ASRock Rack today introduced the W480M WS socket LGA1200 motherboard targeted at workstation builds, in the Micro-ATX form-factor. This board should appeal greatly to those wanting a very conservative-looking motherboard with a green PCB and conventional-finned aluminium heatsinks cooling the CPU VRM and PCH. Based on the Intel W480 chipset, the board not only supports all 10th Gen Core "Comet Lake" processors, but also Xeon W-1200 series processors based on the silicon, including support for ECC memory when paired with Xeon processors. The board draws power from a combination of a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin+4-pin EPS connectors; conditioning it for the CPU with a 6+2 phase VRM.

Expansion slots on the ASRock Rack W480M WS include a PCI-Express 3.0 x16, an open-ended PCI-Express 3.0 x8 (which splits lanes from the x16 slot), and an open-ended PCI-Express 3.0 x4 slot that's wired to the PCH. Storage connectivity includes two M.2-2280 slots with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 wiring, each, and eight SATA 6 Gbps ports, one of which has reinforced power delivery for SATA DOMs. The onboard audio solution is simple ALC892 fare, but the networking on offer consists of two 1 GbE ports driven by Intel i210 series controllers. There's quite some legacy connectivity, including COM and SGPIO. The board offers a large number of 4-pin PWM fan headers so it could be used in 2U rack chassis with server ventilation. The company didn't reveal pricing.