On Wednesday, ASRock announced a compact PC, which it claims sets a "New Standard for High Performance" in the form factor. The new PC was the ASRock DeskMini Max, and as the name suggests it is a mini PC that has been inflated somewhat – but it is still rather dinky at under 10 litres in volume. The purpose of pumping up the volume a little is to leverage more powerful hardware than one might be accustomed to in this size.
At 168(W) x 220.8(D) x 268(H)mm the new DeskMini Max defies expectations and allows users to spec any modern AMD Ryzen AM4 processor up to 105W, fit up to 128GB across 4x DDR4 slots, fit three fixed storage devices up to 2x HDDs/SSDs and 1x M.2 SSD, add a 5.25-inch ODD, and a 500W 80 PLUS Bronze PSU is pre-installed. Select components chosen to keep this size constricted PC compact and cool are; the ASRock X300 ITX motherboard, and a single-radiator liquid cooler.
Is it too big for a 'mini' PC? That is up to you, but the Intel NUC 11 Extreme 'Beast Canyon', teased at Computex at the end of May, is 8 litres. Intel's solution relies on its Compute Element tech, but in its favour can fit a 30cm GPU.
What about the ASRock DeskMini Max graphics options?
In the official launch announcement, ASRock describes the DeskMini Max as being created to support PCIe graphics cards which are up to 20cm long. In the official video at the top, you see a setup featuring the ASRock AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, as an example choice. However, in a discussion live streamed by Dospara Japan, featuring an ASRock employee, more GPU choices are mulled over.
During the Japanese retailer's studio discussion of GPU choices for the ASRock DeskMini Max we see, slides flash up on screen suggesting choices such as a compact Asus Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini, an Nvidia Quadro P2000, and an AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100. However, another choice caught the eye of Twitter's Harukaze – an AMD Radeon P120 ITX.
I've watched the source video and the text describing this option has been edited with a heavy blur, so you can't read it. The image doesn't look like the single fan ASRock AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT Challenger ITX 8G – and if it was that card, surely it would have been referred to as such and not blurred from video history.
The upshot of the above is that some speculate we are seeing an early glimpse of a yet to be announced Mini-ITX friendly AMD GPU – probably a Radeon RX 6600 / XT. For more recent spills about these highly anticipated graphics cards, see yesterday's story on the six Gigabyte AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card models listed at the EEC. ASRock is an AMD AIB partner, so it wouldn't be so surprising for it to accidentally leak a glimpse at one of its upcoming RX 6600 / XT products, soon to be leveraged by another new product it wants to promote.
