I hope some good boards smaller than mini-ITX comes out in 2014. For example, pico/nano-ITX boards with some Intel Bay Trail chip, GigE, USB 3.0 and DisplayPort or HDMI.
Pico-ITX is smaller. I want more board options out there too.
Do you know of any Bay Trail NUCs with dual GigE? I really need a super small, fanless device with it for a project I'm planning on doing. I really hope there's more interest in NUC and smaller sized consumer oriented micro-boards. I have some SBCs but they're targeted towards industrial applications and, hence, have industrial sized prices.
I'm specifically looking for Intel NICs. I need good Linux support, 9 K jumbo frames and working hardware offload of checksum and other calculations to keep CPU overhead low. That means no Realtek.
Baytrail is not capable of supporting dual GbE NICs. It lacks PCI-Express, barring the notebook version, which has PCI-e 2.0 x1 in form of mini PCI express. You'd have to yank out the wifi/bt combo card (if the ODM would care to include it in addin card, not soldered-in, that is), and the other one would have to reside on USB 3.0 port. For Pico-ITX, and dual GbE you'd have to work with ARM boards at this time. Also check out offerings of Kontron. I've held quad-GbE mini-itx, sandy bridge-based board with 4 sodimss and 16 com ports, in my hands. They also have tegra 4 desktop board.
Also, I guess one of the cheaper Avoton and Rangeley SoCs based on Silvermont can be used for another project I have that doesn't need video output. They have integrated NICs.
I'm going pass on anything ARM for now. I've used ARM SBCs before and they're a pain to upgrade to newer kernels (sometimes not possible at all) due to all the proprietary drivers (not just the GPU) not being updated.
I'm hoping for some consumer or hobbyist targeted pico/nano-ITX boards with Bay Trail or Rangeley with dual GigE. I've looked into industrial targeted SBCs but the board can cost as much as a fully built Core i mini-ITX system. Hopefully, some cheaper SBCs can be made for use cases that don't require extreme environments.
I'm with you on ARM boards. They're a pain. Sometimes you can get lucky and the OEM provides updates to the closed drivers to support newer Linux kernels but that'll end eventually. It'd be nice if ARM vendors start standardizing on interfaces and other things on the platform like on x86 so open source drivers can be easily written and mainlined into the Linux kernel or provide long term closed driver updates.
Do the ASUS boards with its power regulator fit in an M350 or Morex 557 case? What's the height of the boards from the bottom of the PCB to the top of the regulator?
There wasn't a measurement in the review of it on the front page. I t looks like it's about half an inch taller than the rear IO. If I had to guess I'd say it was the same size as a half height card; but again that's just a guess.
IIRC, they are the same height as the I/O, so with very few exceptions it shouldn't interfere with any case. I will try and find the source I read that on and reply to this comment with it.
I'd like to know this too. I can' seem to find it on ASUS' site and any reviews. Since many people tend to get m-ITX boards to put into small cases, you'd think they'd provide a height measurement. Especially when it's higher than boards from other OEMs. Unless ASUS likes getting their boards returned and negative reviews by the usual people who feel somehow "wronged" due to this.
"The power delivery daughterboard is designed to be at a height in direct correlation with the RearIO, thus any case with that profile should accommodate the Impact." Source: http://anandtech.com/show/7532/asus-maximus-vi-imp...
"The power delivery daughterboard is designed to be at a height in direct correlation with the RearIO, thus any case with that profile should accommodate the Impact." Source: http://anandtech.com/show/7532/asus-maximus-vi-imp...
I built a mini-itx system with the ASRock Z87E-ITX board almost 2 months ago, and it's been an awesome little board. I didn't put a i7-4770k in it though. I just used a regular i7-4770 since I wasn't going to over clock (plus I get the TSX instructions too, which the 4770k doesn't have). I have a video (unboxing) of the board here: http://youtu.be/WlzvsZUEJUE It's definitely a nice board with a lot of features. Only issue I have with the system is it won't stay asleep for more than 20-30secs (Running Windows 8.1 Enterprise).
I also think this is the most beneficial way to orient the GPU. When a low profile AIO liquid cooling system is used for the CPU it can also make for very good performance in a small package. I have been toying with the idea of custom fabricating a case specifically for this purpose.
Me too like the idea of the computer case formats you could end with if you angle the GPU printcard on the same plane as the motherboard on ITX format, since the PCIe 16x slot is already on the edge of the board..? Does anyone a riser card - or whatamgonnacallitbecauseitshouldnotbetall - could be angular and also reverse the direction of the slot itself ... so that the GPU and the CPU has their coolers @ the same side of the printcards?
