Mini-ITX motherboard launches with four full-sized RAM slots in the middle of a RAM shortage — support for up to 256GB of glorious DDR5 on a tiny PCB

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The ultimate Intel SFF workstation is now a reality.

MS-PC Farm B860I
(Image credit: Maxsun)

Maxsun has proudly announced its new MS-PC Farm B860I. The mini-ITX motherboard features Intel's B860I chipset and includes four DDR5 memory slots, enabling the best RAM performance and supporting up to 256GB of memory.

One limitation of mini-ITX motherboards is the constrained space available to manufacturers. Nevertheless, where there is a will, there is a way; Maxsun has ingeniously incorporated up to four full-sized DDR5 memory slots into the MS-PC Farm B860I. Few mini-ITX motherboards feature four memory slots; those that do are typically restricted to SO-DIMM memory modules, similar to those used in laptops. Although there have been efforts to integrate four standard memory slots into compact motherboards, these are generally larger and include models such as deep mini-ITX or mini-DTX motherboards, which are primarily designed for server applications.

(Image credit: Maxsun)

The 90-degree rotated orientation featuring the LGA1851 socket and memory slots purportedly enhances system airflow. Maxsun asserts that this design decreases processor temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Celsius and allows for clock speeds increased by up to 400 MHz. However, the company has not specified the processor utilized for the testing procedures.

Apart from the render of the MS-PC Farm B860I, Maxsun has not disclosed any detailed specifications. However, based on available observations, the motherboard seems to feature an 11-phase power delivery system. It includes at least one M.2 slot and four SATA III ports. Although it has an expansion slot, it is a PCIe x4 interface, not x8. Assuming it adheres to PCIe 5.0 standards, it should be equivalent to a PCIe 4.0 x8, thus any potential performance reduction would likely be imperceptible, even when paired with the best graphics cards.

In fact, Maxsun does not market the MS-PC Farm B860I towards gaming or workstation markets. Instead, the company promotes the motherboard within the "cloud esports hardware ecosystem.' However, it is plausible to construct an exceptional gaming PC or a capable workstation utilizing the MS-PC Farm B860I. Notable features of the MS-PC Farm B860I include support for IPMI 4.0, the integration of an MCIO interface for PCIe 5.0 expansion, and a 5 Gigabit Ethernet connection.

Maxsun hasn't shared the pricing and availability details for its Farm series of motherboards yet.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician

Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • LordVile
    What’s the point when it doesn’t have a real PCIE slot?
    Reply
  • helper800
    LordVile said:
    What’s the point when it doesn’t have a real PCIE slot?
    Highly threaded loads only i'd guess. It may be possible to add in a graphics card via a GPU riser like this. Case dimensions would be the only real obstacle.
    Reply
  • thently
    LordVile said:
    What’s the point when it doesn’t have a real PCIE slot?
    First thing I noticed as well. I guess for compute, rendering, or mining the pcie limitation would be minimal or none but gaming would be a mess.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    helper800 said:
    Highly threaded loads only i'd guess. It may be possible to add in a graphics card via a GPU riser like this. Case dimensions would be the only real obstacle.
    Only has a x4 connection, though I don’t see the point of this vs a standard board with better power delivery or just a TR platform
    Reply
  • helper800
    LordVile said:
    Only has a x4 connection, though I don’t see the point of this vs a standard board with better power delivery or just a TR platform
    X4 PCIe 5 is the same speed as PCIe 3.0 X16, and as tested several times in the past, there is very little performance lost, single digit percentages, even on modern halo cards like the 5090. If someone could make such a thing fit in an itx case, you would be able to have the highest RAM density system possible for the size. That would be its only best in class thing that you could do with the board.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    helper800 said:
    X4 PCIe 5 is the same speed as PCIe 3.0 X16, and as tested several times in the past, there is very little performance lost, single digit percentages, even on modern halo cards like the 5090. If someone could make such a thing fit in an itx case, you would be able to have the highest RAM density system possible for the size. That would be its only best in class thing that you could do with the board.
    There’s a lot of performance difference in quartering the bandwidth of memory in productivity which is what you’d be getting a heavily threaded chip and care about 4 memory slots you’d think. Also I don’t think you’d be using a 5090 in an ITX build and cards like the 5060Ti do need all of the bandwidth you can get as you’re on PCIE 2x16 equivalent with that card.
    Reply
  • emerth
    Should have used SODIMMs.
    Reply
  • helper800
    LordVile said:
    There’s a lot of performance difference in quartering the bandwidth of memory in productivity which is what you’d be getting a heavily threaded chip and care about 4 memory slots you’d think. Also I don’t think you’d be using a 5090 in an ITX build and cards like the 5060Ti do need all of the bandwidth you can get as you’re on PCIE 2x16 equivalent with that card.
    5090s sized cards are more common with ITX builds than ever before, not to say there are a ton of them, but they are certainly built. It also highly depends on the task at hand for the performance.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    helper800 said:
    5090s sized cards are more common with the case made specifically for larger cards now a days. It also highly depends on the task at hand for the performance.
    But if that’s the case why would you be using a mini ITX board that’s more expensive than a more capable mATX or ATX board?
    Reply
  • Notton
    Dude, it's right there in the name. "Farm"
    It's not meant for "Gaming".

    The airflow is going to be front to back, like in server racks, and not a sandwich mITX case.

    As for the PCIe situation, it has PCIe 5.0 MCIO interfaces between the RAM slots and SATA? SAS? connectors. It's not mentioned, but presumably, they are two x8 connectors.

    The original article also doesn't mention if it supports ECC memory, which is weird considering the mobo has so many other features that test the stability of the board itself. (either that or google translate didn't do a good job)
    Reply