS provides a quad-channel DDR5 design with 2DPC over 8 DIMM slots, maximizing memory performance, potential memory pool capacity and supports ECC RDIMMs to ensure data reliability.

ADATA today unveiled a 4 TB variant of its Premier series M.2 NVMe SSD with integrated heatsink (APSFG-4TCS). The drive takes advantage of PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface, and targets the crowd that wants storage upgrades for their Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. The drive offers sequential read speeds of up to 6300 MB/s when used with a PS5. It's slightly faster when used with a PC, with sequential transfer rates of up to 7400 MB/s sequential reads, with up to 6600 MB/s sequential writes. ADATA is backing the drive with an impressive 2960 TBW endurance rating, and with a 5-year warranty. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Tech innovator GELID Solutions uncovers the new IceCap Pro M.2 SSD Cooling Kit as a product of the GELID Solutions GAMER product line. IceCap Pro is designed to increase performance, lengthen Storage life and keep your M.2 SSD cool. High-performance thermal pads, active PWM fan, enhanced Heat Pipe direct contact, a newly developed aluminium heatsink and secure mounting is what takes the IceCap to the Pro level.

All to ensure the M.2 Type SSD Controller and Memory ICs, optimum heat dissipation and a considerably reduced operating temperature are provided. It comes with a Heatsink Dimensions of 73 x 24 x 16.6 mm and weight of 56 g. It also includes a 20 mm PWM Fan with 12000 RPM for active cooling. GELID Solutions offers a 2 year warranty. "Keep your SSD icy cool and blazingly fast!!" said Gebhard Scherrer, Sales Director of GELID Solutions Ltd. IceCap Pro has a MSRP of USD 16.00 or Euro 16.00. For more information visit GELID Solutions.

One of the major issues with M.2 based NVMe SSDs today is the excessive heat they output, part of the reason most of them run so hot is because of the older fabrication node they're made on. Most current PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD controllers are built on a 12 nm node of some kind, but based on data out of IT Home in the PRC, we now have details of Silicon Motion's SM2504XT PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD controller, which appears to be one of the first, if not the first, to be made on a 7 nm node.

Although it's not mentioned specifically who Silicon Motion's manufacturing partner is, it's most likely going to be TSMC, as Silicon Motion is a Taiwanese company. The SM2504XT will be a mainstream 4-channel controller, but it'll support NAND flash rated at up to 3600 MT/s, which is a step up from any other currently announced NVMe SSD controller. It also supports the NVMe 2.0 protocol and will have a PCIe 5.0 x4 host system interface. The new controller is expected to have hit the engineering sample stage some time in September this year.

AMD's high-end X670E motherboard chipset combines two Promontory 21 chips working together to deliver a single solution. With regularly-sized ATX motherboards, having two chips to form a chipset is fine, as there is much room on the PCB. However, with Mini-ITX motherboards, packing two Promontory 21 chips is difficult as the PCB area is limited. To combat this, ASUS introduced an interesting solution to solve the problem and allowed the company to ship the high-end X670E chipset inside a Mini-ITX form factor. Thanks to UNIKO's Hardware's findings, we look at the exciting solution ASUS used to solve this problem.

Instead of two Promontory 21 chips side by side, one is placed on the motherboard directly, while the other stands vertically attached by M.2 PCIe slot. Below, the chipset's pictures and the highlight show how it looks disassembled.

ASRock Industrial announces the 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series Mini PCs powered by AMD Ryzen 7000U-Series APUs up to 8 Zen 3+ cores. Featuring maximum dual DDR5 4800 MHz memory up to 64 GB, the 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series bring about performance enhancement through unleashing higher standards of power, speed, and energy efficiency. Now poised with enriched IOs and expansions, the Series also provide quad-display outputs of up to 8K outstanding graphics with one HDMI 2.1, three DisplayPort 1.4a, and five USB ports, including two USB4 for versatile connectivity. Moreover, dual storages with one SATA 3.0, one M.2 Key M, plus dual LAN ports up to 2.5 Gigabit, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2 are supported for reliable communications. The unleashed features make this Series the leading choice for a wide range of top-notch applications such as gaming, entertainment, content creation, office productivity, business, and AIoT use cases.

Powered by AMD Ryzen 7 7735Uand Ryzen 5 7535U, ASRock Industrial presents the 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series selections: 4X4 BOX-7735U/D5 and 4X4 BOX-7535U/D5. Featuring up to 8 Zen 3+ cores and next-generation AMD Radeon Graphics, the Series guarantee optimal power, speed, and performance upgrades. The 4X4 BOX 7000/D5 Series showcase the very first dual-channel DDR5 4800 MHz SO-DIMM memory up to 64 GB with new features that unleash effortless multitasking abilities for higher performance, lower power consumption, and more robust data integrity for future computing.

GIGABYTE formally launched its flagship AORUS Gen5 10000 series M.2 NVMe SSDs that take advantage of a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface. Currently, all AMD B650 series and X670 series motherboards offer a PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot wired to the processor without eating into PEG bandwidth, while some Intel 700-series chipset motherboards offer Gen 5 M.2 slots by subtracting lanes from the PEG slot. AORUS Gen5 10000 for now comes in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities. The drives combine a Phison E26 series controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory and LPDDR4 DRAM cache.

