this is obviously gonna help sell those iris pro sku's and edram sku's with 72 EU's. pretty neat but i thought intel was trying to move away from socket-able cpu's.
socket cpu's tend to produce more heat as well.. i can see some newbie putting a 6770k in a chassis that's meant for 35w.
this will however allow more customization options in the oem space.
There is nothing about a socket that could result in more heat. It is merely that soldered CPUs are primarily low power derivatives. You can use a socket for a milliwatt chip and you can solder a 100W chip, but this is rarely done because it is usually not commercially viable.
These look nifty. It's just too bad Intel overcharges on the chips suitable for these sorts of applications (eg., Steam Machines). And I'm assuming the 65W limit has to do with the power delivery and not the cooling? That looks like a standard 1150 socket, meaning compatibility with aftermarket coolers galore.
At 30% smaller, that might sound like a lot, but it really isn't much smaller than ITX and the sacrifices are substantial for those extra millimeters.
Considering they ditched the 24+4 ATX power connector AND full-length DIMM sockets, there would be plenty of room on the board for at least a 4x PCIe slot.
I think it would make more sense to introduce a smaller socketable package than a whole new motherboard format, like AMD did with the AM1. After all, the die size is a fraction of the package size, just tweak the package and shrink it down, there is a lot of dead space in the center of LGA CPU's.
I have to say I'm intrigued by this - the combination of compact form factors and modularity is very appealing. Now just combine this with Thunderbolt 3 and a reference platform/design for matching external "slice" GPU chassis, and you'd have an excellent upgradeable and expandable platform. SODIMM memory has been available with decent performance for quite a while, so this is a nice turn of events.
clearly this has to be intels designated successor to thin-mITX. its a bit smaller (170x170 vs 140x147) plus it removes the lone PCIEx1 slot which never made sense.
It does make sense. It's not always a pci-e 1x slot, it's often a full pci-e 16x slot. You can make a pretty nice and compact gaming machine based on mini itx, it won't be possible with this one until we can finally get external GPUs straight. Of course if you don't care about gaming or don't have needs for an internal pcie slot it does not make sense. But there are a few advantages that I would gladly take from the 5x5 platform on mini ITX mainboards. Especially the fixed position CPU socket. This would be so helpful for cooler compatibility issues...
Please note that bernstein said *thin* mini-ITX. These have x1 or x4 slots and never an x16. I was planning a thin mini-itx "luggable" to replace my laptop. Honestly the only reason to go with this new 5x5 for that would be more room to work with as a a 15" LCD footprint gives plenty of space for the mobo, Intel's off the side cooler, batteries and 2.5" drives.
interestingly, so in theory (whether useful or not) you could put the broadwell i7 (5775c?) inside one of these and have a not terrible gaming performance
I disagree. You would have decent general/office computing, but, due to the lack of PCIe slot and therefore discreet graphics card, the gaming would be very sub par for anything but the most basic of games (or old ones).
You *could* play games, but you would have to run them very low resolution and very low detail – even something as undemanding as League of Legends would have to be put in fugly mode to get the desired frame rate.
A "potent" GPU - what does that mean? Does it have anything to do with procreation and begetting tiny infant GPUs? That must be it, because in the context of gaming hardware it is entirely "impotent" by contemporary standards. How if you play 10 year old games in VGA resolution, it might do the trick...
I like the idea of a tiny Broadwell system, but you're going to need to decent cooling. I had the Iris Pro Gigabyte Brix on loan and it throttled badly and was extremely noisy. Was tempted to buy one before until I actually tried it.
Still waiting for the day when Intel puts dual-NICs on a NUC so I can have a nice, powerful, super compact home router. I don't want dongles, etc. I'd gladly give up extra graphical I/O ports to get dual GbE NICs onboard.
