ASRock Pushes Mini-ITX Memory Limits To 256GB DDR5-7400 With CQDIMM Support

If you read the headline and, like me, thought 'What the heck is a CQDIMM?', I'm here to tell you it's actually not that complicated. ASRock is using the term CQDIMM to refer to standard CUDIMMs that have four memory ranks, making them quad-rank. This allows for memory modules that offer both high transfer rates and high capacity; ASRock specifically calls out achieving 256GB of RAM on a Z890I Nova Wi-Fi board. That's a mini-ITX board with just two slots.

Yet, despite the use of these ultra-high-density UDIMMs, ASRock is still able to push memory transfer rates to 7400 MT/s thanks to the on-module clock drivers that are the key feature of CUDIMMs. That's a higher transfer rate than officially supported by any extant desktop platform, even if it doesn't quite match the heady heights required for Intel's Core 200S Boost Mode. Rumor has it that the Core 200 Plus series, the upcoming Arrow Lake refresh, may not require Core 200S Boost mode to achieve the same benefits, so we'll see.

Of course, we'd be remiss to report on this without mentioning that Gigabyte was actually first to crow about reaching 256GB with CQDIMMs back in January. That achievement was accomplished on a fancy ATX overclocking motherboard and only achieved 7200 MT/s, though; ASRock's the first to breach that limit (to 7400 MT/s) with a fairly standard ITX machine, so credit where it's due indeed.


So what about other motherboards? It's not completely clear what platforms will actually support CQDIMMs. Both companies currently talking about it (ASRock and Gigabyte) have demoed the new modules on Intel's Z890 platform, so we can guess that Arrow Lake Refresh will probably ship with support for them, although it probably doesn't matter in the immediate term anyway because we can't find these CQDIMMs (nor indeed any other CQDIMMs) for sale yet. Perhaps when these new memory kits come to market, ASRock, Gigabyte, and other vendors will have shipped BIOS updates enabling the modules.

With that said, ASRock claims that enabling CQDIMM support requires "optimized circuit design and hardware and software tuning," so perhaps we indeed won't see CQDIMM support on other motherboards. Ultimately we won't know for sure until the kits hit the mass market and sites like us start slapping them into random systems. Big memory modules like this could be a key feature of the upcoming Zen 6-based "Olympic Ridge" processors from AMD.