 Your computer is nothing without the motherboard. It carries both power and data between every critical system component, be it a CPU, SSD, or lowly keyboard. If it was a system of the body, it would be kind of like your circulatory system and your nervous system combined. Everything plugs into it. Thankfully, we've got standards that tell us exactly what goes where, which... Wait, what are these? And whoa, what is this? Why does the CPU go on the back of this one? Can this really be legal? Only if it's legal to have fun. So for fun today, we're gonna show you guys some wacky standard breaking motherboards and tell you why on earth they should even exist in the first place. Speaking of existing, Ridge Wallet does do that. Ridge Wallet has redefined the traditional wallet with its compact frame and RFID blocking plates. Keep your wallet bulged down and use offer code LINUS to save 10% and get free worldwide shipping. Let's kick things off with the PortWell PEB9783G2AR. It's a relatively unassuming little board, standard micro ATX, CPU socket, memory slots, pretty much where they're supposed to be. This one's a little bit off kilter, but then bam! Look at the rear eye. Oh, 20 USB ports of which the port is supposed to be. So it's a little bit of a pain in the ass. But it's a pretty cool little thing. It's a pretty cool little thing. It's a pretty cool little thing. It's a pretty cool little thing. It's a pretty cool little thing. USB ports of which six of them are rated for 10 gigabit operation. That is a ridiculous amount of USB expansion, so much that I can't even conceive of a legitimate desktop use case for it, which is probably for the best since you won't be powering this motherboard off of a normal desktop power supply either. It uses this pair of screw on power terminals, and I have no idea where I'd get a power adapter for this thing. It did not come with one. But ignoring that, we've got three display outputs along with dual gigabit ethernet, meaning this is one hefty boy in terms of I.O. I mean, you'd think you'd need a beefy CPU like a Threadripper with tons of PCI Express lanes to power this thing, but in fact, you do not. It uses Xeon branded 10th gen core CPUs that do get a few extra enterprise features, but none of those involve additional I.O. It's just the same four lane DMI 3.0 link between the chipset here and the CPU, just like you'd have on a regular desktop board. So some back of the napkin math here seems to suggest that the total rated theoretical throughput of all these USB ports would be nearly five times greater than the bandwidth available between the CPU and chipset. So good luck with that. To be fair to Portwell here though, this thing is not intended for balls to the wall transfer speeds at all times. And that's reflected in how these USB ports are connected to the system with a mixture of chipset connected ports and ports connected to as media controllers. You can actually see these three right here. That means that no one controller is gonna be totally overwhelmed by high speed I.O. And it means that you can strategically connect high speed devices and lower speed devices depending on your needs. According to Portwell, this type of board is intended for things like autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, manufacturing robots and things like that. So lots of cameras and lots of low bandwidth I.O. for controlling servos and what have you. That use case is exemplified not only by how many USB ports the board has, but by other things like how many serial ports. It's got two which can be switched between RS422 and 45 modes. And also this crazy PCI express 16X connector that's at a 90 degree angle and then also rotated 180 degrees. Meaning that this board is designed for some seriously weird chassis layouts. A lot of support components are actually on the rear of the board as well. And there are even eight general purpose I.O. pins here somewhere. Those are very useful for controlling simple electronics. Although I couldn't tell you where they are since they're unlabeled and there's no manual available. But that's okay. You don't need a manual to figure out how to wear a dad hat. The hardest part is picking the right color and design. So you can get your dad to help. Oh, wow, a dad hat. Thanks Linus. Port well is great, but we've got more in our batch of weird boards. And one of the more well-known ones is the Anktek Rev Q270 Cernia here, which is a relatively normal looking motherboard. You've got your display outputs, your type C, your dual gigabit ethernet, actually pretty impressive rear I.O. But then you look at the front and like, what? This thing has no CPU socket. You'd be forgiven for thinking that maybe the CPU is soldered on because