Thursday, October 14th 2021

Asus ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WiFi Leak Shows Off Stacked Board Design

by
TheLostSwede
 Discuss (41 Comments)
Over the past few generations of Mini-ITX boards we've seen Asus add more and more stacked layers and its upcoming ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WiFi seems to be taking this to the next level with what appears to be no less than three stacked layers on top of the main PCB. What can be seen from the side-shot of the boards is that there's at least one PCB for audio as well as what appears to be an ARGB and fan header, as well as what should be two layers for M.2 NVMe SSDs with associated heatsinks.

The rest of the pictures of the board have been put through some kind of filter which makes it hard to ascertain any details, although we can spot a USB type-C and USB 3.0 front panel connector. Asus has carried over the VRM heatsink from the Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi by the looks of things, although it seems like the extra NVMe slot has been implemented on the cost of two SATA ports. We'll have to wait until the official unveiling to find out the full details, which should be sometime next month.
Source: Videocardz

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41 Comments on Asus ROG Strix Z690-I Gaming WiFi Leak Shows Off Stacked Board Design

#27
MachineLearning
TheLostSwedeI guess you never saw my mates A500...
He ran a BBS on it...


Sadly the Taiwanese companies never listen to suggestions, as we're just stupid bignoses that knows nothing.
Is this really the attitude of most Taiwan-based companies? If so, that's disappointing. There is so much raw engineering talent at these companies that's (often) wasted by ignoring feedback, and also internal marketing dept. meddling. It's frustrating.
Posted on Reply
#28
InVasMani
ASUS could use this kind of stacking with it's Hyper M.2 card and make it a 2-slot Octa-NVME card. Could wire PCIE 4.0 NVME drives to the OCTA NVME PCIE 5.0 slot by stacking them. Leaves room for a PCIE 4.0 x12 slot and a PCIE 4.0 x4 slot. So a x4 4.0 for the OS 4.0 x12 for the GPU and a PCIE 5.0 x16 for a OCTA PCIE 4.0 x4 M.2 NVME RAID-0 / RAID-5 for SK Hynix Gold's of course cause efficient and so many NVME devices. Fortunately Alderlake little cores can micro manage access to them with all those janky cores even on a 2c 8c weakling. The PCIE 4.0 x4 from CPU happens to be perfect for the OS and Optane coincidentally. It's like Intel planned for Asus to do this all along even though it won't happen if the OCTA is possible with bifurcation lane splitting and stacking.
Posted on Reply
#29
Gmr_Chick
DeathtoGnomesWheres the Mayo on that sammich?

does it come in ATX flavor? :kookoo:
Great minds think alike! My first thought look at the board pics was "motherboard sammich!" :laugh:

Also, that thing, while inedible, is still thicker than any Subway sandwich could ever hope to be, LOL :D:roll:
Posted on Reply
#30
InVasMani
Long as everybody get sammich no body upset, but no body get sammich every body loses their minds! Asus make sammich everybody happy again.
Posted on Reply
#31
Nephilim666
The rest of the pictures of the board have been put through some kind of filter which makes it hard to ascertain any details
Ahh yes, the cheap crappy mobile phone filter
Posted on Reply
#32
asdkj1740
InVasManiLong as everybody get sammich no body upset, but no body get sammich every body loses their minds! Asus make sammich everybody happy again.
if it is free.
this one, $370 euro before tax.
Posted on Reply
#33
Valantar
Darmok N JaladSomewhat OT, but in regard to maximizing space, what would also be interesting is if they engineered an extension cable off the main board that housed all the common case connections (power, switches, audio, USB, LED etc), so that those connections could be made elsewhere inside the case and more easily hidden. It could even make board installations a snap, as you could have all your connections made before even installing the motherboard. SATA would probably need to stay on the board, but it could cut down on the clutter of all the other ones.
That would be very problematic in most small ITX cases, as you'd have nowhere to fit that rather huge bundle of cables and connectors. And connectors that aren't tied down to anything take up a surprising amount of space.


