Last month, we got news of Gemini Lake motherboards by ASRock, and GIGABYTE. The former provided decent technical details about their boards, but the latter basically published a more-or-less useless press release about their upcoming J/N motherboards (e.g. J4005N D2P) with very few technical details.
The company has now introduced MZGLKAI industrial mini-ITX motherboard featuring an Intel Celeron J4105 core Gemini Lake processor, dual Gigabit Ethernet, five SATA ports, plenty of COM ports, and more.
GIGABYTE MZGLKAI (9MZGLKAINR-S) specifications:
- SoC – Intel Celeron J4105 quad core processor @ 1.50/2.5 GHz with 12EU Intel UHD Graphics 600 up to 750 MHz; 10W TDP
- System Memory – 2x DDR4 1.2V SO-DIMM slots up to 2400Mhz, 8GB max.
- Storage – 5x SATA III 6Gbps including 4x via Marvell 88SE9230, 1x from J4105 with SATA DOM support; 3x SATA power connectors
- Video Output / Display I/F
- HDMI 2.0a port up to 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz with HDCP 2.2
- VGA (D-Sub) port up to 1920×1200 @ 60 Hz
- *eDP connector up to 3840×2160 @ 60 Hz
- *LVDS port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200 @ 60 Hz
- 1x Backlight control connector
- *Note: eDP connector is multiplexed with the LVDS port, only one can be used at a time
- Audio
- Realtek ALC269Q audio codec
- 3x audio jacks for Line in, Line out, Mic in)
- Internal connections – front audio header, speaker out header
- Connectivity – 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports via Realtek RTL8111HS
- Serial
- 2x DB9 COM ports (RS232 /422 /485 and RI/5V/12V)
- 4x COM headers (RS232)
- USB – 2x USB 3.0 type A ports (or 1x USB 3.0 type A, 1x USB 3.0 type C), 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 header, 1x USB 2.0 header
- Expansion
- 1x PCIe x4 (Gen2 x 2)
- 1x M.2 2280 M-key slot with SATA 6Gb/s
- 1x M.2 2230 E-key slot for NGFF-2230 CNVi cards only
- 1x GPIO header
- Misc – CPU fan header, system fan header, front panel header, TPM header for optional TPM module kit, 2x LAN LED headers, 1x RAID LED header, case open header, buzzer, AT mode jumper
- Power Supply
- 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
- 12V DC in jack
- Dimensions – 170 x 170 mm (mini-ITX form factor)
- Temperature Range – Operating: 0°C to 50°C; storage: -40°C to 70°C
- Humidity – 0-90% (non-condensing)
The company only mentions support for Windows 10 64-bit operating system, but Linux distributions will likely be supported as well, albeit possibly unofficially. The motherboard is said to ship with an IO Shield, and two SATA power cables (300mm), with an optional TPM 1.2 or TPM 2.0 module also offered.
More details, including the BIOS download link, and a hardware installation / quick reference guide, can be found on the product page. I’d assume Windows drivers should eventually made their way on that page too.
Via FanlessTech
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Pretty decent connectivity. It could replace my NFS server running on an old Atom D510. It could in fact be used almost everywhere you don’t need too strong a CPU.
How much and where can you get one? The problem is that these boards from Gigabyte are never available to purchase anywhere. This would make a pretty decent NAS if it’s priced reasonably.
Just wait global release for Intel June Canyon NUCs, got information from simplynuc source that they come around middle of the March.
As note, Akasa is working for June Canyon NUCs aluminum case.
@TLS
That board is on the B2B website, so it won’t be available to everybody..
For people who don’t represent a company, they’ll have to wait for the J/N consumer mini-ITX boards mentioned in GIGABYTE press release a few weeks ago.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
I’m aware of that and it’s annoying, as their consumer boards are in one word, crap.
They always limit them in terms of connectivity and not a single one of their J/N consumer boards would be suitable as a NAS board.
I have a company and I know the right people at Gigabyte, but they won’t even sell me a sample, as these products are only “made to order”. Which makes it all even more frustrating.
@TLS
Then possibly check if Supermicro is doing something. They can sell individual boards to companies and they tend to stay up to date with newer technology. My NFS server board came from there BTW.
These kind of boards always look interesting for decent pfSense or similar builds, but then you see they have the ‘not recommended’ Realtek GigE chipset rather than Intel’s.
I am running an Apollo Lake Up Squared board (2 x Realtek GigE adaptors) with pfSense and it seems OK – but I know they aren’t recommended for serious deployments still. Does anyone have any real world experience as to why Realtek GigE is bad?
@Steve
Their PCI models were particularly inefficient and would not support a number of important offloading operations that were supported by their intel equivalents. But since PCIe it has become a bit better. The packet rate still lags quite a bit behind intel NICs. But I’d say that these days you can already be happy whenever you see a GigE port somewhere and even more when there are two. I’ve learned to become less demanding on the type of chip sadly :-/
I’m looking to replace my GA-J1900-D3V used as my firewall with a Gemini Lake version of the motherboard.
The current Baytrail SoC has a C-state problem which means power consumption is higher than it should be.
I’m sure there will be a GA-J42xx-D3V or D3H version, as they did an Apollo Lake version with a similar naming pattern.
@TLS
Don’t you think they are just giving you the run around with excuses? After all adding a extra 10 or even 1 to a batch for them to sell to private users is hardly hard. They just do not see profit, for them in, your pockets, not enough margin for their time in selling to you.
They just want B2B customers.
I wouldn’t buy gigabyte for industry, cost isn’t that important for industry is, quality is
I see the first consumer motherboard is listed:
http://uk.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/J4005N-D2P-rev-10
they kept the legacy printer and serial port, so I guess they’re still aiming at kiosk or display systems.
It seems they are selling this… https://www.sg-computers.com/en/embedded-computing/semi-industrial-motherboard/gigabyte-mzglkai-motherboard-detail