Ha - no kidding. Most people look at the pictures and forget just how TINY an ITX board is. 6" x 6" is -not- a lot of space to work with when you're talking about supporting a full-fat desktop class CPU and the cooling component for it. Your average 115(x) socket and cooler accounts for a pretty significant percentage of that, along with the rear IO headers, one PCIe slot, two power blocks and two dimm slots. Those are non-negotiable. Thats why you see ITX boards with more sophisticated features requiring the vertical sub-board assemblies.
They should have made the soundcard 0,01 inch shorter and put a m.2 on the board. Completely hopeless not to have an M.2 slot for NVMe on a mITX board. Hopefully they will make a revision when they can't sell this junk.
I agree not having m2 is pretty bogus on Asus' part. Many ITX boards have ITX, it's a pretty small connector and can be shoved in on the back-side if they don't want the slot to point vertical.
This is a gaming board, the single HDMI port from the iGP is a pro-forma addition. Their intended market will have a big GPU in the single PCIe slot and connect displays to it.
All they were asking for is a NATIVE PORT, not some USB 3.1 to TB bridge cable that'll cost $50. Then I chimed in and others agreed there just isn't enough room to add a TB port.
The Z170 boards I've seen so far have not excited me at all. This one included. It seems that all the manufacturers are cutting back in one way or another. For instance, I haven't seen one that either comes with or makes WiFi/Bluetooth easily available.
Unless they put it on the bottom of the board, there really isn't any room for a larger M.2 SSD. You'd be limited to the really short models that are slowish because they only have room for 2 flash chips.
All the current crop of Z170 ITX (with the exception of the EVGA board, which like this Asus fails to even have an M-keyed m.2 port) boards put the m.2 slot on the underside. It's really a silly omission, and rules out the board for SFF use for many intending to build compact systems with NVMe drives.
Of all the storage interfaces available for outright performance, U.2 is the most appealing - especially for an enthusiast mini-ITX motherboard. U.2 provides more headroom for performance, and allows placement of the drive away from heat sources.
These are practically all interfaces for exposing a PCIE x4 connection, I don't see any one kind better than another from a performance perspective. However, an U.2 instead of M.2 at this time point does suffer from much less choice of SSD devices.
OTOH, I'm not a fan of putting the M.2 on the back either; how are to supposed to cool it that way?
Thermal pad to couple it to the backplate. Those m.2 drives are well under 10W, they don't need active cooling.
An m.2 to u.2 adapter isn't difficult (there are several already available), but a u.2 to m.2 adapter requires an additional power supply input. Omitting m.2 for an ITX board is bonkers.
M.2 has power constraints that limit it to 25W - to get consistent perf, higher peak currents are required. That and thermal issues that can ocur in limited space, make U.2 a better option for this type of board.
The SM951 is under 9W at peak (and because people are grabbing OEM drives, there's no power management), and the 950 Pro is even lower. Thermal dissipation is not a limiting issue for m.2 drives, particularly with chassis coupling. u.2 is as poor a solution for ITX as 2.5" SATA drives are: it's a bunch of wasted volume and extra cabling.
If you;re building what is effectivley an ATX PC with a smaller motherboard it might be fine, but for an actually small Pc where ITX is important, m.2 is vital for reducing volume.
The SM951 is a drive that is very capable of throttling - something we would have to work around. On the engineering side, including M.2 would also have required additional layers and cost if we were to add it. U.2 is the best solution at present. We cannot keep everyonme people happy with a board like this - I prefer that we opted for U.2 over M.2.
That's exactly who this board is made for. If you want an ultra small kiosk box or something of that nature, a gaming motherboard isn't the right solution. 99% of buyers are putting a full size graphics card in the PCI x16 slot and running a gaming PC. U.2 is exactly the right solution.
This is certainly not a bad product, but the price is quite high and I don't really get the ROG branding. I would expect the typical ROG client to have a massive tower with multiple GPUs, not caring about a small form factor. Anyway, more choice is good, but people buying small form factors are likely to be more sensitive to price and less impressed by flashy colors and LEDs.
Disclaimer: I own a ROG m/b and am reasonably happy with it.
Personally, I am tired of giant towers. If I could fit a powerful system into a mini-itx case I would be thrilled. This is a no compromises product in many ways and has a price tag to match.
Also, +1 for happy to see U.2 making more of an appearance. Glad to see it on boards as I personally think it is the replacement to sata that sata express never was, that we have been waiting for.
