Intel 200 series ITX motherboards (Kaby Lake)

For me, the best feature is the M.2 port on the cpu side of the Asus board. No more thermal throttle because of no airflow.
 
Two things I really like: More m.2 support, especially PCIe Gen 3 interface. Go with it or go home, especially ITX.

Also, the RGB craziness has the nice side effect of promoting more monochrome designs.
 
Alkoran said:
For me, the best feature is the M.2 port on the cpu side of the Asus board. No more thermal throttle because of no airflow.
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Except it is right on top of and sharing a heatsink with the PCH. Asus claims it isn't an issue and that they thermally isolate the two. I remain skeptical but cautiously optimistic. It isn't a surefire win though in this form factor.
 
Cannot wait for them to be in stock on Amazon so I can begin a new build in the Dan Case A4. Going to look sweet with the Asus board and hopefully a 1080ti if that is even a thing.
 
That ASRock weirdly has no 3000MHz RAM compatibility, which is a shame as that's what I got. Closest below it is 2933. Meh. Well, I was going to get the Asus anyway most likely due to the 2x M.2...
 
illram said:
That ASRock weirdly has no 3000MHz RAM compatibility, which is a shame as that's what I got. Closest below it is 2933. Meh. Well, I was going to get the Asus anyway most likely due to the 2x M.2...
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If you go by an arbitrary number list you're doing it wrong, they tested far faster anyways.

Not sure why so many people are drooling over dual m2 in close quarters cramped by the DMI x4 interface shared with every other peripheral, better off getting a bigger m2 to begin with. Only X99 has enough lanes for unshared cpu links to multiple m2.
 
Aluminum said:
If you go by an arbitrary number list you're doing it wrong, they tested far faster anyways.

Not sure why so many people are drooling over dual m2 in close quarters cramped by the DMI x4 interface shared with every other peripheral, better off getting a bigger m2 to begin with. Only X99 has enough lanes for unshared cpu links to multiple m2.
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It's not like my 600p's are fast enough to saturate the DMI bandwidth, but they will certainly look a lot nicer than a power cable and a sata cable running through my case to a 2.5" drive.
 
Agree, even if you use an M.2 SATA drive instead of M.2 PCIe/NVME, two less cables per drive compared to a 2.5" SATA drive is quite desirable in a small formfactor system.

There's also the extra space needed to mount a 2.5" SATA drive compared to M.2, but that's secondary to the cables.
 
Aluminum said:
If you go by an arbitrary number list you're doing it wrong, they tested far faster anyways.

Not sure why so many people are drooling over dual m2 in close quarters cramped by the DMI x4 interface shared with every other peripheral, better off getting a bigger m2 to begin with. Only X99 has enough lanes for unshared cpu links to multiple m2.
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Do you really think that people using mITX are going to cry over losing a couple of SATA ports? Who here is hooking up 6 SATA devices? Each m.2 disables 2 SATA ports on most boards, something that I don't think will matter to just about any actual mITX case.
 
Aluminum said:
If you go by an arbitrary number list you're doing it wrong, they tested far faster anyways.

Not sure why so many people are drooling over dual m2 in close quarters cramped by the DMI x4 interface shared with every other peripheral, better off getting a bigger m2 to begin with. Only X99 has enough lanes for unshared cpu links to multiple m2.
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A 2TB SSD costs 45% more than in m.2 format than in 2.5" format -- obviously a 960 Pro will be (much?) faster than a 950 EVO but still, to many people paying near $900 for the SSD is a big enough hit without paying $1300 for a 960 Pro when the gains in normal desktop usage are dubious.

To add insult to injury, the 1TB 2.5" 850 Evo is only $350. Going above that is very costly.
 
I like m2, but 1 slot which gives you 1TB of reasonably priced flash is realistically plenty for an itx build now. I get my 1TB 600p ssds at microcenter, $300 with a cpu if you're building, was $260 for the 2 weeks of "BF sales". They have 2TB pros in stock sometimes, someone always snaps them up lol. Since we aren't running database servers and who cares about benchmarks, literally the same experience. Throwing money at the gpu on the other hand definitely makes a difference.
 
Aluminum said:
I like m2, but 1 slot which gives you 1TB of reasonably priced flash is realistically plenty for an itx build now.
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I've got games installed now that are upwards of 60GB each (I'm not counting my minecraft map that is now 240GB, as that's beyond normal for most), 1TB certainly isn't enough for my needs highlighted by the fact I currently have a 500GB and a 1TB drive & I'm already uninstalling games I still play often, in order to make space for another.

You seem really set in your opinions, which is fine, but why are you holding onto benchmarks? It's already been pointed out to you that some of us are after two M.2 drives for aesthetic reasons.

Price could be a valid argument, if it really existed. In NZ a 1TB MX300 2.5" is only $9 cheaper than the MX300 M.2, since I won't need to bother with cable mods for an M.2 Card, it actually works out cheaper for me to get the M.2
 
Nice. I wonder if I can steal his cablemod coupn code? :D I would rather not wait for the cables until after the mobo is already in my hands.

Speaking of which they need to hurry up and release this thing already.
 
Question: The Asus 270 STRIX has 3 4 pin fan headers. The CPU fan's 4th pin is labeled PWM while the 4th pin on all the others is labeled +5v. Does this mean if you plug a 3 pin fan into one of the non Cpu fan headers you will only get 7v and no voltage regulation? Is the CPU fan header the only one that can do DC regulation of a 3 pin fan? (manual says it pushes full 12v, I assume if the 4th pin is just PWM that means a 3 pin fan will get full power on it). If anyone with a STRIX can shed any light on this, or anyone familiar with how Asus usually does it. I've been googling and it looks like they've been doing their fan headers like this for a while.
 
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