Who said you can't find cool stuff on AliExpress? Hardware sleuth momomo_us has discovered the Topton N9, a motherboard aimed at NAS users that offers up to eight high-speed 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Topton is one of many Chinese brands available on online e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress, Amazon, or Newegg. The company's portfolio includes mini-PCs, laptops, and motherboards. The Topton N9 is one of the brand's more exciting motherboards. Dubbed as a motherboard for NAS fans, it puts eight 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports at your disposal. As you have probably already noticed, on the motherboard, there are eight little chips, which correspond to the Intel i226-V controller (codenamed Foxville), responsible for the 2.5 Gigabit communication.
The Topton N9 conforms to the standard mini-ITX form factor but doesn't have an Intel or AMD socket. Instead, the motherboard leverages Intel's Core i7-8705G (Kaby Lake G) processor, soldered to the PCB. It doesn't come with a heatsink, but you can add one for around $20.
The Core i7-8705G debuted in 2018 and initially catered to notebooks, but Topton has decided to repurpose it for desktops. The 14nm chip features a quad-core, eight-thread configuration with a boost clock speed up to 4.1 GHz. It also leverages AMD's Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics, so the Core i7-8705G is more than sufficient for a NAS build. Given the processor choice, the Topton N9 only requires a 4-pin power and a DC connector (12V to 19V, 150W and higher recommended).
Topton implemented two SO-DIMM DDR4 memory slots on the motherboard. It will accept up to 64GB of DDR4-2400 memory. Storage-wise, you receive one M.2 2280 port that accepts NVMe-and SATA-based drives and one SATA III port for regular hard drives or SSDs.
In addition to the plethora of 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports, the rear panel provides three USB 3.0 Type-A ports and one Type-C port for connecting USB devices. The motherboard also has an M.2 2230 slot for wireless cards. Since there aren't any expansion slots, you'll either have to utilize the Intel HD Graphics 630 part of the Core i7-8705G or the Radeon RX Vega M GL for display output. In that regard, the Topton N9 has two HDMI 2.0 ports. There are only two 3.5mm audio connectors, one for the speaker and one for the microphone.
The base Topton N9 sells for $269.57 on AliExpress. Adding the processor heatsink will set you back $288.17. The other customization options range from 8GB of DDR4 with a 128GB NVMe SSD to 64GB of DDR4 and a 2TB NVMe SSD, with pricing varying from $324.95 to $622.80.