..some people on Hardforums/SFF-section are going after that idea.. personally I don't think it's worthwhile, unless you want some AV resembling case fitting into your living room rack. Anyhow, get involved ^^
I am currently using the ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ and so far, so good. I'm not a fan of the 5ghz performance of the chosen WiFi, it is far below the Intel NIC I have in my laptop. 2.4ghz is great though.
Overclocking is well beyond what I expected. I bought an A6-6400K as a placeholder for Kaveri and it runs at 5Ghz all day with the stock cooler. I don't run it there, it runs at 4.8Ghz 'Turbo' right now, but I can just switch to 'performance mode' when I want the boost. Updating the BIOS is simple. All good so far, in January we'll see if I'm still happy.
I highly recommend the Z87E-ITX too. It has the perfect layout for an ITX system and the UEFI is very nicely done. Pretty stable so far too.
I cant recommend Asus board anymore at all. I had so many problems with them dying the typical Asus-death (black screen, spinning fans), then I finally decided to try one again since it fit my needs the most from all others, and guess what? 1.5 years later it also died exactly like that again, again with no apparent reason.
Gigabyte, MSI, those have never disappointed me, and I hope with my first ASrock one in quite some time, I hope they have become as good as people say (though people also say Asus is awesome). Guess I have to find out by myself again, but as I said, its very promising so far, and ASRock shows some real innovation on their Mainboards. So many nice things, where you notice they have really thought a lot about that.
Anyway, as I already pointed out in the comments of the Z87E-ITX review, watch out if you want to use a PicoPSU. They often wont fit reliably on newer ITX boards, because of the placement of the connector/RAM banks (they put a lot of pressure on one of the installed RAM bars). Gotta look closely before you buy!
My DFI P55 MI-T36 is still happily running just fine for everything I do with it. Could be happier with my decision 3 years ago to adopt the Mini-itx form factor as having a 7liter volume case is just sweet. Even with a 160watt PSU, my i5-750 can hum along at 2.56Ghz with a .995Vcore, and Palit's low profile GTS 450 @ 1Vcore stock clocks gets through modestly in even some modern games. I really love the form factor refocusing in this industry and am extremely excited to eventually witness small form factors like pico-itx host modern processors like upcoming APUs from AMD and Intel. Cheers! Thanks Anandtech. Happy Holidays
it's a new combo by MSI.. a GTX 760 GPU card probably within PCIe full height, half length spec, similar in size to the offerings by Asus (122mm high) & Zotac (111mm high).
Me and probably 100-thousand more wish they'd go for a 780 in that size though ;-) Would probably need to cut off the power/voltage part on those 10" card and mount it somewhere else (Asus sub-board style) closer to the I/O panel. Then in triple slot so you got some space for the air exhausting to the rear and voila, a triple slot, full height, half length GTX 780 for mITX. One can dream.. :-)
One thing I would love to see is an FM2 Mini ITX board with DisplayPort. That would make it easy to drive a 1440p monitor right from the board instead of having to rely on a discrete video card.
When do folks think that we will start seeing Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, or Micro-ATX boards for consumer usage employing the ARM 32-bit or new 64-bit architectures? There are some SoC types (E.g. Rikimagic SoC on a stick) and hardware hobbyist board types (E.g. BeagleBone Black). As an avid GNU/Linux user, I would be interest in general competition in motherboard products for assembly in a case with SSD etc.
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pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I hope some good boards smaller than mini-ITX comes out in 2014. For example, pico/nano-ITX boards with some Intel Bay Trail chip, GigE, USB 3.0 and DisplayPort or HDMI.geo2160 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Those things are already on the market, along with cases and cooling for them. They're called NUCs.pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Pico-ITX is smaller. I want more board options out there too.Do you know of any Bay Trail NUCs with dual GigE? I really need a super small, fanless device with it for a project I'm planning on doing. I really hope there's more interest in NUC and smaller sized consumer oriented micro-boards. I have some SBCs but they're targeted towards industrial applications and, hence, have industrial sized prices.
pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I'm specifically looking for Intel NICs. I need good Linux support, 9 K jumbo frames and working hardware offload of checksum and other calculations to keep CPU overhead low. That means no Realtek.Vatharian - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Baytrail is not capable of supporting dual GbE NICs. It lacks PCI-Express, barring the notebook version, which has PCI-e 2.0 x1 in form of mini PCI express. You'd have to yank out the wifi/bt combo card (if the ODM would care to include it in addin card, not soldered-in, that is), and the other one would have to reside on USB 3.0 port. For Pico-ITX, and dual GbE you'd have to work with ARM boards at this time. Also check out offerings of Kontron. I've held quad-GbE mini-itx, sandy bridge-based board with 4 sodimss and 16 com ports, in my hands. They also have tegra 4 desktop board.pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Bay Trail M/D/I variants have PCIe. Is 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0 not enough? Here are some of the industrial targeted boards I'm talking about with dual GigE and uses Bay Trail I chips:http://www.aaeon.com/en/n/intelligent-systems-and-...
