ASRock's New Rock Series Motherboards Go Hard With Wi-Fi 7, 64MB BIOS ROMs and More
ASRock says that "functionality and practicality" are the key aspects of the Rock series. In plain English, these boards look to be aesthetically stripped down, but still strong in terms of core functionality. Both boards come with integrated 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express 5.0 slots, and an integrated I/O shield, saving the trouble of having to snap that flimsy piece of aluminum into place.
The full-sized ATX boards also come with Wi-Fi 7, while the Micro-ATX models come with Wi-Fi 6E. All of the boards sport durable power delivery with a 9+2+1 configuration, supporting more than enough current draw for any extant Zen 5 or Arrow Lake CPU. The Socket AM5 boards also include a 64-megabyte BIOS ROM, which ASRock says allows them to support future-generation Socket AM5 CPUs—although it's certainly possible that AMD's Zen 6 CPUs could bring functionality that isn't fully supported on current-generation motherboards, like CUDIMM memory or PCI Express 6.
Besides the above, there's precious little of note about the Rock series motherboards, and that's by design. There's no RGB LED accents, no aesthetic "armor" covering the whole motherboard, and ultimately very little in the way of anything that doesn't contribute directly to the functionality of the board. The silver-and-black aesthetic is easy to fit into almost any build, visually, and BIOS Flashback support means that you don't have to worry about building a fresh box with a new CPU, since you can just flash the BIOS to support it.
ASRock hasn't announced pricing or availability for these boards yet, and they haven't appeared at e-tail, but folks looking for an understated build without dipping into budget-board mediocrity would do well to keep an eye out for the Rock.