there's more to this story. Because even the chip set is missing here. It's when we flip around that we see what's really going on here. The CPU socket and the chip set are just chilling back here. Like it's no big deal, but yeah, big deal. How the heck are you supposed to put this thing in a regular case without all kinds of headaches mounting your cooler? As it turns out, this design is specifically made to remove headaches that other cooling arrangements can create. Think about it. You've got your PC controlling the CNC mill or other connected mega tool, and there's shards of sawdust, fiberglass, metal, you name it, flying all around the room. That stuff's a recipe for a very bad time if it gets ingested by typical air intake fans. So if you still wanna be able to access your I.O., your choices are to use cable extensions or relocate your cooling to the other side of the PCB. It's the same story if you're dealing with extremely temperature sensitive work equipment, or maybe you're near a forge where the intake would be inundated with extremely hot air. Ha, gosh dang forge. This way you can more easily duck the cooling and potentially operate entirely passively. Oh, and one neat little feature is this AT mode jumper. It's not in the manual, but what it does is makes it so the PC stays on as long as the power button is active. So you can have a hard switch like you'd see on a power supply with on or off. Again, more of an industrial thing, but chunky switches are super satisfying, so I like it. Okay, that is a niche use case. Well, how about something that you might've actually seen before without realizing it? This bad boy right here is the Shenzhen Zeal All ZA-SK1050, and it has both a regular CPU socket and a GeForce GTX1050 Ti built into it. Why? Well, it's actually built as a TV motherboard, which seems like a poorly translated way of saying digital signage. And that seems about right. Not only do we have that 1050 Ti, which is much more capable of 3D acceleration than Intel onboard graphics, but there are twin LVDS headers on the motherboard, both capable of driving a 1080p display. And in fact, the IO on this thing is spread around in a very unusual way. Both the left and right edges of the board are absolutely brimming with ports. So if we assume that the CPU is on top, then on the right, we've got a 19-volt power connector, HDMI, gigabit ethernet, USB 3.0, SATA, and audio. But wait a second, some of these are internal connectors. What's up with SATA? And what's this little weird SATA-labeled block next to it? Ah, yes, these are cool, right? These SATA power connectors are common on a lot of embedded motherboards because they take external power. That means that kind of like the ATX 12-volt only standard that Intel has been pushing, this motherboard is responsible for handling all peripheral power, usually using an adapter that plugs in as a single block into the back of your drive, like this one. Around the other side, we've got what looks like an HDMI port, but is actually an LPC bus port for debugging. Not entirely sure how you'd use it, but it's nice that it's there. And then next to that are SATA power and data ports, those LVDS connectors, a USB 3.0 front panel connector, a backlight inverter connector, and a single USB 2.0 header. To say that this is non-standard would be like saying Linus drops things sometimes. Wait a minute, was this written with Alex in mind? Okay, you know what, whatever. It's just, it's seriously weird. Presumably the idea is that this would mount to a box in the back of a digital sign, and then break out into all the connectors that it needs from there. And the 1050 Ti is in there to make sure that it's got enough power to drive whatever animations that you're gonna run on the displays. Aside from that, there's not much else going on with this, other than the distinct lack of expansion slots, other than an M.2 SATA 2240 port and an M.2 2220 slot that's marked for Wi-Fi. RAM is handled by DDR4 Sodems, and you thankfully get two slots stacked on top of each other to play with, similar to how a thicker laptop might keep a low profile. Boring! Okay, fair enough. Enough with the industrial boards. Let's talk about something a little bit more practical. This little number from PCWinMax. Well, it's pretty normal looking right out of the gate here. You've got a PCI Express 16x slot, a 1x slot, two DDR3 RAM slots, SATA ports, a really poorly placed USB 3.0 header, and even fairly normal rear I.O. PS2, HDMI, VGA, four USB ports, and gigabit ethernet. Wait, are you sure this is a weird board? I mean, have you guys noticed what makes it weird yet? Ah, yes. It's the socket. What is that? That is PGA989, and what uses it is mobile, second and third gen Intel Core series