ASRock Launches Legacy M.2 Graphics Card

[Pup Shepard]

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/amp/news/asrock-m2-graphics-card

 

 

Quote

 

ASRock has introduced its first graphics card in an M.2-2280 form-factor. The M_2 VGA module is designed to add legacy display connectivity to any system that has an M.2 slot with a PCIe interface. 

 

The ASRock M_2 VGA module uses Silicon Motion's SM750 display controller with 16MB of embedded memory and a PCIe x1 interface. The card has a 15-pin header to connect a D-Sub output that supports resolutions of up to 1920×1440. Since this is a single-chip board, its power consumption is rated at 1.49 Watts, which is almost negligible by today's standards in the PC world. Meanwhile, the unit still has an additional power connector. 

The Silicon Motion SM750 is a rather simplistic display controller that only supports 2D graphics and a basic video engine. The chip features two display engines and has two 300 MHz RAMDACs, one TMDS transmitter, and one LVDS transmitter.

 

 

 

I could see this good for really small builds that want a gpu with more power than an IGPU.  If this could be better called a video accelerator card to give an extra boost to performance. With some development I think this could be used to great effect in small cheep laptops found in big box stores to give them a better edge.  I do understand that this version is meant for "Legacy Connection" But it could be really cool for all kinds of cool stuff.  Perhaps even for video editing.  If u don't need an output but want another processor for lots of parallels processing, you could stick this in and have software that can use to to make compute faster.

[Senzelian]

Ohhh this is sick.
Troubleshooting Ryzen CPUs would be so easy with that. F*ck you AMD for not giving us iGPUs!

 

What's the price going to be of one of these?

[Kilrah]

5 minutes ago, rubberpuppy said:

I could see this good for really small builds that want a gpu with more power than an IGPU.  If this could be better called a video accelerator card to give an extra boost to performance.

It will not do any better than an iGPU, actually much worse, it has no 3D acceleration whatsoever.

 

It just provides an absolutely basic display output for 2D stuff if you have none, that's all.

[Windows7ge]

Not gonna lie I clicked on this hoping it was a IPMI module that fits in a M.2 slot.

 

Disappointed. I would expect an iGPU to outperform this so I can't immediately see a worthwhile application for it.

[The_russian]

4 minutes ago, rubberpuppy said:

I could see this good for really small builds that want a gpu with more power than an IGPU. 

It's a really cool idea, I'm interested to see what scenarios or use cases this would be a good option for. Are you sure about it being more powerful than an iGPU though? By the way they describe it, to me it sounds like an iGPU or APU would have more powerful graphics. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, Kilrah said:

It just provides an absolutely basic display output for 2D stuff if you have none, that's all.

so this may be usful for servers w/o a igpu.

[Kilrah]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

so this may be usful for servers w/o a igpu.

Given it's an Asrock Rack product it's likely exactly what it's designed for. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Disappointed. I would expect an iGPU to outperform this so I can't immediately see a worthwhile application for this.

every (non g) ryzen owner ever?

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

so this may be usful for servers w/o a igpu.

yep thats the point of it.

[The_russian]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

so this may be usful for servers w/o a igpu.

The product is listed on the AsrockRack site which seams to be for servers and workstations, so your probably right about that being the primary intention for it. How common is it for server boards to have m.2 slots though? I haven't worked with any newer systems so I don't know if that is common. 

Link to the product listing: https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=M2_VGA#Specifications

[GDRRiley]

Just now, The_russian said:

The product is listed on the AsrockRack site which seams to be for servers and workstations, so your probably right about that being the primary intention for it. How common is it for server boards to have m.2 slots though? I haven't worked with any newer systems so I don't know if that is common. 

Link to the product listing: https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=M2_VGA#Specifications

going back to X99 most desktops boards have it an probably around sky lake most server boards got it.

[Kilrah]

2 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

every (non g) ryzen owner ever?

It'll probably cost more than an old or low end GPU that can provide more than just a low res VGA port...

[The_russian]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

going back to X99 most desktops boards have it an probably around sky lake most server boards got it.

Interesting, I didn't know m.2 was used in enterprise, but I don't work in that sector so I'm not very exposed to the newer server technologies. 

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

every (non g) ryzen owner ever?

That's not a great justification for it. Are you implying you'd buy this as oppose to a real GPU for your non-g Ryzen processor?

 

4 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

so this may be usful for servers w/o a igpu.

Most/all server motherboards come with built-in VGA & IPMI for remote management. This module wouldn't help most server users.

[GDRRiley]

6 minutes ago, The_russian said:

Interesting, I didn't know m.2 was used in enterprise, but I don't work in that sector so I'm not very exposed to the newer server technologies. 

not if your amazon but stuff like HPE and supermicro servers will have them

[Windows7ge]

I will admit depending on price/compatibility I do see one really good use for something like this if it comes with the VGA adapter and that's for troubleshooting a computer. Pull out the GPU, pop this in. Rule out GPU as a culprit.

 

Depending on feature support it might also be useful as a basic display adapter for extending your desktop.

[mariushm]

The chip is used on this pci-e x1 video card : https://www.sunix.com/en/product_detail.php?cid=1&kid=2&gid=15&pid=1763

 

Don't see it sold anywhere though.

 

But the page is quite interesting, has a chart which says the card can only do 1920x1080 at 16 bit color.. so I guess the Asrock card probably reduces the refresh rate to 30 Hz or something like that at more than 1080p since they say it can do 1920x1440

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

47 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

That's not a great justification for it. Are you implying you'd buy this as oppose to a real GPU for your non-g Ryzen processor?

 

no, for ryzen trouble shooting.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

no, for ryzen trouble shooting.

Ah, then we're on the same page then.

[The Benjamins]

They also have a PCIe x1 IPMI card https://www.asrock.com/asrockrack/general/productdetail.asp?Model=PAUL#Specifications

 

[StDragon]

I don't see the point in this. As others have stated, the iGPU is vastly superior. But for servers? Why??? I get that they use VGA ports with Matrox 2d chip. It's just to paint the GUI through a KVM. It's rarely used as stuff is administered remotely from the CLI or an iDRAC / iLO (Dell / HP) or whatever is tapped into the IPMI bus for remote management via IP.

 

The only time I needed the VGA port from a server was direct console access to access the BIOS or perform HW diags when a remote management controller wasn't a feature of the server.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

Ah, then we're on the same page then.

yeah, if you have a spare m2, then you may even be able to keep this pluged in at all times, just pop on the vga port, and off to troubleshooting land you go.

 

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

As others have stated, the iGPU is vastly superior

If your cpu has a igpu. THis could let you run a consumer ryzen desktop as a server, without needing space for a gpu.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

yeah, if you have a spare m2, then you may even be able to keep this pluged in at all times, just pop on the vga port, and off to troubleshooting land you go.

I'm thinking if it uses the PCI_e protocol nothing should stop people from using a full size PCI_e to M.2 adapter. Then it doesn't matter if you have an M.2 slot onboard or not. Or if you only have one and it's occupied by your boot drive.

[StDragon]

6 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

If your cpu has a igpu. THis could let you run a consumer ryzen desktop as a server, without needing space for a gpu.

If the server is a tower, sure. But it's bloody useless as a rackmount 1U server. And if you're going to be using 4 or 5 Us of space, it's a lot easer to use a cheap PCIe card instead. The M.2 slot would be better used as read/write cache if the storage is within the same server. If you have two M.2 slots, then that would be read/write SSD cache in RAID1.

 

IMHO, I see this as a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. That, or I fail to see the market appeal of this.

[sub68]

so this is meant for severs to display video not everyday video encoding