ASRock B660M-HDV
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ASRock's budget board, which has modest equipment, belongs to the entry level and is the first choice when assembling low-cost office and multimedia systems. At the same time, it is equipped with an Intel LGA 1700 processor socket, which is sharpened for new generation Intel hybrid processors. In fact, this is one of the most affordable options for building a system based on Intel Alder Lake.
ASRock B660M-HDV has a basic set of interfaces including a slot for a PCI-E 16x graphics card, 4 SATA connectors for connecting standard hard drives and one M.2 port for a compact SSD drive. There are 2 slots for installing DDR4 RAM modules on the board. In total, the board allows you to install 64 GB of RAM with a maximum frequency of 5066 MHz. All current audio outputs (VGA, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4) are displayed on the rear panel, so if you need to mass-equip the office, you can save a little on purchasing processors with an already integrated video core. The Intel I219V LAN port is responsible for processing network traffic. Additional equipment includes a COM port and a TPM connector.
For the next generation
ASRock B660M-HDV is one of the most affordable Intel B660 chipset motherboards for current 12 and upcoming 13 generation Core processors (after BIOS update). Made in a medium-sized Micro-ATX format with only two slots for DDR4-5066 MHz RAM and one PCIe 4.0 x16 video card slot. But there are two PCIe 3.0 x1 for expansion cards.
Fast and even faster
There are a couple of connectors for SSD M.2: one is a high-speed version of PCIe 3.0, and the second is ultra-high-speed 4.0. The processor power subsystem consists of seven phases and is devoid of a heatsink. Therefore, the optimal processors, perhaps, are the Core i3-12100 and i5-12400. More energy-hungry processors can already turn off Turbo Boost after some time due to VRM overheating.
Trinity of video outputs
The audio subsystem is represented by a 7.1-channel Realtek ALC897 codec, and the network subsystem is represented by gigabit Ethernet Intel I219V. There's also an M.2 Key-E slot for a wireless Wi-Fi adapter. On the rear interface panel there was a place for three video outputs: VGA, HDMI and Display Port. And six USB ports, two of which are fast 3.1 Gen 1, and the third is generally swivel Type-C.
