Asus unveils single greatest mini-itx board ever

[WangChung]

For starters, why would you want the best overclocking Z87 board... when you are going to put it into a mITX enclosure?

Because for some people, especially myself, an Xtreme system means cramming 5 lbs of in a 10 lb bag.
Personally, not only would I occupy every one of those SATA ports but I'd find an ITX case that I could mod the piss out of and slap on a 7990. Why? For the challenge and the laughs. Heck, I want to get one just to try out if it unofficially supports ECC RAM.

[paulbagz]

Well as mentioned previously, it's time for case makes to make proper SFF cases and not the high volume cases you describe (with ITX hole mounts).

-PB

[Ace123]

Too bad Prava doesn't get it. Mini itx used to be the tinkers board or htpc. We all dreamed about making a crazy super powerful mini computer but never could, kinda like putting a Chevy 350 into a Mazda miata. To get the performance we wanted there was really only one option, build a full size. Asus made Matx possible with the Maximus gene, and we loved it, but we were always looking over the fence at those itx boards wishing. Now I can build a light weight super system into just about anything, I get all the performance I want from the full size boards. I get my cake and eat it to. It doesn't hurt the board looks amazing as well

[Scubar]

I havent looked to much but it'd be nice if theres an mini ITX case out there that you could possibly put 2x240 rads in the top or on the back of. That way itd be small enough to still stay on the desk but have enough cooling power for a heavy Ocd quad core and a powerful GPU.

[zeroibis]

I wish there was a standard between ITX and Micro ATX. I want options for 1-3 PCI slots and up to 4 sticks of ram in a compact package.

As for the board it leaves me wanting something better. wifi give me dual gigabit I pray all those sata slots are high speed. Still only 4 at least give me 6 like the other itx boards. It would be cool to see all the extra junk like some crappy DAC that they try to make me think is great stuff that I will actually use instead, especially with limited space.

[MpG]

I was really looking forward to this coming out, but it's kind of left me lukewarm. I use an external DAC, so I don't need the sound riser. I was looking forward to having 6 high-speed sata ports, but we only get 4 of them here. Only two ram slots, which hampers my ambitions of playing with a RAM drive. And of course, Haswell's LOVELY overclocking results to round it all off. Still, have to give Asus props for introducing it. mITX needs to shed the notion that it's only for HTPC's and budget builds, and it's getting more and more rare that systems actually need all the real estate offered by ATX.

So I guess it'll be the Gene-Z if I go for a new system this time around. By high-end board standards, they've had a bizarrely good price/features ratio the last few generations.

[Ace123]

It baffles me when people scoff at the amount of Options an ITX board comes with. Consider the space, and then consider the features. In my opinion the features are way bigger than the actual board is. How would 4 ram slots even fit on an ITX board?

[paulbagz]

It baffles me when people scoff at the amount of Options an ITX board comes with. Consider the space, and then consider the features. In my opinion the features are way bigger than the actual board is. How would 4 ram slots even fit on an ITX board?

Just go wider for E-ITX?

-PB

[WangChung]

It baffles me when people scoff at the amount of Options an ITX board comes with. Consider the space, and then consider the features. In my opinion the features are way bigger than the actual board is. How would 4 ram slots even fit on an ITX board?

SODIMM slots. Really as good/cheap as laptop memory has gotten there's no reason for them NOT to use it on an ITX board.
Actually, G.Skill 8GB DDR3 PC3 10666 CL9 SODIMM and full size DIMM are the exact same price right now on Newegg.

[mattkosem]

Last I checked, there's a pretty big gap between the speeds of top end DIMMS vs top end SO-DIMMS. Personally, I'd rather have 2 full DIMM slots.

--Matt

[lowfat]

Last I checked, there's a pretty big gap between the speeds of top end DIMMS vs top end SO-DIMMS. Personally, I'd rather have 2 full DIMM slots.

--Matt

Anything over 1600MHz generally has negligible affect on performance. They definitely sell 1600MHz SODIMMs.

[pumero]

I wish there was a standard between ITX and Micro ATX. I want options for 1-3 PCI slots and up to 4 sticks of ram in a compact package.

the standards are there with DTX, Flex-ATX and Mini-DTX but apart from some OEMs and IPC models they see no use.

[naokaji]

Anything over 1600MHz generally has negligible affect on performance. They definitely sell 1600MHz SODIMMs.

That, plus who said anyone has to run them at stock speeds? this is XS after all...

