Glass side panels have long been a favored accessory for PC builders. After all, what good is all that RGB if you can’t show it off? Now component maker ASRock is one-upping that feature by letting you put a display behind your case windows. Yes, it will cover up your precious rainbow lights, but it’s certainly a novel location for a second monitor. The only drawback is it’s only available on certain ASRock motherboards. You also need a transparent side panel on your case, obviously.
The kit is simply dubbed 13.3″ Side Panel Kit by ASRock. It was revealed recently by Twitter informant momo_us, who is known for CPU and GPU speculation. It’s a fairly pedestrian IPS display by most standards. It runs at 1920 x 1080 resolution at 60Hz, with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Despite the fact that it might be located behind tempered glass, it has a modest peak brightness of just 300 nits. The reason why it only functions on certain ASRock motherboards is it uses embedded DisplayPort for both data and power. That’s not a connector you find on a GPU, or most motherboards. However, if you have a compatible ASRock motherboard, the panel connects with a single 40-pin connector. This feature is found on select Z790 and B650 motherboards, according to Techpowerup.
ASRock’s Side Panel Kit lets you “double your productivity.” (Image: ASRock)
Mounting the panel seems straightforward. You attach two rails to the top and bottom of your side panel, then slide it into place. It seems like it’s using double-sided tape to secure it to the glass. From there you connect the eDP cable and you’re off. You can now, according to ASRock, chat with people on your second screen while gaming. Or you can stream and chat, watch game guides, and so on. We’d probably just use it to monitor our system temps and CPU usage, but we’re nerdy like that.
We think this is pretty neat. It’d be even neater if it didn’t require an ASRock motherboard, but the company has bills to pay. It’s a bit reminiscent of iBuyPower’s Snowblind S chassis (above). It uses a clear LCD as the actual side panel. This lets you see your RGB and monitor your hardware at the same time. ASRock’s kit is even vaguely reminiscent of the 2004 Dream Machine from MaximumPC. Your humble author helped build it, and we put a 6.5-inch LCD in the front of our Silverstone chassis. That idea never took off, however. Now with the prevalence of RGB lights on CPU coolers, memory, and motherboards, it’s doubtful people will want to cover that up with a display. Still, it’s a cool feature, even if it doesn’t enjoy widespread adoption.
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