MINISFORUM AR900i - MINI-ITX Board with Intel i9 13900HX

[d4rk]

The minisforum AR900i is impressive for it's size.

• 24 cores / 32 threads with max turbo at 5.4Ghz
• DDR5 96GB Max
• 4 m.2 slots
• PCIe 5.0 x16 slot (perfect for a dual 10Gb card)

What do you all think?

 

[cloudhax]

I've got some of these AR900i boards and when they arrived and as I'm trying to install them in 2U rackmount cases I'm finding that due to the plastic m.2 retention clips on the back of the motherboard that sit too proudly from the board, it does not sit flat in the case onto the itx case motherboard standoffs. you can rock it left-to-right quite severely, and thus you can either screw in the left side 2 screws, or the right side.. trying to do both would crack the board right in half. with just one side screwd in the board becomes severely and comically tilted to one side

I am thinking of getting pliers after these clips and yanking them out and trying to just jury-rig something to get the back m.2 drives secured.. maybe just some electrical tape or something, considering they are on the back of the board and basically wedged between the board and the case they probably aren't going anywhere

the problem is there is also a big chunk of metal on the back of the board, like some extra piece of heatsink or mount for the cpu cooler that also juts out from the bottom of the board, so that might give me the same problem and I can't just remove that

 

[NerdAshes]

So NAS Compares stated on their review of this mobo:

The motherboard’s inclusion of SFF-8643 connectors represents an innovative shift away from static SATA ports, offering a dynamic and scalable solution for storage expansion.

... is that true?

They did not say the same about the BD770i... too bad, ECC RAM, 8 3.5 drives, with 2 M.2 2280 PCIe5.0 SSD Slots AND a PCIe 5.0 X16 Expansion Slot - would have been a pretty awesome NAS mobo/cpu combo for $400.

 

[cloudhax]

... is that true?

I think its a mistake, I am not going to tear down my fully built ar900i systems to look but I don't recall any SFF-8643 connectors and I don't see any in pictures or marketing material. Granted, I may be fully retarded.

 

[cloudhax]

I am thinking of getting pliers after these clips and yanking them out and trying to just jury-rig something to get the back m.2 drives secured.. maybe just some electrical tape or something,

I just clipped off the bulky plastic connectors with scissors and electrical taped the drives to underside of board so I would be able to screw the motherboards into the case standoffs. its been working fine.

 

[NerdAshes]

I think its a mistake, I am not going to tear down my fully built ar900i systems to look but I don't recall any SFF-8643 connectors and I don't see any in pictures or marketing material. Granted, I may be fully retarded.

Thanks, for the reply!

I didn't notice them on any pictures either, but all the pictures I found were small, with low resolution. I did think it was odd that they didn't market that, if it actually had them.

To bad - would have been an awesome NAS motherboard!

... the search continues.

 

[mrpasc]

So NAS Compares stated on their review of this mobo:


... is that true?

They did not say the same about the BD770i... too bad, ECC RAM, 8 3.5 drives, with 2 M.2 2280 PCIe5.0 SSD Slots AND a PCIe 5.0 X16 Expansion Slot - would have been a pretty awesome NAS mobo/cpu combo for $400.

They messed up their links.The statement about those SFF-8643 connectors belongs not to the board they linked. Instead it’s this board which comes with 2 SFF-8643 ports (but Sata only, no SAS and no PCIE/NVME).

CWWK AMD-7840HS 8-bay/9-bay NAS/USB4/40G rate 8K display 4 network 2.5G/9 SATA/PCIe x16 ITX motherboard

Motherboard core featuresEquipped with AMD "Zen 4" architecture Ryzen ™5/7/9 series high-performance processors17x17 standard Mini-ITX form factor compatible with 1700 series CPU coolers1 PCI-E x16 slot PCle4.0 x8 signal supports expansion of graphics card/network card etc.2 M.2 NVMe(PCle4.0 x2)...

cwwk.net

 

[GreenAvacado]

Question for minisforum AR900i users out there:

1. Is the 2.5G NIC Intel i226?
2. Does the BIOS support bifurcation on x16 PCI slot? If yes, is it 4x4x4 or 8x8?