For those looking to build something more professional than your average run of the mill PC, ASUS new Pro WS W680M-ACE SE motherboard might be the thing you've been looking for. The Intel W680 chipset based board sports a mATX form factor and packs in a range of rather unusual features that you more often would find on a board from Supermicro or Tyan than ASUS. One such feature is onboard BMC remote management via an ASpeed AST2600 SoC which features a pair of Arm Cortex A7 cores and a Cortex M3, as well as a dedicated 2D graphics chip. The board also sports a SlimSAS port which supports either four SATA drives or a single PCIe 4.0 x4 storage device, although ASUS doesn't support any cables in the box for the port.

As this is a workstation motherboard, it obviously supports ECC memory and in this case we're talking DDR5 with full transactional ECC support, rather than the on-die ECC that all DDR5 features. Other more common motherboard features include a pair of PCIe 4.0 x4 NMVe M.2 slots, a single PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, a PCIe 4.0 x4 slot and a PCIe 3.0 x1 slot. The board also has a pair of 2.5 Gbps Ethernet port and a third 1 Gbps Ethernet port which is connected the AST2600, a 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, as well as a DisplayPort and HDMI port, plus a VGA port which again is connected to the AST2600. ASUS promises 24/7 reliability at ambient temperatures of up to 45 degrees C and a relative humidity of up to 80 percent. The board also comes with ASUS' Control Center Express, which is ASUS' IT management software. No word on pricing, but the ATX sized version retails for around US$330, suggesting that the mATX version should be somewhat cheaper.

ASRock Industrial is introducing new choices in industrial motherboards powered by 13th Gen Intel Core Processors (Raptor Lake-S) with up to 24 cores and 32 threads that boost computer-intensive edge performance. They come equipped with Intel W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets, and offer support for up to DDR5-5600 memory modules and PCIe Gen 5, allowing expanded possibilities and seamless integration within industry-specific applications.

By harnessing the power of the 13th Gen Intel Core Processors, they leap up to 1.04x/1.34x/1.25x faster in single-thread, multi-thread, and CPU image classification inference performance, respectively, compared to the preceding 12th Gen Intel Core processors. The new 13th Gen Intel CPU motherboards with DDR5 support, available in Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX form factors, have been specifically designed to cater to the unique requirements of the Edge AIoT applications in commerce, automation, robot, entertainment, and security industries.

As expected with AMD's activity on GitHub, ROCm 5.5 has now been officially released. It brings several big changes, including better RDNA 3 support. While officially focused on AMD's professional/workstation graphics cards, the ROCm 5.5 should also bring better support for Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards on Linux.

Surprisingly, the release notes do not officially mention RDNA 3 improvements in its release notes, but those have been already tested and confirmed. The GPU support list is pretty short including AMD GFX9, RDNA, and CDNA GPUs, ranging from Radeon VII, Pro VII, W6800, V620, and Instinct lineup. The release notes do mention new HIP enhancements, enhanced stack size limit, raising it from 16k to 128k, new APIs, OpenMP enhancements, and more. You can check out the full release notes, downloads, and more details over at GitHub.

ASRock Industrial is pleased to introduce a range of upgrades in industrial motherboards powered by 13th Gen Intel Core Processors (Raptor Lake-S) with up to 24 cores and 32 threads, supporting Intel W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets. Featured as the first DDR5 ATX motherboards, the IMB-1714, IMB-X1714, and IMB-1713 are brand-new selections while encompassing upgraded support for the 12th Gen Intel CPU motherboards lineup through BIOS update. They guarantee computing power with performance hybrid architecture and enhanced AI capabilities, rich IOs and expansions for up to PCIe Gen 5 slots, quad displays 4K@60 Hz, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbit/s), triple Intel 2.5 G LANs, multi-M.2 Key M, ECC memory, TPM 2.0, and more. The 13th Gen Intel CPU motherboards cover comprehensive form factors, including Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX for diverse Edge AIoT applications, such as factory automation, kiosks, digital signage, smart cities, medical, and more.

13th Gen Intel Core Motherboards for Upgraded Performance
The upgraded motherboards feature 13th Gen Intel Core i9/i7/i5/i3 processors (Raptor Lake-S) with performance hybrid architecture, plus up to 24 cores and 32 threads that boost compute-intensive edge performance. They leap up to 1.04x/1.34x/1.25x faster in single-thread/multi-thread/CPU image classification inference performance compared to 12th Gen Intel Core processors. Leveraging its engineered flexibility and power, the new 13th Gen Intel Core motherboards run up to DDR5-5600 memory module for higher bandwidth, and PCIe 5.0 for additional expansion while supporting engaging video and digital signage experiences with Intel UHD Graphics driven by Xe architecture.

GIGABYTE Technology, an industry leader in high-performance servers and workstations, today announced a new enterprise-grade motherboard, MC62-G41, for AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3000WX and next generation processors, and another board for the Intel platform, MW34-SP0, featuring enterprise features such as ECC memory support for 12th Gen Intel Core processors. Both platforms will ensure a high level of productivity, availability, and security for professional workstations.

AMD recently drew the curtain on AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO next generation workstation processors. For this new series of processors, GIGABYTE launched the MC62-G41 using the WRX80 platform that is also backwards compatible with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3000 WX Series processors. The WRX80 chipset supports CPUs up to 64 cores and 128 threads, along with 8-channel memory (ECC/non-ECC) DDR4-3200 and 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes.

ASRock Industrial launches a new range of industrial motherboards powered by 12th Gen Intel Core Processors (Alder Lake-S) with up to 16 cores and 24 threads, supporting the new Intel 600 Series W680, Q670, and H610 chipsets. Featuring high computing power with performance hybrid architecture and enhanced AI capabilities, rich IOs and expansions for up to quad displays 4K@60 Hz, USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20 Gbit/s), triple Intel 2.5 GbE LANs with real-time TSN, multi M.2 Key M, ECC memory, plus TPM 2.0, and wide voltage support. The new series covers comprehensive form factors, including industrial Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, and ATX motherboards for diverse applications, such as factory automation, kiosks, digital signage, smart cities, medical, and Edge AIoT applications.

A leaked chipset block-diagram for the upcoming Intel W680 chipset platform sheds light on a possible major change in the way Intel sells workstation-grade processors. The Socket LGA1700-based W680 motherboards will support 12th Gen Core processors for Workstation, and the company makes no mention of the Xeon-W series. Tech enthusiast Wild Cracks points to a possibility we agree with—that Intel is upcycling the Xeon-W series to premium workstation-grade processors, possibly derived from the enterprise-segment silicon, such as the upcoming "Sapphire Rapids," and away from being just a client "Alder Lake" processor with ECC memory support enabled when paired with a W680 chipset motherboard.

If this theory holds true, then the Xeon W (2-channel memory platform) could make way for the "W" brand extension for 12th Gen Core processors. At this point we don't know how the "W" is used, whether it's something along the lines of "Core W9-12900" or "Core i9-12900W." The former sounds more plausible, as "12900W" could have a negative connotation with regards to its power. In terms of connectivity, the W680 offers much of what the top Z690 does, except x8/x8 multi-GPU support. The diagram doesn't give out any information about CPU overclocking support, although memory overclocking support is very likely.