ASRock has launched an AIC (add-in-card) that may permit you to use as much as 4 of the finest SSDs on the identical board. The Blazing Quad M.2 Card (opens in new tab) does justice to its identify and offers housing for 4 lightning-fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs.
ASRock has been making these AICs for M.2 SSDs for fairly some time now. The corporate beforehand launched the Extremely Quad M.2 Card for PCIe 3.0 SSDs and Hyper Quad M.2 Card for PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Nonetheless, the Blazing Quad M.2 Card embraces the PCIe 5.0 interface, and ASRock needed to make a couple of upgrades on the brand new AIC.
Because of this, the Blazing Quad M.2 Card is the most important M.2 AIC ASRock has produced to this point. Though it nonetheless sticks to a single-slot design, it measures 4.97 inches large, 13% greater than the earlier AICs. By the appears of it, the elevated panorama most likely accommodates the bigger cooling followers.
The Blazing Quad M.2 Card slides into the PCIe 5.0 x16 enlargement slot. Below the hood, you will discover 4 PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slots for SSDs with a most size of as much as 110m. ASRock has put in the M.2 slots at a 45-degrees angle to shorten the sign traces, maximize efficiency, and enhance sign integrity.
As well as, the M.2 slots characteristic thermal pads to supply passive cooling to the SSDs. In the event you did not know already, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are likely to run sizzling. Two small aluminum cooling followers are accountable for energetic cooling. They’re PWM followers, so the Blazing Quad M.2 Card comes with a four-pin fan cable that you will want to hook up with a corresponding fan connector in your motherboard.
Like its predecessors, the Blazing Quad M.2 Card requires exterior energy since it may well’t get all of the juice it wants from the enlargement slot. Because of this, the AIC makes use of the identical 6-pin PCIe energy connector as ASRock’s different AICs. Due to this fact, you will have at the least two cables popping out of the Blazing Quad M.2 Card. ASRock additionally implanted 4 standing LEDs on the AIC so customers can monitor the learn or write standing of every SSDs.
ASRock contains the Blazing Quad M.2 Card with the corporate’s newest W790 WS motherboard for Intel Xeon W Sapphire Rapids processors. The AIC is offered as a standalone accent however not globally. Due to this fact, the Blazing Quad M.2 Card’s pricing and availability are unknown, so patrons ought to contact their native retailer to see if it is out there for his or her area.