No m.2 (meaning no NVMe Samsung 950 Pro), no DisplayPort (meaning 4k at 24hz maximum and useless), no Thunderbolt 3 (meaning no external graphic solution or other connection)
This board is designed for gamers. They'll be using full size graphics cards. And Samsung's failure to use and make available the batter form factor for NVMe is their fault.
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8steve8 - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
no mini-displayport?thunderbolt enabled type-c?
failure
id4andrei - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
If you want TB head for Apple or workstation solutions. No one cares about TB; certainly not the "RoG" crowd.Morawka - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
the ROG Maximus VIII Extreme which was also announced yesterday but for some reason omitted, includes thunderbolt over type c and usb 3.1..Samus - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
It's also ITX. What do you expect there is only so much room. Frankly every ITX board is a work of art to me.bill.rookard - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Ha - no kidding. Most people look at the pictures and forget just how TINY an ITX board is. 6" x 6" is -not- a lot of space to work with when you're talking about supporting a full-fat desktop class CPU and the cooling component for it. Your average 115(x) socket and cooler accounts for a pretty significant percentage of that, along with the rear IO headers, one PCIe slot, two power blocks and two dimm slots. Those are non-negotiable. Thats why you see ITX boards with more sophisticated features requiring the vertical sub-board assemblies.DrJulle - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
They should have made the soundcard 0,01 inch shorter and put a m.2 on the board. Completely hopeless not to have an M.2 slot for NVMe on a mITX board. Hopefully they will make a revision when they can't sell this junk.Samus - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
I agree not having m2 is pretty bogus on Asus' part. Many ITX boards have ITX, it's a pretty small connector and can be shoved in on the back-side if they don't want the slot to point vertical.Samus - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
...meant to say many ITX boards have m.2; this board has u.2 but good luck finding a u.2 drive in retail until next year.pjalm - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
Um M.2 was meant for mobile, this has the desktop equivalent U.2 so even better.n13L5 - Wednesday, December 2, 2015 - link
U.2 is lame, cause1) they're hard to find
2) I can't swap the drive into my laptop when I go to travel.
An M.2 drive, I could use in both machines...
Of course, there's a simple solution: The ASROCK gamer board. :p
extide - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
Yeah or they could have put it on the back side of the sound card like they have with msata before I believe.extide - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
YOU GUYS ARE IDIOTSWTF are you talking about? It clearly has the alpine ridge controller... so yeah USB 3.1 & all the TB 3.0 goodness ..
CharonPDX - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
It already uses the Alpine Ridge controller for 10 Gb/s USB, why not just use the controller's Thunderbolt support, too?Morawka - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
i would like to add that asus priced the new Extreme at $500 and it has no PLX chip.. They charging a premium for that thunderboltextide - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
YOU GUYS ARE IDIOTSWTF are you talking about? It clearly has the alpine ridge controller... so yeah USB 3.1 & all the TB 3.0 goodness ..
DanNeely - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
This is a gaming board, the single HDMI port from the iGP is a pro-forma addition. Their intended market will have a big GPU in the single PCIe slot and connect displays to it.Flunk - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Isn't that a Type-C port at the bottom of the right stack of ports, under the Ethernet port?rhysee - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Yeah apparently it was a close call between that or pretty lights showing out of the 3.5mm plugs :)extide - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
WTF are you talking about? It clearly has the alpine ridge controller... so yeah USB 3.1 & all the TB 3.0 goodness ..Samus - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - link
All they were asking for is a NATIVE PORT, not some USB 3.1 to TB bridge cable that'll cost $50. Then I chimed in and others agreed there just isn't enough room to add a TB port.BPB - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
The Z170 boards I've seen so far have not excited me at all. This one included. It seems that all the manufacturers are cutting back in one way or another. For instance, I haven't seen one that either comes with or makes WiFi/Bluetooth easily available.reckless76 - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
I'm not sure then what your complaint with this board is. It has onboard both wifi and bluetooth.http://rog.asus.com/445602015/maximus-motherboards...