I'm curious about what rules/restrictions you are going to put that needs NUC computational power (assuming >=i3)? or is it including other features like NAS?
your best bet is still to use a traditional ITX build but then go all the way and do an ESXi or Hyper-V all-in-one i.e. use it to run server functions as well as having a virtual router/FW appliance. I know quite a few people doing this with pfsense etc. and it works well if you know what you're doing. If you really want to walk on the wild side you can virtualise your storage appliance as well
I gave up waiting and bit the bullet with an Atom-based headless router system from Netgate. These are probably $100-200 more expensive than a carefully selected set of consumer components but they come with everything including RAM and an eMMC flash drive on the motherboard, etc. The Rangeley Atoms should be plenty fast for things like Snort, though you'd probably need to add an extra m.2 or mSATA drive for logging.
With the loss of the PCIe slot I think this really needs to be looked at as a scaled up NUC not a scaled down mITX system. From that standpoint it actually looks like a reasonable option (assuming sane pricing anyway). For non-gaming purposes Intel's reference boards look like they've got all the bases covered while the socketed CPU options allows for significantly more CPU performance at similar cost/power levels.
If it's intended as an open standard, using a desktop chipset should give 3rd parties enough sata ports to make DIY NAS suitable boards. A smaller board would be nice for them; since currently it's the dimensions of an mITX board that limits the physical size of 2/4 bay cases. For the loads those systems run at, a $100W DC brick is more reasonably sized option than a 250+W ATX/SFX power supply.
My last thought is to wonder if Intel was aiming for a smaller board size. They're calling it 5x5 but ended up closer to 6x6.
Thank god! If it wasn't for Intel, we'd all be facing a dark, depressing future where miniITX is too big, NUC is too small and minilake isn't square enough!
Thank you Intel, for striking a crippling blow against the tyranny of sub 17cm form factors!
No longer will customers be forced to choose between boards that are either way too small, or small, but still a teensy cm too big... Phew!
I know Intel has been getting some criticism lately, with Skylake being a disappointment performance wise, and Canonlake postponed for two years, but let's give them a little slack. Clearly the 5x5 board shows that Intel are not afraid of taking bold risks, are in tune with their customers and have their finger right on the pulse of the marketplace...
DC power only?! AWESOME. What I hate about these small mobos but only take 24pin power... ridiculous. Excited to see new motherboards come in this form factor.
I don't think so. Zooming in, the one above looks like a USB2/Audio header. The one to the left is a fan header, and the things below I think are a pair of on board front panel USB ports similar to the ones on the top edge.
What's the point of this, exactly? It's got all the limitations of NUC, but much bigger. The only thing you seem to gain is a CPU socket, but few people are likely to upgrade the CPU in this small of a machine (particularly one without any PCIe slots).
That's true, although they also say this thing is for 35W CPUs (in addition to 65W CPUs)
That only raises the question, what use case is it good for? Intel's 6th gen desktop CPUs have a 91W TDP, so 65W isn't getting you a current-gen desktop chip (the 5th gen desktop CPUs are 65W, though), so clearly this isn't intended to be used in a system that needs the most performance. Yes, you're going to get more performance out of a 65W chip than a 35W chip, but what use case requires more performance than you get out of a 35W chip, but still doesn't require a discrete graphics card?
All the use cases that I can think of for systems with no discrete graphics would work perfectly fine with a 35W CPU. You can get pretty good performance out of 35W: the i7-4785T, for example, which is a 35W part, is a quad core (with hyperthreading) and a clock range of 2.2 GHz to 3.2GHz... and it'd be overkill for any sort of office use.
The platform power is always a range ;) Like NUC aims for 7-28W processors (as far as I can tell), this aims for 35-65W processors. You can have a 28W processor in a NUC form factor that has performances similar to a 35W model, but I bet there will be some issues due to the CPU TDP being much closer to the maximum limit of the cooler (whereas a 35W CPU on a "up to 65W" cooler would be much better off) Even if last-gen 65W CPUs don't exist yet, I don't think this hole will be left vacant for so long. And office and gaming aren't the only things in life. There are many niches where you need processing power but don't care about having more than decent-to-high amounts of RAM and storage, while the storage speed will be fine with a SSD anyway. Obviously, those are not typical consumer uses but I think the sheer number of said niches would make up for a decent market size. At least Intel seems to think that way.