As for this board though ... am I the only one who can't see the third layer? The first m.2 slot is on the same board as the audio+fan/RGB headers. The second is above. Is there a third? If you count the m.2 drives then there are four, but those aren't part of the board. Still, nice to see smart compact solutions like this that don't require a gargantuan rear cutout or removing the motherboard to add/replace a drive. Definitely not suited for low profile SFF heatsinks though - either you'll have clearance issues or you'll have airflow issues in that tiny well where the CPU lives.
Nephilim666Ahh yes, the cheap crappy mobile phone filter
Yep, the "extreme noise reduction + excessive sharpening, with some weirdly wonky algorithms thrown in" filter. It's a classic!
Posted on Reply
#34
cst1992
Darmok N JaladA rather long time ago, I thought it would be a great idea to make PSUs with detachable cables. I won’t claim to be the inventor or even take the credit, but now that is a thing. You never know who’s listening, right? Maybe an ASUS marketer goes digging through these blurbs to see what resonates with potential customers.
I'd wager a guess that when you said that, the non-modular PSUs of the day didn't have that many cables coming out and sleeved cables weren't a thing.
Both of those things ask for reduction in cables coming from the power supply.
InVasMani4.0 x12 for the GPU
You don't get 12 lanes in a GPU - they aren't designed like that. Either you get 8 or 16.
Posted on Reply
#35
Darmok N Jalad
cst1992I'd wager a guess that when you said that, the non-modular PSUs of the day didn't have that many cables coming out and sleeved cables weren't a thing.
Both of those things ask for reduction in cables coming from the power supply.


You don't get 12 lanes in a GPU - they aren't designed like that. Either you get 8 or 16.
Yes, SATA, GPU, and CPU power cables weren’t even a thing yet. We just had an ugly mass of zip-tied multicolor wires to deal with. I remember folding IDE cables at 45 degree angles to make 90 degree turns as well.
Posted on Reply
#36
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
While I think this is an interesting design, I'm a little concerned about putting hardware like NVMe on it. When building a device like this, you're concentrating more heat producing chips in a smaller area and changes in temperature can impact thermal expansion and contraction. I wonder what the longevity of a device like this would be if subjected to a lot of heating/cooling cycles. It's a great idea, I'm just not sure if it's mature enough for me to want to jump on board (forgive the pun. :laugh: )
Posted on Reply
#37
Valantar
AquinusWhile I think this is an interesting design, I'm a little concerned about putting hardware like NVMe on it. When building a device like this, you're concentrating more heat producing chips in a smaller area and changes in temperature can impact thermal expansion and contraction. I wonder what the longevity of a device like this would be if subjected to a lot of heating/cooling cycles. It's a great idea, I'm just not sure if it's mature enough for me to want to jump on board (forgive the pun. :laugh: )
If anything, the increased thermal density should mean fewer heating/cooling cycles, no? The more heat generating components you stick in one place, the higher the chance of any one of them being active at any given time, raising the average temperature and thus disallowing them from cooling all the way down (while thermal throttling mechanisms will prevent them from overheating). So rather than your stand-alone SSD fluctuating from 35-65 (or more) degrees as loads vary, you might see 45-50 as a baseline instead. Whether the peaks will increase will depend on your drive and the comparsion scenario - many drives will steady-state at their throttling temp, after all.
Posted on Reply
#38
TheLostSwede
News Editor
MachineLearningIs this really the attitude of most Taiwan-based companies? If so, that's disappointing. There is so much raw engineering talent at these companies that's (often) wasted by ignoring feedback, and also internal marketing dept. meddling. It's frustrating.
Unfortunately I would say yes, largely. I have given a lot of suggestions over the years that were ignored, until one of their competitors did it...
A lot of the time you get "thank you for your suggestion" reply, but you know they have no intention of considering it.
When you work the industry, you see a lot of things and you get a lot of ideas and you hope that someone maybe, one day, would think it was a good idea, but alas...
So far I have only ever had one idea implemented and that was well over a decade ago by CM when they added one vertical slot of expansion brackets to their cases, something Fractal-Design later copied. Now you have it everywhere because of vertically mounted graphics cards.
It's far more common to see companies remove features to meet a price point, than to add features and do upsells.
Posted on Reply
#39
cst1992
I'd say that's because most people are looking for "budget" options, especially in the Asian countries(excluding super-rich ones such as Japan).
Posted on Reply
#40
Blueberries
Would be nice if Wizzard could review this and take pictures of all the boards for us
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