New ASRock Rack C236 Xeon E3-1200 V5 workstation motherboards

ASRock today is releasing new Intel C236 based motherboards for the Intel Xeon E3-1200 V5 “Greenlow” family of processors. Key updates for today’s launch are the transition from DDR3 32GB memory limitation to 64GB DDR4. Greenlow also transitions the Xeon E3 series to a 14nm Skylake platform. All motherboards support dual Intel gigabit LAN connections and feature workstation friendly features such as onboard audio as well as video out ports to take advantage of the new Intel Skylake Xeon onboard GPUs. We covered the new Intel Xeon E3-1200 V5 processors earlier today.

ASRock Rack C236 WS

ASRock Rack C236 WS is an ATX motherboard featuring a single Socket H4 (LGA1151) socket and the Intel C236 chipset.

The motherboards supports a total of five PCIe slots (x16, x8, x16 and two x1) as well as two legacy PCI slots. There are now eight SATA 3 ports provided by the Intel C236 chipset and ASRock exposes all of them.

ASRock Rack C236 WSI

One of the more unique motherboards launched today is the mITX ASRock Rack C236 WSI. The small form factor dictates only two DDR4 slots but it is a very packed form factor.

One can see a myriad of I/O on this small motherboard including dual Intel gigabit LAN, audio, video and eight SATA3 ports. This is surely a very compact yet robust platform.

ASRock Rack C236M WS

Finally, ASRock Rack is releasing the C236 based mATX motherboard the ASRock Rack C236M WS. This motherboard benefits from the larger dimensions afforded by the mATX form factor and adds additional features.

One can see the M.2 slot for fast PCIe based storage. Like the C236 WS it has an internal USB header and dual USB 3.0 front panel connectors.

Conclusion

Overall the new lineup of Intel Greenlow platforms is impressive. Intel started taking the Xeon E3-1200 platform in a different direction starting with the V4 series and we are seeing the results of the transition clearly now with the V5 series and V5 series platforms. One will notice the lack of IPMI which is a theme with the V5 series platforms given the new direction. It is great that ASRock uses the more expensive Intel i210 controller instead of the cheaper Realtek controllers for these motherboards alongside the Intel chipset i219LM NIC.