http://www.portwell.com/products/detail.asp?CUSTCH...
http://www.axiomtek.com/products/ViewProduct.asp?v...
http://www.dfi-embedded.co.il/products/ProductDeta...
Also, I guess one of the cheaper Avoton and Rangeley SoCs based on Silvermont can be used for another project I have that doesn't need video output. They have integrated NICs.
I'm going pass on anything ARM for now. I've used ARM SBCs before and they're a pain to upgrade to newer kernels (sometimes not possible at all) due to all the proprietary drivers (not just the GPU) not being updated.
jason32 - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
I'm hoping for some consumer or hobbyist targeted pico/nano-ITX boards with Bay Trail or Rangeley with dual GigE. I've looked into industrial targeted SBCs but the board can cost as much as a fully built Core i mini-ITX system. Hopefully, some cheaper SBCs can be made for use cases that don't require extreme environments.I'm with you on ARM boards. They're a pain. Sometimes you can get lucky and the OEM provides updates to the closed drivers to support newer Linux kernels but that'll end eventually. It'd be nice if ARM vendors start standardizing on interfaces and other things on the platform like on x86 so open source drivers can be easily written and mainlined into the Linux kernel or provide long term closed driver updates.
argo24 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
Do the ASUS boards with its power regulator fit in an M350 or Morex 557 case? What's the height of the boards from the bottom of the PCB to the top of the regulator?DanNeely - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
There wasn't a measurement in the review of it on the front page. I t looks like it's about half an inch taller than the rear IO. If I had to guess I'd say it was the same size as a half height card; but again that's just a guess.DiHydro - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
IIRC, they are the same height as the I/O, so with very few exceptions it shouldn't interfere with any case. I will try and find the source I read that on and reply to this comment with it.tetrah - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I'd like to know this too. I can' seem to find it on ASUS' site and any reviews. Since many people tend to get m-ITX boards to put into small cases, you'd think they'd provide a height measurement. Especially when it's higher than boards from other OEMs. Unless ASUS likes getting their boards returned and negative reviews by the usual people who feel somehow "wronged" due to this.DiHydro - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
"The power delivery daughterboard is designed to be at a height in direct correlation with the RearIO, thus any case with that profile should accommodate the Impact."Source: http://anandtech.com/show/7532/asus-maximus-vi-imp...
DiHydro - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
"The power delivery daughterboard is designed to be at a height in direct correlation with the RearIO, thus any case with that profile should accommodate the Impact."Source: http://anandtech.com/show/7532/asus-maximus-vi-imp...
pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I assume that's the same for the ROG one right? Thanks!pault64 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
*non-ROGIceBreakerG - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I built a mini-itx system with the ASRock Z87E-ITX board almost 2 months ago, and it's been an awesome little board. I didn't put a i7-4770k in it though. I just used a regular i7-4770 since I wasn't going to over clock (plus I get the TSX instructions too, which the 4770k doesn't have). I have a video (unboxing) of the board here: http://youtu.be/WlzvsZUEJUE It's definitely a nice board with a lot of features. Only issue I have with the system is it won't stay asleep for more than 20-30secs (Running Windows 8.1 Enterprise).lewisl9029 - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I'm still hoping for a mITX case that can make use of PCI-E riser cards to orient the GPU on the same horizontal plane as the motherboard.The Steam Machine prototype does this and it has basically my ideal case layout for a mITX gaming rig.
DiHydro - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I also think this is the most beneficial way to orient the GPU. When a low profile AIO liquid cooling system is used for the CPU it can also make for very good performance in a small package. I have been toying with the idea of custom fabricating a case specifically for this purpose.The Von Matrices - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
What about the ASRock M8?haakon_k - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
Me too like the idea of the computer case formats you could end with if you angle the GPU printcard on the same plane as the motherboard on ITX format, since the PCIe 16x slot is already on the edge of the board..? Does anyone a riser card - or whatamgonnacallitbecauseitshouldnotbetall - could be angular and also reverse the direction of the slot itself ... so that the GPU and the CPU has their coolers @ the same side of the printcards?haakon_k - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
*typo's; ...case formats you could end _up_ withDoes anyone _think_ that a riser..