And I think 35-65W low-end socketed CPUs have a much better price/performance ratio than similar 17-28W parts. So this platform would allow for lower prices with decent performances in the low end, and more raw performance in the high-end if required.
Sure the Skylake parts that Intel just launched has a TDP of 90W. But they'll launch the 30-60W Skylake I7 parts in Q4 this year and Q1-2 next year.
Until then you could put the Broadwell i7 5775C/R in it. It's quad core parts for around 370$ that turbo boosts up to 3.7-3.8 GHZ.
And not only is it a 37-65W processor, it also comes with Iris Pro 5200, which would make it quite an awesome little gaming CPU, without needing a dedicated GPU.
As for what the uses could be, besides a tiny little gaming PC to put under the TV for FullHD gaming, it could also be a potent media center for 4K content. Or a media server capable of transcoding content to several tablets at a time.
Considering how much horsepower the Broadwell Ivy Pro parts have, it could also be great for video editing or photoshop work. Given the tiny size and the sub 400$ price, a photographer could mount it in his car, together with a 13-15 inch screen and use it for photoshop editing on the go. (Not even sure if the screen is necessary. Just hook it with an iPad and either use a Remote Desktop app or Adobes creative suite...)
"They" can't discontinue thin-ITX, assuming by "they" you don't mean every hardware manufacturer in the world.... It's a form factor. it's not owned by anyone.
Of course, this story itself gives no credit to VIA for inventing the whole thing, and lamentably ignores the already existing SFF-SIG and Pico- and Nano-ITX form factors which serve a similar thing.
It would be nice if Intel would use standards with this sort of thing rather than us ending up with 5 different SFF setups because everyone wants to make something similar to Intel but ends up being slightly different with 5x5, NUC, Zbox, Brix etc as mentioned, all of which are entirely non-interoperable in terms of case designs. Pico and Nano ITX are standards and there's an SFF SIG.
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Morawka - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
this is obviously gonna help sell those iris pro sku's and edram sku's with 72 EU's. pretty neat but i thought intel was trying to move away from socket-able cpu's.socket cpu's tend to produce more heat as well.. i can see some newbie putting a 6770k in a chassis that's meant for 35w.
this will however allow more customization options in the oem space.
ddriver - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
There is nothing about a socket that could result in more heat. It is merely that soldered CPUs are primarily low power derivatives. You can use a socket for a milliwatt chip and you can solder a 100W chip, but this is rarely done because it is usually not commercially viable.mrdude - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
It's about z-height and cost :)These look nifty. It's just too bad Intel overcharges on the chips suitable for these sorts of applications (eg., Steam Machines). And I'm assuming the 65W limit has to do with the power delivery and not the cooling? That looks like a standard 1150 socket, meaning compatibility with aftermarket coolers galore.
Yuriman - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Look at the mounting holes - definitely won't take existing coolers.DanNeely - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
According to Arstechnica, the intent is for the cooler to be built into the case chassis itself.Samus - Wednesday, August 26, 2015 - link
At 30% smaller, that might sound like a lot, but it really isn't much smaller than ITX and the sacrifices are substantial for those extra millimeters.Considering they ditched the 24+4 ATX power connector AND full-length DIMM sockets, there
would be plenty of room on the board for at least a 4x PCIe slot.