CPUs. Yep, we're looking at a desktop board that was made for mobile CPUs that first launched back in 2011. So you might look at this and say, well, that's gotta be some kind of ancient relic of the past. But if this date code on it is anything to go by, it was actually manufactured on Christmas day in 2018. What gives? Well, remember back at Computex 2019, when we started seeing new X79 motherboards for Ivy Bridge-y high-end desktop CPUs? This just so happens to coincide with that. And my best guess is that these components were being recycled at around that time and found their way over to China, where still good components were repurposed to become low-cost options for PC builds. It makes sense. I mean, you might've thrown out that old laptop with a busted screen and a battery that looks like it ate too much at the buffet, but the components on the main board were probably still totally fine. And we saw something very similar recently, actually, with Haswell Mobile CPUs being transplanted into desktop CPU form factors. This kind of upcycling, honestly, is kinda awesome, and I wish that it happened more often. Unfortunately, finding a CPU to match a board like this is a little tough. By third gen, most CPUs were being soldered directly to the motherboard using ball grid arrays rather than pin grid array sockets. And the only one that I know for sure uses pins is the Core i7-3920XM, which goes for around $130 to $150 on eBay. Worth it? Eh. Considering that I'm not even sure they're selling these boards anymore, probably not. But why don't we take a look at what was in the other PC Win Max box? Okay, this is a really weird board. It says it's ITX, but it's clearly much smaller than that. I mean, I can hold it in one hand. The model number says EPYC-M37, which really doesn't help any. You certainly won't be installing an EPYC server CPU on this thing. So from what I can tell, it's a similar concept to the other PC Win Max motherboard, but a little more integrated. Because as you can see, if we flip it around, ah, yes, our CPU is now soldered, and then we've got an additional chipset on here that, according to the markings, seems to suggest it is an HM65. So this is an earlier Sandy Bridge era board with a single DDR3 sodium on the front and two mini PCIe slots. One of those is probably SATA only, given that the age of this chipset means you wouldn't be able to boot from an NVMe drive, even if you had a compatible SSD. Oh, yeah, speaking of chipsets, get subscribed because we're going to find out once and for all if you really get more performance out of a high-end chipset motherboard. I.O. on this puppy is pretty limited, just four USB ports, gigabit ethernet, VGA, and HDMI. Input power is actually kind of an unknown here. It just says DC jack one. So just start trying things, starting with 12 volts, and hope you don't fry it. I mean, it can't require that much juice. All it's got on it is CPU, one stick of RAM, maybe a couple mini PCIe devices, ethernet, and USB. Okay, technically there's SATA power on here as well, but that kind of goes against the spirit of building with something this tiny. Surely you're not going to put a big old hard drive in it. This one is so tiny that there's not much else to say about it. The one additional feature that would make it interesting is a serial port, and unfortunately, there isn't one on here, so it's really just a tiny PC. And your guess is as good as mine as to how exactly the cooler is supposed to mount to it. There's no mounting points for one, not even for the chipset. Maybe whatever CPU this is doesn't need one. Yeah, no, that's definitely not right. This was but a small taste of what's out there, guys. We had at least three more that we wanted to get in for this video that just never arrived, like this X79 motherboard with only two RAM slots. So let us know of some of the weirder motherboards that you've seen, and maybe we'll circle back and take another shot at this, because there is no shortage of them out there. Just like there's no shortage of segues to our sponsor, Manscaped. Manscaped provides an all-in-one grooming kit that has you covered from head to toe. Their performance package 4.0 features their awesome Lawn Mower 4.0 waterproof body trimmer, their Weed Whacker ear and nose hair trimmer, plus a whole lot of other goodies. For a limited time, you'll get all of this, plus two free gifts, the Shed travel bag and Manscaped's anti-chafing boxer briefs. So don't wait, visit manscaped.com slash tech, or click the link down below for 20% off and free shipping. Thanks for watching, guys. If you enjoyed this look at some weird-ass motherboards, maybe go check out our previous video looking at some weird-ass GPUs. They were very, very weird.