[mattkosem]

Anything over 1600MHz generally has negligible affect on performance. They definitely sell 1600MHz SODIMMs.

It all depends on the applications you're running. You can't make that statement across the board.

That, plus who said anyone has to run them at stock speeds? this is XS after all...

Just you so far. I certainly prefer starting with 2000+ modules over 1600 though. There's little to no chance of SO-DIMMs reaching the heights of enthusiast DIMMS.

--Matt

[Ace123]

Anything over 1600MHz generally has negligible affect on performance. They definitely sell 1600MHz SODIMMs.

I disagree strongly and forcefully

[Ace123]

Holy smokes, click the link and bask in the glory

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...irtualParent=1

http://www.provantage.com/kingston-t...ource=googleps

[mattkosem]

Yeah, they're pretty high speed SO-DIMMs. These DIMMs that are clocked 40% higher seem to have a leg up from where I'm sitting, albeit at quite a bit higher cost.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231687

The prices do get quite a bit better a few steps down though.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233355

Bottom line. There's no competition between enthusiast DIMMs and enthusiast SO-DIMMs at this time. If that changes, game on!

--Matt

[WangChung]

I see a lot of armchair racers, erm, benchers here. Talking a lot of smack that I'm not seeing backed up by any fact. How abouts some folks here actually do some SODIMM testing? Let's try to get some records, or prehaps a friendly wager?
Keep in mind, you can probably OC the piss out of the DDR3 1600MHz sticks yet not as much as full size sticks. But keep in mind it would be a MINI-ITX BOARD!!!! Anyway, guess the point is moot as the only boards with SODIMM slots are Jetway motherboards (meh). But I still think if ASRock or someone stepped up to make a Mini-ITX SODIMM board it would be awesome for sure.

Actually the more discussion goes on, the more hyped I am for this board to come out.

[Ace123]

Im not in the pro league but I sure dont feel like an armchair overclocker either....

http://hwbot.org/user/ace123/

[zeroibis]

I was really looking forward to this coming out, but it's kind of left me lukewarm. I use an external DAC, so I don't need the sound riser. I was looking forward to having 6 high-speed sata ports, but we only get 4 of them here. Only two ram slots, which hampers my ambitions of playing with a RAM drive. And of course, Haswell's LOVELY overclocking results to round it all off. Still, have to give Asus props for introducing it. mITX needs to shed the notion that it's only for HTPC's and budget builds, and it's getting more and more rare that systems actually need all the real estate offered by ATX.

So I guess it'll be the Gene-Z if I go for a new system this time around. By high-end board standards, they've had a bizarrely good price/features ratio the last few generations.

Exactly anyone that actually cares about sound is going to be using an external DAC so all the hype over internal crap is just a waste of space, space that could have been used for a second Ethernet port, more slots or more sata ports.

[zeroibis]

I realized that this board has a minipice port for the wifi and thus you can replace it with something else like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833328027

And have a second Ethernet port!

[hokiealumnus]

Let's think about that one for a moment. You want to replace the mPCIe card with an ethernet card that requires a bracket to go in the (often single, sometimes dual) PCIe slot instead of a GPU? Now, I may be wrong, but most of the people that buy this level of mITX board will probably want to run an enthusiast GPU, no? The biggest mITX-designed cases have two PCIe slots. I suppose I'm confused why you would consider giving up a precious PCIe slot for a second ethernet port. If running a discrete GPU isn't on the menu, it would seem wiser to go with a cheaper mITX board and just use a PCIe ethernet card.

[Ace123]

Maybe he has one of those cases that has that third slot like off in the middle of nowhere like my storm Stryker has

[WangChung]

Let's think about that one for a moment. You want to replace the mPCIe card with an ethernet card that requires a bracket to go in the (often single, sometimes dual) PCIe slot instead of a GPU? Now, I may be wrong, but most of the people that buy this level of mITX board will probably want to run an enthusiast GPU, no? The biggest mITX-designed cases have two PCIe slots. I suppose I'm confused why you would consider giving up a precious PCIe slot for a second ethernet port. If running a discrete GPU isn't on the menu, it would seem wiser to go with a cheaper mITX board and just use a PCIe ethernet card.

It doesn't require the bracket, you can unscrew the Ethernet module from the PCI bracket and do some Dremel magic to the case to make a hole for the ethernet port.

[hokiealumnus]

Ok, that makes sense, as does the extra bracket hole (neat feature to include; kudos to CM). Thanks for clearing that up guys.