haakon_k - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
damn, that riser idea of mine would make the outputs on opposite sides with otherwise standard formats. Running back to hide under my desk and think.JoanSpark - Thursday, November 28, 2013 - link
..some people on Hardforums/SFF-section are going after that idea.. personally I don't think it's worthwhile, unless you want some AV resembling case fitting into your living room rack.Anyhow, get involved ^^
vortexmak - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
What about the Gigagbyte Z87 ITX board ?Though I am going in for the ASRock, already got an i74770k
MethylONE - Saturday, November 23, 2013 - link
I am currently using the ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ and so far, so good. I'm not a fan of the 5ghz performance of the chosen WiFi, it is far below the Intel NIC I have in my laptop. 2.4ghz is great though.Overclocking is well beyond what I expected. I bought an A6-6400K as a placeholder for Kaveri and it runs at 5Ghz all day with the stock cooler. I don't run it there, it runs at 4.8Ghz 'Turbo' right now, but I can just switch to 'performance mode' when I want the boost. Updating the BIOS is simple. All good so far, in January we'll see if I'm still happy.
coolhund - Sunday, November 24, 2013 - link
I highly recommend the Z87E-ITX too. It has the perfect layout for an ITX system and the UEFI is very nicely done. Pretty stable so far too.I cant recommend Asus board anymore at all. I had so many problems with them dying the typical Asus-death (black screen, spinning fans), then I finally decided to try one again since it fit my needs the most from all others, and guess what? 1.5 years later it also died exactly like that again, again with no apparent reason.
Gigabyte, MSI, those have never disappointed me, and I hope with my first ASrock one in quite some time, I hope they have become as good as people say (though people also say Asus is awesome). Guess I have to find out by myself again, but as I said, its very promising so far, and ASRock shows some real innovation on their Mainboards. So many nice things, where you notice they have really thought a lot about that.
Anyway, as I already pointed out in the comments of the Z87E-ITX review, watch out if you want to use a PicoPSU. They often wont fit reliably on newer ITX boards, because of the placement of the connector/RAM banks (they put a lot of pressure on one of the installed RAM bars). Gotta look closely before you buy!
Xpl1c1t - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
My DFI P55 MI-T36 is still happily running just fine for everything I do with it. Could be happier with my decision 3 years ago to adopt the Mini-itx form factor as having a 7liter volume case is just sweet. Even with a 160watt PSU, my i5-750 can hum along at 2.56Ghz with a .995Vcore, and Palit's low profile GTS 450 @ 1Vcore stock clocks gets through modestly in even some modern games. I really love the form factor refocusing in this industry and am extremely excited to eventually witness small form factors like pico-itx host modern processors like upcoming APUs from AMD and Intel. Cheers! Thanks Anandtech. Happy HolidaysHrel - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
What's that other card shown in the picture for the MSI gaming board? A sound card?Hrel - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
it looks like a GPU but I can't think of any reason why a GPU would be in the pic...JoanSpark - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
it's a new combo by MSI.. a GTX 760 GPU card probably within PCIe full height, half length spec, similar in size to the offerings by Asus (122mm high) & Zotac (111mm high).Me and probably 100-thousand more wish they'd go for a 780 in that size though ;-)
Would probably need to cut off the power/voltage part on those 10" card and mount it somewhere else (Asus sub-board style) closer to the I/O panel.
Then in triple slot so you got some space for the air exhausting to the rear and voila, a triple slot, full height, half length GTX 780 for mITX.
One can dream.. :-)
JoanSpark - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
So I take it, we can expect a full review on those boards pretty soon then? :-)bobbozzo - Monday, November 25, 2013 - link
FWIW, Gigabyte makes a board with Dual-gigE NICs + WiFi: GA-Z87N-WiFi.I just ordered one for a firewall rebuild; retail is about $139, iirc.
They also have an H87 version for a few dollars less.
rburnham - Tuesday, December 3, 2013 - link
One thing I would love to see is an FM2 Mini ITX board with DisplayPort. That would make it easy to drive a 1440p monitor right from the board instead of having to rely on a discrete video card.texadactyl - Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - link
When do folks think that we will start seeing Mini-ITX, Pico-ITX, or Micro-ATX boards for consumer usage employing the ARM 32-bit or new 64-bit architectures? There are some SoC types (E.g. Rikimagic SoC on a stick) and hardware hobbyist board types (E.g. BeagleBone Black). As an avid GNU/Linux user, I would be interest in general competition in motherboard products for assembly in a case with SSD etc.