The 1 TB model offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 9.5 GB/s reads, with up to 8.5 GB/s writes, and 700 TBW endurance; whereas the 2 TB model is faster, with up to 10 GB/s sequential reads, up to 9.5 GB/s writes, and 1,400 TBW endurance. The drive's power consumption is under 10 W, and GIGABYTE has deployed a thoughtful fanless cooling solution for the drive that spares you from the annoying high-pitched noise of other upcoming Gen 5 M.2 SSDs that use fan-heatsinks. The company didn't reveal pricing, but mentioned that the drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

Transcend introduced the MTE400S, a value-ended M.2 NVMe SSD meant for the prebuilt OEM/SI channel. Built in the 42 mm-long M.2-2242 form-factor, the drive features a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface. It comes in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB; and features a DRAM-less design, possibly using a Phison-sourced controller. The company didn't specify the type of 3D NAND flash used. The top-spec 1 TB variant offers transfer-speeds of up to 2000 MB/s reads, with up to 1700 MB/s writes; while the 512 GB variant writes at up to 1000 MB/s, and the 256 GB variant up to 900 MB/s; with endurance ratings of 100 TBW, 200 TBW, and 400 TBW, respectively. The company didn't reveal pricing, but these should be among the cheapest drives in the market, as they're sold in tray volumes.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a world-renowned manufacturer of desktop components, laptops, desktops, AIO PCs, and storage, launches the B760 Series motherboards for the 13th Gen and 12th Gen Intel Core processors. The Intel B760 Series motherboards are ideal gaming and content creation with DDR5 and DDR4 memory support depending on model.

COLORFUL introduces the CVN B760M FROZEN WIFI D5 and CVN B760I FROZEN WIFI motherboards for gamers and enthusiasts. Coming in a compact micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factors, both motherboards feature PCIe 5.0 x16 slot to support the latest high-end graphics cards. The CVN B760 motherboards also come with Wi-Fi 6, three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for the CVN B760M FROZEN WIFI D5 and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for the CVN B760I FROZEN WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard. COLORFUL also presents the BATTLE-AX B760M-F PRO motherboard with DDR4 memory support and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots.

Corsair has teased its fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD yet in an M.2 form factor. The company published some initial details about its upcoming product in a short video. However, the video has been taken private, indicating that the launch date may be at a later stage of the year. Thanks to Overclock3D, we saw its looks and got a slight peek at the product. Called the MP700, the SSD is supposedly boasting a fantastic 10 GB/s read capability. The write section is also impressive, with the NVMe SSD capable of reaching around 9 GB/s of what we suppose is a sustained write speed. It uses 3D TLC NAND Flash and supports Microsoft DirectStorage technology for faster load time. Below is a quote from Corsair about the MP700.

CorsairExperience the performance of PCIe Gen5 storage in your system, with up to 10,000MB/sec sequential read and 9,500MB/sec sequential write speeds for amazingly fast save, boot, and load times.
The high-bandwidth NVMe 2.0 interface and high-density 3D TLC NAND flash memory offer outstanding performance and longevity. Slot the MP700 directly into your motherboard thanks to its M.2 2280 form-factor, while a stylish aluminum heatsink helps manage temperatures and reduce throttling. Microsoft DirectStorage enables unprecedented load times when playing compatible games.

Back in February 2022 SiFive announced its partnership with Intel Foundry Services (IFS), to bring its "Horse Creek" SoC to market and now SiFive has announced that it's getting ready to launch its first development board on said SoC. This summer, SiFive will launch the HiFive Pro P550 development board, which will kick things up a serious notch when it comes to embedded SoC development boards, regardless of the CPU core the SoC is built around. The HiFive Pro P550 will be one of few microATX based embedded SoC development boards out there and so far, to our knowledge, the only one with a RISC-V based SoC. The Horse Creek SoC sports quad core, 2.2 GHz, 13-stage, triple-issue, out-of-order pipeline RISC-V RV64GBC CPU built on the Intel 4 node. The SoC also has a DDR5 5600 MHz memory interface, support for eight lanes of PCIe 5.0 and comes in a 19 x 19 mm FBGA package.

The HiFive Pro P550 will offer 16 GB of DDR5 memory, but based on the render of the motherboard, this is soldered to the board, rather than relying on standard DDR5 DIMMs. Furthermore, the board has two x16 PCIe 3.0 expansion slots, although it's unclear how many PCIe each slot features, as well as a PCIe 3.0 M.2 2280 M-key slot for NVMe SSDs and a PCIe 3.0 M.2 E-key slot for a WiFi/Bluetooth module. The board also sports multiple USB/USB 3.0 ports and even a pair of USB-C ports. The press release also mentions both Gigabit and 10 Gbps Ethernet support, as well as support for onboard graphics and remote system management, without going into any further details. It'll be interesting to see if the Horse Creek SoC can deliver on its expected performance target, especially as SiFive has a lot to prove, especially as the company calls the RISC-V architecture inevitable.