reininop - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
I have the asus z170 deluxe. It has 3x3 wifi and bluetooth onboard. Small magnetic antenna can be set almost anywhere you have steel on your case.wharris1 - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
Are there SSD's available besides the intel 750? wouldn't an M.2 connector be a much better choice?wharris1 - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
any SSD's using the U.2 connector I meanDanNeely - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
Unless they put it on the bottom of the board, there really isn't any room for a larger M.2 SSD. You'd be limited to the really short models that are slowish because they only have room for 2 flash chips.mcveigh - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
They could do a vertical connector. Not ideal, but I've seen it done.edzieba - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
All the current crop of Z170 ITX (with the exception of the EVGA board, which like this Asus fails to even have an M-keyed m.2 port) boards put the m.2 slot on the underside. It's really a silly omission, and rules out the board for SFF use for many intending to build compact systems with NVMe drives.idris - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
have another look at that U.2 connector... don't overlook/misunderstand it.Rajinder Gill - Saturday, October 10, 2015 - link
Of all the storage interfaces available for outright performance, U.2 is the most appealing - especially for an enthusiast mini-ITX motherboard. U.2 provides more headroom for performance, and allows placement of the drive away from heat sources.adenta180 - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
These are practically all interfaces for exposing a PCIE x4 connection, I don't see any one kind better than another from a performance perspective. However, an U.2 instead of M.2 at this time point does suffer from much less choice of SSD devices.OTOH, I'm not a fan of putting the M.2 on the back either; how are to supposed to cool it that way?
edzieba - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Thermal pad to couple it to the backplate. Those m.2 drives are well under 10W, they don't need active cooling.An m.2 to u.2 adapter isn't difficult (there are several already available), but a u.2 to m.2 adapter requires an additional power supply input. Omitting m.2 for an ITX board is bonkers.
Rajinder Gill - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
M.2 has power constraints that limit it to 25W - to get consistent perf, higher peak currents are required. That and thermal issues that can ocur in limited space, make U.2 a better option for this type of board.edzieba - Monday, October 12, 2015 - link
The SM951 is under 9W at peak (and because people are grabbing OEM drives, there's no power management), and the 950 Pro is even lower. Thermal dissipation is not a limiting issue for m.2 drives, particularly with chassis coupling. u.2 is as poor a solution for ITX as 2.5" SATA drives are: it's a bunch of wasted volume and extra cabling.If you;re building what is effectivley an ATX PC with a smaller motherboard it might be fine, but for an actually small Pc where ITX is important, m.2 is vital for reducing volume.
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, October 14, 2015 - link
The SM951 is a drive that is very capable of throttling - something we would have to work around. On the engineering side, including M.2 would also have required additional layers and cost if we were to add it. U.2 is the best solution at present. We cannot keep everyonme people happy with a board like this - I prefer that we opted for U.2 over M.2.NovumDives - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
That's exactly who this board is made for. If you want an ultra small kiosk box or something of that nature, a gaming motherboard isn't the right solution. 99% of buyers are putting a full size graphics card in the PCI x16 slot and running a gaming PC. U.2 is exactly the right solution.FriendlyUser - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
This is certainly not a bad product, but the price is quite high and I don't really get the ROG branding. I would expect the typical ROG client to have a massive tower with multiple GPUs, not caring about a small form factor. Anyway, more choice is good, but people buying small form factors are likely to be more sensitive to price and less impressed by flashy colors and LEDs.Disclaimer: I own a ROG m/b and am reasonably happy with it.
doggface - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
Personally, I am tired of giant towers. If I could fit a powerful system into a mini-itx case I would be thrilled. This is a no compromises product in many ways and has a price tag to match.Also, +1 for happy to see U.2 making more of an appearance. Glad to see it on boards as I personally think it is the replacement to sata that sata express never was, that we have been waiting for.
Morawka - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - link
i like a small footprint to, but you'll also get tired of having to pull the motherboard, cooling, gpu' etc.. everytime you want to add a SSD.Morawka - Tuesday, October 13, 2015 - link
And repaste your cpu..vozmem - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
When I zoom in the picture, Supreme FX does not look real to me.DrJulle - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
I'm extremely disappointed with this board.No m.2 (meaning no NVMe Samsung 950 Pro), no DisplayPort (meaning 4k at 24hz maximum and useless), no Thunderbolt 3 (meaning no external graphic solution or other connection)
NovumDives - Monday, October 19, 2015 - link
This board is designed for gamers. They'll be using full size graphics cards. And Samsung's failure to use and make available the batter form factor for NVMe is their fault.Tegeril - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
You mention this is the first Alpine Ridge outside of Gigabyte... how is ASRock doing 60Hz HDMI on this board, then? http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z170%20G... - an active converter onboard?jabber - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
No VL-Bus? ISA slot? FAIL!Seriously, interesting little board.