Why is an industrial motherboard better than an office motherboard?

Until recently, the division of the industrial and commercial motherboard market between manufacturers was carried out in an organized manner. The largest manufacturers, such as Asus, MSI and Gigabyte, were engaged in the production of boards for commercial purposes only. This is due to the fact that industrial boards are produced in small batches of 100-1000 units and their useful life lasts from at least 5 to 20 years. On the contrary, commercial boards are produced in large quantities and are discontinued after 1-2 years. In addition, industrial board manufacturers have the ability to customize commercial boards and then produce them in small batches that commercial board manufacturers cannot.

However, the situation has changed over the past few years. Commercial motherboard manufacturers have started offering industrial motherboards under their own brands: MSIIPC, ASRockIndustrial, GIGAIPC and AAEON (Asus). It is not yet known to what extent this will affect the properties of motherboards, but it is safe to say that the options of end users have expanded.

A visual comparison of the industrial purpose AIMB-787 (right) supporting 10th Generation Intel Core processors and a commercial purpose board (left) in the ATX form factor.

Does an industrial board have any advantages over an office board? Of course, let's list the main advantages of industrial motherboards:

High quality component base. Industrial motherboards are designed to work around the clock in industrial environments. The components of industrial boards have higher technical capabilities compared to office boards. For example, industrial board capacitors are designed to operate in a higher temperature range and have a longer lifespan than commercial board capacitors.

Having a long useful life and support. The minimum useful life of industrial motherboards is 5 years on average. Unlike commercial boards, which wear out within 1-2 years, the maintenance period of such boards and the period of their sale reaches an average of 15 years.

Customization of the interface on demand. Manufacturers of industrial boards have the ability to customize / develop such boards based on a standard model, even in small quantities. In addition, manufacturers may provide a sample to the customer for testing, but commercial board manufacturers are unable to offer this.

Support for deprecated interfaces. Although they have been around for a long time and have different configurations, industrial motherboards still support older interfaces such as LPT (parallel connector) or ISA slot.

Support for older software. If you build a software and hardware solution for a specific task based on an industrial board, then there is no need to worry about having to rework the software after a few years because the board is discontinued or unavailable to order.

Unique performance and form factors. Industrial boards are produced in special form factors that are not found in the commercial segment. For example, computers with a large number of PCI slots are manufactured based on PICMG 1.3 form factor boards. There are also completely unique form factors (such as PCISA). PCISA processor boards have two buses at the same time (PCI and ISA). Such boards are produced only by Taiwan's iEi company.

PICMG installed a 1.3 form factor processor board on a passive expansion system board.

Use of commercial chipsets. Most industrial motherboards are based on Intel Q-series chipsets and are designed specifically for the enterprise market. Intel Q-series chipsets incorporate key functionality through support for advanced security and management tools. Boards based on AMD chipsets are less common. Also, a separate segment of the market is occupied by boards based on ARM-like processors. Such boards are designed to solve special tasks.

An example of industrial boards with different form factors

The result

Based on the above differences between an industrial motherboard and a commercial motherboard, it is clear that a typical commercial computer cannot handle production problems under harsh working conditions. A PC based on an industrial motherboard will be able to operate 24/7 for decades, including at low temperatures. An industrial board will not be sold in a year, and if it is necessary to adapt it to individual use, increase its functionality and support obsolete interfaces, the manufacturer will be able to produce such a board even in small quantities.