I think it would make more sense to introduce a smaller socketable package than a whole new motherboard format, like AMD did with the AM1. After all, the die size is a fraction of the package size, just tweak the package and shrink it down, there is a lot of dead space in the center of LGA CPU's.
eanazag - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Intel is not trying to move away from money. This is definitely trying to give a home those Broadwell Iris CPUs.Valantar - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I have to say I'm intrigued by this - the combination of compact form factors and modularity is very appealing. Now just combine this with Thunderbolt 3 and a reference platform/design for matching external "slice" GPU chassis, and you'd have an excellent upgradeable and expandable platform. SODIMM memory has been available with decent performance for quite a while, so this is a nice turn of events.bernstein - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
clearly this has to be intels designated successor to thin-mITX. its a bit smaller (170x170 vs 140x147) plus it removes the lone PCIEx1 slot which never made sense.nightbringer57 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
It does make sense. It's not always a pci-e 1x slot, it's often a full pci-e 16x slot.You can make a pretty nice and compact gaming machine based on mini itx, it won't be possible with this one until we can finally get external GPUs straight.
Of course if you don't care about gaming or don't have needs for an internal pcie slot it does not make sense.
But there are a few advantages that I would gladly take from the 5x5 platform on mini ITX mainboards. Especially the fixed position CPU socket. This would be so helpful for cooler compatibility issues...
alaricljs - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Please note that bernstein said *thin* mini-ITX. These have x1 or x4 slots and never an x16. I was planning a thin mini-itx "luggable" to replace my laptop. Honestly the only reason to go with this new 5x5 for that would be more room to work with as a a 15" LCD footprint gives plenty of space for the mobo, Intel's off the side cooler, batteries and 2.5" drives.nightbringer57 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Indeed, I missed the thin. My bad.MonkeyPaw - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Also, that slot was handy for adding a TV tuner for your HTPC. I've been using a mITX board in this way for years.Mobile-Dom - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
interestingly, so in theory (whether useful or not) you could put the broadwell i7 (5775c?) inside one of these and have a not terrible gaming performance[-Stash-] - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I disagree. You would have decent general/office computing, but, due to the lack of PCIe slot and therefore discreet graphics card, the gaming would be very sub par for anything but the most basic of games (or old ones).You *could* play games, but you would have to run them very low resolution and very low detail – even something as undemanding as League of Legends would have to be put in fugly mode to get the desired frame rate.
Gigaplex - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Except the GPU on the Broadwell i7 is actually fairly potent.Flunk - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
In Intel's dreams.ddriver - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
A "potent" GPU - what does that mean? Does it have anything to do with procreation and begetting tiny infant GPUs? That must be it, because in the context of gaming hardware it is entirely "impotent" by contemporary standards. How if you play 10 year old games in VGA resolution, it might do the trick...Klimax - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
YOu two should check out reviews about Iris Pro in Broadwell. Are you in for a surprise...V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Have you read any reviews of Intels integrated graphics or high end CPUs at all since 2012?You should read up, cause a lot has changed since Sandy/Ivy Bridge.
The Iris Pro GPU in Broadwell is 50% faster than the fastest GPU in AMDs A10 APUs.
It handles GTA5 with no problems, and gets around 90FPS in Bioshock Infinite in Full HD. Over 120 FPS in Halflife Full HD.
It's no GT980, but it's right around a GT750 or GT560 in performance, and that's plenty for quite a few of us.
OrphanageExplosion - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I like the idea of a tiny Broadwell system, but you're going to need to decent cooling. I had the Iris Pro Gigabyte Brix on loan and it throttled badly and was extremely noisy. Was tempted to buy one before until I actually tried it.James5mith - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Still waiting for the day when Intel puts dual-NICs on a NUC so I can have a nice, powerful, super compact home router. I don't want dongles, etc. I'd gladly give up extra graphical I/O ports to get dual GbE NICs onboard.WorldWithoutMadness - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I'm curious about what rules/restrictions you are going to put that needs NUC computational power (assuming >=i3)? or is it including other features like NAS?alaricljs - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
web proxy - with kids in the house I need to start dealing with this. *sigh*WorldWithoutMadness - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Not might as powerful like i3ish but if you're looking something dual intel nic with nuc form factor, this might help http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/JBC311U93.htmlwintermute000 - Sunday, August 30, 2015 - link
your best bet is still to use a traditional ITX build but then go all the way and do an ESXi or Hyper-V all-in-one i.e. use it to run server functions as well as having a virtual router/FW appliance. I know quite a few people doing this with pfsense etc. and it works well if you know what you're doing. If you really want to walk on the wild side you can virtualise your storage appliance as wellcbf123 - Thursday, September 3, 2015 - link
Just saw this, so hopefully you get notified of a response. I just picked up a Zotac ZBOX-CI321NANO. (http://www.zotac.com/ca/products/mini-pcs/zbox-c-s...Weakish CPU, but lots of I/O. Dual gigabit, dual-band wifi, Bluetooth, HDMI and DisplayPort, card reader, four USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port, etc.
