14 DAY TRIAL // Here is a product that will raise eyebrows even among those who actually are familiar with small form factor personal computers: the ASRock M8 gaming-ready barebone PC.
At first glance, to say that a barebone could possibly be used for gaming sounds like folly. After all, the things can barely fit any hardware in them.
The only reason they have any room inside at all is because they don't have CPUs, storage drives, graphics cards and memory modules. Those have to be bought separately by customers.
Then again, anything is possible, and ASRock proved that it is, indeed, possible to create a gaming-ready barebone.
Admittedly, this isn't the first time a small form factor PC has great potential, but it happens so rarely that any such instance is noteworthy.
Anyway, the ASRock M8 definitely looks the part, and it has a motherboard powered by the Z87-M8 motherboard inside.
Said motherboard supports 4th-gen Intel Core processors, up to 16 GB of DDR3 RAM and even a dual-slot PCI Express graphics card.
In other words, the ASRock M8 can hold hardware of the same grade as tower desktops, although the size will limit the maximum TDP of CPUs, since small coolers can't handle the real beasts. Unless customers get a liquid cooler, in which case that's not an issue.
The new compact barebone PC also has space for an optical drive (slim ODD), a 3.5-inch HDD/SSD, and a 2.5-inch storage unit.
As for the hardware that is available, Gigabit Ethernet comes to mind, along with a 4-in-1 card reader, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, and two video outputs: HDMI and DisplayPort.
ASRock sells the M8 (which, by the way, it made in collaboration with BMW Group DesignworksUSA) for $549.99 / €549.99. Physically, the system measures 372 (W) x 123 (H) x 400 (L) mm / 14.67 x 4.84 x 15.47.