Monday, December 7th 2020
ASRock Rack Unveils M.2 Slot Graphics Card
ASRock's enterprise motherboard subsidiary, ASRock Rack, unveiled what is possibly the strangest graphics card, called simply "M.2_VGA." This card uses a Silicon Motion SM750 chip with an embedded memory, and is built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with an interface that supports both the B-key and M-key slot types. The chip uses a PCI-Express 3.0 x1 host interface, and 16 MB of DDR1 embedded memory. A tiny header on the card puts out analog D-Sub through an expansion bracket, while another takes in 2-pin 12 V power from a Molex connector. While its performance is slightly short for maxed-out "Control" at native 4K with raytracing, you get just enough for a 1080p basic desktop display—which explains why ASRock is selling it through its enterprise subsidiary. The card is meant for servers.
46 Comments on ASRock Rack Unveils M.2 Slot Graphics Card
Unfortunately the server world has that annoying fear of change thing going on and somehow VGA is still a thing. 4 bytes = 32 bits
superuser.com/questions/256932/how-do-i-calculate-video-ram-requirements
I think even Direct X 12 might make that more usable and useful for that matter the infinity cache would be combined would it not I mean that was suppose to be a perk to mGPU for DX12. I think in the case of a triple display setup with a discrete GPU and 3 of these each of these could handle a display and do a bit of upscale while the discrete GPU renders the entire scene and splits it among the 3 M.2 GPU's to displays like SoftTH. If you had 4 they could easy handle a quadrant. to upscale and post process within a certain threshold. The GPU chips on the M.2 would obviously be small die sizes as well so the yields could be good too. It's defiantly entirely possible to do iGPU upscale of discrete graphics even now and post process should certainly be possible too seeing as the mClassic is capable of it. They would be pretty nifty with a touch of co-processor tech capabilities bundled into each.
AMD could even have 3 of these wired to the discrete GPU's and do away with the additional HDMI/display ports in practice and just add one of these types of devices for additional displays that can also do a bit of upscale and post process. The aspect is if you had a 4K display with 4 inputs that can do PIP/PBP of whatever type and 4 outputs say 3 of these and the discrete graphics itself and all had some upscale/post process they could perform on each output that could be rad. I suppose Intel/Nvidia could certainly do these things mentioned as well for that matter, but infinity cache adds a layer of interest to the whole notion of these compact all in one single display GPU's in regard to performance potential.