ASRock introduced two motherboards for use with Intel N100 processors. If until now we have seen this Alder Lake N platform in laptops and mini-PCs already assembled, the boards offer the possibility that build your own table tops for multiple uses, consumer desktops, offices, kiosks or home theater computers.

Intel N series processors are lower consumption and more economical from the chip giant, which is already a relevant feature for those looking for this type of product. They are intended to cover the basic line of PCs and fill the gap left by the discontinued Celeron and Pentium solutions.

They are built on the latest Intel 7 process technology and under the new Gracemont microarchitecture. Faced with the hybrid architecture of its older brothers (Alder Lake or Raptor Lake), which combine P and E cores, these only use E cores (effective) in the amount of 4 or 8 cores/threads of native processing and are accompanied by integrated Intel UHD graphics capable of displaying video on up to three screens.

These processors support Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless standards, can be equipped with RAM type memories DDR4, DDR5 and LPDDR5 increase the flexibility of using hardware partners. They are also compatible with different types of internal storage, UFS, eMMC and SSD. It is on this basis that ASRock built some very interesting boards.

The first is the N100M in micro-ATX format. It uses the Intel N100, the most modest CPU in the series, but which allows us to get rid of annoying fans because it works with passive cooling system. Highlight:

• One DDR4 DIMM slot (up to 32 GB)
• 1 PCIe 3.0 x16 (x2 mode), 1 PCIe 3.0 x1
• 1 M.2 key E for Wi-Fi
• 1 M.2 (PCIe Gen3x2)
• Gigabit LAN Realtek
• 2 SATA3
• 1 USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C, 4 USB 3.2 Gen1
• Realtek ALC897 7.1CH HD audio codec

The second board is the N100DC-ITX, which, as the name suggests, uses the ITX format. It uses the same Intel N100 processor, DDR4 memory slot and slightly less connectivity than the previous one.

These boards are very interesting for those who want to build their own inexpensive desktop computers for any use.