And it's relatively inexpensive.
Metaluna - Tuesday, December 8, 2015 - link
I gave up waiting and bit the bullet with an Atom-based headless router system from Netgate. These are probably $100-200 more expensive than a carefully selected set of consumer components but they come with everything including RAM and an eMMC flash drive on the motherboard, etc. The Rangeley Atoms should be plenty fast for things like Snort, though you'd probably need to add an extra m.2 or mSATA drive for logging.DanNeely - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
With the loss of the PCIe slot I think this really needs to be looked at as a scaled up NUC not a scaled down mITX system. From that standpoint it actually looks like a reasonable option (assuming sane pricing anyway). For non-gaming purposes Intel's reference boards look like they've got all the bases covered while the socketed CPU options allows for significantly more CPU performance at similar cost/power levels.If it's intended as an open standard, using a desktop chipset should give 3rd parties enough sata ports to make DIY NAS suitable boards. A smaller board would be nice for them; since currently it's the dimensions of an mITX board that limits the physical size of 2/4 bay cases. For the loads those systems run at, a $100W DC brick is more reasonably sized option than a 250+W ATX/SFX power supply.
My last thought is to wonder if Intel was aiming for a smaller board size. They're calling it 5x5 but ended up closer to 6x6.
V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Thank god! If it wasn't for Intel, we'd all be facing a dark, depressing future where miniITX is too big, NUC is too small and minilake isn't square enough!Thank you Intel, for striking a crippling blow against the tyranny of sub 17cm form factors!
No longer will customers be forced to choose between boards that are either way too small, or small, but still a teensy cm too big... Phew!
I know Intel has been getting some criticism lately, with Skylake being a disappointment performance wise, and Canonlake postponed for two years, but let's give them a little slack. Clearly the 5x5 board shows that Intel are not afraid of taking bold risks, are in tune with their customers and have their finger right on the pulse of the marketplace...
colinstu - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
DC power only?! AWESOME. What I hate about these small mobos but only take 24pin power... ridiculous. Excited to see new motherboards come in this form factor.DanNeely - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
That actually does raise a question. Intel's reference board has a sata port; but I don't see a plug on the board to get power off for the drive...nightbringer57 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
It's probably one on the small white headers around the SATA port?DanNeely - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I don't think so. Zooming in, the one above looks like a USB2/Audio header. The one to the left is a fan header, and the things below I think are a pair of on board front panel USB ports similar to the ones on the top edge.taisingera - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
There could be a special cable, USB2 header to SATA power to power a 2.5" hard drive/SSD. Those only need 5V/1A to run.Guspaz - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
What's the point of this, exactly? It's got all the limitations of NUC, but much bigger. The only thing you seem to gain is a CPU socket, but few people are likely to upgrade the CPU in this small of a machine (particularly one without any PCIe slots).nightbringer57 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
As far as I know, the NUC platforms target CPUs with a TDP of at most 30-35W. This allows 65W TDP CPUs. This can lead to a huge leap in performance.Guspaz - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
That's true, although they also say this thing is for 35W CPUs (in addition to 65W CPUs)That only raises the question, what use case is it good for? Intel's 6th gen desktop CPUs have a 91W TDP, so 65W isn't getting you a current-gen desktop chip (the 5th gen desktop CPUs are 65W, though), so clearly this isn't intended to be used in a system that needs the most performance. Yes, you're going to get more performance out of a 65W chip than a 35W chip, but what use case requires more performance than you get out of a 35W chip, but still doesn't require a discrete graphics card?
