AMD B665 Chipset Powered Mainstream Workstation AM5 Motherboards From ASUS & ASRock Pictured

AMD motherboard partners seem to be offering custom-made B665 mainstream workstation AM5 motherboards to select cloud servers. One such cloud server operation is Hetzner which is based in Germany and two such motherboards that they are running have been discovered by Der8auer.

We know that Intel has a mainstream workstation lineup based on the W680 which supports both Intel 12th Gen Xeon CPUs. There's also the newest W790 platform which now serves the same CPU segment. AMD has had its socketed and embedded workstation families for entry-level users and the most recent platform uses the B650/B650E chipset with Gigabyte and others offering a range of options.

ASUS Pro WS 665-ACE AM5 Motherboard (Image Credits: Der8auer):

It looks like some motherboard vendors have also taken custom orders from leading smaller cloud & data center providers and manufactured completely new boards which utilize the B665 chipset. It is highly likely that this is a rebranding of the B650 chipset though there might be some underlying changes.

ASRock Rack B665D4U-1L Motherboard (Image Credits: Der8auer):

The two motherboards include the ASUS Pro WS 665-ACE and the ASRock Rack B6654DU-1L. These boards aren't meant for the DIY segment and orders or at least 1000 units have to be made before these can be produced before a specific customer. What these boards have in common is that they come with an inverted socket which is rotated by a 90-degree angle. The DDR5 DIMM slots are top-sided and the VRM position is downwards instead of sideways. The motherboards come with a tiny VRM/PCH heatsink & have the most necessary I/O that is required for entry-level workstation uses.

Now interestingly, the reason for the inverted socket doesn't seem to be for signal integrity which is usually the case on higher-end boards such as the EVGA Z790 Classified where DDR5 overclocking takes first priority but instead, the design is chosen for cooling purposes.

It is said that workstation coolers, which mostly use a passive design, can benefit from the longer air passage that is possible only if you mount it sideways on an inverted socket. This can lead to 2-3C lower temps. The design is also used to save costs and you can find that both boards still come with a DEBUG LED. Now this may be done due to the necessity of such a diagnostic window in a workstation environment but it also begs the question, if these motherboards that are designed with cost-effectiveness can house a DEBUG LED, why not entry-level consumer motherboards?

Finally, in terms of CPU support, since entry-level cloud and data center workstation PCs have to amount the power costs, these motherboards only support chips with a maximum TDP of 90W so even though the board supports a 170W Ryzen 9 7950X CPU, it will only run at 90W which means that 65W Ryzen CPUs are the most ideal choice for these motherboards and that has been a case with the older AM4 options too.