ASRock Shows Off Steel Legend BMD, Riptide & Lightning Motherboards at CES 2025

[T0@st]

Earlier in the week, ASRock debuted its Intel B860/H810 and full range of AMD B850 motherboards—the TechPowerUp team headed across CES 2025's showroom floor to check whether the Taiwanese manufacturer had some of these newly announced products on display. Various white Steel Legend models were present, including an intriguing B850 mainboard sample sporting ASRock's back mount design (BMD). The B860M Pro BMD board was not in sight (or not captured on camera)—according to a press release from earlier in the week, BMD had its premiere on this Intel-based solution.

AsRock reps happily showed off two Intel B860-chipset Steel Legend boards with traditional all-front facing connectors—an ATX option as well as an M-ATX (B860M) model were examined from close-up. A Phantom Gaming B860 Lightning Wi-Fi model was presented to TechPowerUp—its darker aesthetic contrasts sharply when lined up against its pale Steel Legend neighbors.




(Below, respectively) ASRock's B860 Steel Legend Wi-Fi, B860M Steel Legend, and Phantom Gaming B860 Lightning Wi-Fi motherboard models.



ASRock's Z890 Taichi AQUA model sat very prominently on the showroom table—its E-ATX form factor certainly occupied a larger footprint than the nearby ATX, M-ATX and ITX boards. The premium flagship Taichi AQUA first appeared at Computex 2024, and was officially launched later in the year. ASRock likely had it on display this week at CES for some added "wow factor."



A Phantom Gaming B850 Riptide Wi-Fi board was also available for examination:



A dinky Phantom Gaming B850I Lightning board looked almost out of place on ASRock's display table—seemingly the only ITX option showcased here.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[wNotyarD]

Was there no PG Nova on display?

 

[Gucky]

Not a single AM5 ITX board with PCie 5.0x16 and 4x Sata ports TO DATE.

 

[wNotyarD]

Not a single AM5 ITX board with PCie 5.0x16 and 4x Sata ports TO DATE.

Mini-ITX with 4x SATA ports? Disregard AM5, is there such a board on any platform/chipset?

 

[Mistral]

One mATX model is better than zero, I guess. Only in white though? The previous once (well, their B550m) was a nice black and white camo mix...

Also, curious how you use any of the connectors at the bottom with chunkier, 3 slot cards...

 

[Bobaganoosh]

Not a single AM5 ITX board with PCie 5.0x16 and 4x Sata ports TO DATE.

Is that for...3 SATA SSD's and an optical drive? in an ITX case? Doesn't seem like something many people do, but I'm assuming you have a reason.

 

[wNotyarD]

Is that for...3 SATA SSD's and an optical drive? in an ITX case? Doesn't seem like something many people do, but I'm assuming you have a reason.

Closest guess I can imagine is a mini-ITX NAS, running its OS on the M.2 drive and using 4 2.5" drives for storage. Still wild, isn't it?

 

[Bobaganoosh]

Closest guess I can imagine is a mini-ITX NAS, running its OS on the M.2 drive and using 4 2.5" drives for storage. Still wild, isn't it?

I was wondering about a NAS build, but I honestly figured most of those would want to use the PCIe slot with some kind of adaptor that gives more lanes at high speeds. I don't have any use for a NAS though, so I'm quite ignorant on that topic. I just figured most people would look at SATA as too slow these days.

 

[wNotyarD]

I was wondering about a NAS build, but I honestly figured most of those would want to use the PCIe slot with some kind of adaptor that gives more lanes at high speeds. I don't have any use for a NAS though, so I'm quite ignorant on that topic. I just figured most people would look at SATA as too slow these days.

Still possible. Use integrated graphics for video and leave the PCIe slots for more drives if that's what's needed.

 

[lukart]

Was there no PG Nova on display?

I was thinking the same! They are having so much success, that they sold out everything and didn't even had one left to display at CES

 

[TheDeeGee]

Shame they have no full blackout boards anymore.

 

[Gucky]

Mini-ITX with 4x SATA ports? Disregard AM5, is there such a board on any platform/chipset?

My old AM4 B550 ITX Board had it. All 9 still available AM4 ITX Boards have 4.
2x AM5 B650 Boards with PCIe 4.0 have 4.
Half (10) of the Intel 1200 ITX Boards have 4 Sata ports AND PCIe 5.0.
The new Intel 1851 B860I Lightning WiFi has at least 3. And I have seen at least another one in the CES with 4.
But no new AM5 ITX boards in CES with 4 Sata ports.

That is all here on the german market.

Yes Intel has still better connectivity then AMD on ITX, despite having enough lanes or space on the chipset.
Generally Intel has more diverse boards to choose from...despite nobody really buying Intel...

Is that for...3 SATA SSD's and an optical drive? in an ITX case? Doesn't seem like something many people do, but I'm assuming you have a reason.

3 Sata SSDs, they gathered over some years. 2x 2TB and 1x 8TB. So 3 Sata ports would be enough.
I also have M.2 with 2TB and 1TB and an old one with 512GB as long as I can fit it.

If I ever need an optical drive, I'll buy an external one over USB.
I DO have an old 5,25" DVD drive in the attic.

 

[Bubba of Pennsyltucky]

I’m very grateful for this site’s coverage of these new BMD motherboards at CES. I was excited to see and read about that finished prototype B850 Steel Legend BMD ATX board.

Has anyone seen or heard of rumors regarding how soon we could expect to see any of these in retail channels or any plans to offer BMD models of the higher tier AMD or Intel chipsets? Adding this feature to the Tai Chi Aqua motherboard would be a Dream Come True for me!

In case ASRock reads any of these:
Keep this awesome engineering going and partner with Alphacool to get liquid cooling Mono Blocks covering:
• ⁠CPU Socket (some AM5 and LGA-1851 options would be great!)
• ⁠Voltage Regulator Stages around the CPU socket
• ⁠LPCAMM2 memory module (like Crucial's 64GB LPDDR5X-7500 module)
• ⁠M.2 PCIe SSD Slot nearest the CPU socket

MSI debuted a LPCAMM2 model of their Project Zero motherboard, a year ago but it didn't ship in 2024. Now's your time to strike!

Much Love to all of the great coverage on this to Tech Power Up!! Excellent Tech Journali

 

[MachineLearning]

Not a single AM5 ITX board with PCie 5.0x16 and 4x Sata ports TO DATE.

ROG STRIX B860-I GAMING WIFI | Gaming motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

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rog.asus.com

Not AM5 but meets other criteria

 

[Gucky]

ROG STRIX B860-I GAMING WIFI | Gaming motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

Discover the ROG Strix B860-I, engineered for Intel Core Ultra (series 2), WiFi 7, Thunderbolt 4, and advanced cooling. Elevate your AI computing now!

rog.asus.com

Not AM5 but meets other criteria

I know Intel has some boards that fit, but I won't use Intel for the forseeable future. I don't use my home PC for productivity.