All the use cases that I can think of for systems with no discrete graphics would work perfectly fine with a 35W CPU. You can get pretty good performance out of 35W: the i7-4785T, for example, which is a 35W part, is a quad core (with hyperthreading) and a clock range of 2.2 GHz to 3.2GHz... and it'd be overkill for any sort of office use.
V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
You're not even close there...Sure the Skylake parts that Intel just launched has a TDP of 90W. But they'll launch the 30-60W Skylake I7 parts in Q4 this year and Q1-2 next year.
Until then you could put the
nightbringer57 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
The platform power is always a range ;)Like NUC aims for 7-28W processors (as far as I can tell), this aims for 35-65W processors.
You can have a 28W processor in a NUC form factor that has performances similar to a 35W model, but I bet there will be some issues due to the CPU TDP being much closer to the maximum limit of the cooler (whereas a 35W CPU on a "up to 65W" cooler would be much better off)
Even if last-gen 65W CPUs don't exist yet, I don't think this hole will be left vacant for so long.
And office and gaming aren't the only things in life.
There are many niches where you need processing power but don't care about having more than decent-to-high amounts of RAM and storage, while the storage speed will be fine with a SSD anyway. Obviously, those are not typical consumer uses but I think the sheer number of said niches would make up for a decent market size. At least Intel seems to think that way.
And I think 35-65W low-end socketed CPUs have a much better price/performance ratio than similar 17-28W parts. So this platform would allow for lower prices with decent performances in the low end, and more raw performance in the high-end if required.
V900 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
You're not even close there...Sure the Skylake parts that Intel just launched has a TDP of 90W. But they'll launch the 30-60W Skylake I7 parts in Q4 this year and Q1-2 next year.
Until then you could put the Broadwell i7 5775C/R in it. It's quad core parts for around 370$ that turbo boosts up to 3.7-3.8 GHZ.
And not only is it a 37-65W processor, it also comes with Iris Pro 5200, which would make it quite an awesome little gaming CPU, without needing a dedicated GPU.
As for what the uses could be, besides a tiny little gaming PC to put under the TV for FullHD gaming, it could also be a potent media center for 4K content. Or a media server capable of transcoding content to several tablets at a time.
Considering how much horsepower the Broadwell Ivy Pro parts have, it could also be great for video editing or photoshop work. Given the tiny size and the sub 400$ price, a photographer could mount it in his car, together with a 13-15 inch screen and use it for photoshop editing on the go.
(Not even sure if the screen is necessary. Just hook it with an iPad and either use a Remote Desktop app or Adobes creative suite...)
Vlad_Da_Great - Sunday, August 30, 2015 - link
Some of the Celeron's run from 4-15W TDP. You don't need to worry for power. You can use battery to run a computer.jardows2 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
I hope they don't discontinue the thin Mini-ITX form, as that has options for some very interesting custom designs.I am not sure by the descriptions if the M.2 and the SATA ports can be used at the same time. Does anyone know this detail?
Lonyo - Tuesday, August 25, 2015 - link
"They" can't discontinue thin-ITX, assuming by "they" you don't mean every hardware manufacturer in the world....It's a form factor. it's not owned by anyone.
Of course, this story itself gives no credit to VIA for inventing the whole thing, and lamentably ignores the already existing SFF-SIG and Pico- and Nano-ITX form factors which serve a similar thing.
It would be nice if Intel would use standards with this sort of thing rather than us ending up with 5 different SFF setups because everyone wants to make something similar to Intel but ends up being slightly different with 5x5, NUC, Zbox, Brix etc as mentioned, all of which are entirely non-interoperable in terms of case designs.
Pico and Nano ITX are standards and there's an SFF SIG.