Best Mini Itx Motherboard for a SFF Powerhouse Build

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kill8r

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 27, 2014
Messages
172
Hi All,
Out of touch with latest and greatest tech but want to by a mini itx board and approval it to the best gaming cpu around along with a 3090.

Open to Intel or AMD. Anything sexy on the CPU front coming soon?

Is waiting for pcie4 and thunderbolt 4 important for future proofing? Rough release dates?

Advice is greatly appreciated.
 
Zen3 will be out before the end of the year... That's about it on new things. I guess Intel should have their next *lake out sometime early/mid next year and finally bring pcie 4.0 support. Not exactly sure on scheduling. As of now, if you only/mostly game, 10700k or 10900k are the go-to. If you do other things that are more threaded then AMD competes very well and often surpasses.. really depends on your workloads and intended use, as well as budget and any other concerns (like power/heat in a SFF would be a concern with a 10900k!!!)
 
Oh, and honestly you won't see a huge difference with pcie 4.0 in general. Not saying you can't, but if you have to ask you probably aren't using workloads that will see much real world benefit. If you let us know a bit more about intended use cases maybe we/I can narrow down some of these generalities for you.
 
If your budget isn't an issue, take a look at the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Impact. It's a mDTX board, which should fit in most enthusiast mITX cases and should fit in all mATX cases. If the case can fit a 2-3 slot wide video card, it should be able to fit a mDTX board.

It's a x570 chipset motherboard for AMD processors and will be compatible with the new Zen 3 CPUs when they come out. It has PCIE4 for the GPU and supports two PCIE4 M.2 SSDs. Unfortunately, it does not have Thunderbolt. But it has plenty of USB ports for its size. On the rear panel it has 6 USB 3.2 Gen2 ports (5 Type-A, 1 Type-C) and 2 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports. On top of that there is an additional USB 3.2 Gen 1 header on the board for 2 more ports, an additional USB 3.2 Gen2 header on the board for 1 more port, and a USB 2.0 header for 2 more ports.

If you are looking for an enthusiast board in a small package, this board is one of the best but a high premium. I am slowly working on a new build myself and I ordered this board for it. Until Zen 3 is released, it will make do with a Ryzen 9 3900XT. I will be ordering a RTX 3080 go along with it. The number USB ports was one of the big selling points for me since quite a few ITX based boards seem to come up short in this department. The other selling point was having 2 PCIE4 M.2 connections set out on a daughterboard with heatsinks to allow for better cooling and leaving more room on the board. Most compact boards will place the M.2 under the graphics card or on the back of the board, areas that can build up heat, leaving little to no room for any type of heatsink or airflow to keep them cool. It's power delivery setup is top notch for its size too, helpful in delivering clean power and aiding with overclocks if that is something you choose to do.
 
VirtualMirage said:
If your budget isn't an issue, take a look at the Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Impact. It's a mDTX board, which should fit in most enthusiast mITX cases and should fit in all mATX cases. If the case can fit a 2-3 slot wide video card, it should be able to fit a mDTX board.

It's a x570 chipset motherboard for AMD processors and will be compatible with the new Zen 3 CPUs when they come out. It has PCIE4 for the GPU and supports two PCIE4 M.2 SSDs. Unfortunately, it does not have Thunderbolt. But it has plenty of USB ports for its size. On the rear panel it has 6 USB 3.2 Gen2 ports (5 Type-A, 1 Type-C) and 2 USB 3.2 Gen1 ports. On top of that there is an additional USB 3.2 Gen 1 header on the board for 2 more ports, an additional USB 3.2 Gen2 header on the board for 1 more port, and a USB 2.0 header for 2 more ports.

If you are looking for an enthusiast board in a small package, this board is one of the best but a high premium. I am slowly working on a new build myself and I ordered this board for it. Until Zen 3 is released, it will make do with a Ryzen 9 3900XT. I will be ordering a RTX 3080 go along with it. The number USB ports was one of the big selling points for me since quite a few ITX based boards seem to come up short in this department. The other selling point was having 2 PCIE4 M.2 connections set out on a daughterboard with heatsinks to allow for better cooling and leaving more room on the board. Most compact boards will place the M.2 under the graphics card or on the back of the board, areas that can build up heat, leaving little to no room for any type of heatsink or airflow to keep them cool. It's power delivery setup is top notch for its size too, helpful in delivering clean power and aiding with overclocks if that is something you choose to do.
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Very helpful thanks
 
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